Scope and Content
"You say "the last of your postcards, from Gubbio" but I think by now you will have received the one from Pisa.
And now, after many months absence, I am back in my home again. My tenants, who have had possession for some time, are in America, and do not return until after Christmas, so I am able to spread myself in my own orbit without encroaching on Sydney Crouch. As you surmised, there is a vast heap of correspondence awaiting my attention, including your two letters. I do not write letters when I am abroad, or at any rate very few. For one thing, I do not take a heavy typewriter with me. I have a bag in each hand, and that is enough. And I really cannot cope with my correspondence without a typewriter. So my friends have to be content with postcards, and I send them off in dozens at a time!
People sometimes aks me if I do not get tired of roaming about the world so much. Quite the contrary! I am now on the way to being 68. So far, i have been blessed with wonderful health and vitality. I can walk for miles without feeling tired, run up steps, and lead as active a life as I did 20 years ago. But one never knows. This fortunate state of health may not last indefinitely. Then I should have to settle down and stay put. But while I can keep on the move, I think it is good for me, and I have so many friends scattered all over the world, it is a great joy to see them. Moreover, I avoid the English winter and get into the sun, with the result that I have not had a cold for years. My relations in France are always urging me to go and live over there but I must keep one foot on the white cliffs of Dover. I feel that if I broke all connection with England, I should regret it.
And this flat is an ideal pied-a-terre. I can shut it up and leave it knowing all will be well. No thieves or robbers - too many people always around. And the Porter comes in regularly to inspect to see no damp is coming through, and if there was, he would deal with it. Of course, when my tenants are in, there is no worry at all. And I have no expenses going on, as their rent covers the rates and the Castle Residents' Fund into which we all pay.
I have had a wonderful summer in Italy and France. Italy is a treasurehouse of art - quite inexhaustible. I love pictures and cathedrals and old walled towns, and I am fortunate to have many friends in Italy, and my relations in France. When I travelled to America on the Italian VOLTA two years ago, I studied Italian with the Captain every morning in his cabin. He learnt English from me, so it was a mutual arrangement. And so I gained quite a working knowledge of Italian, which has become more fluent this year. French I have always been able to speak since I was a child. So you can understand I feel quite at home on the Continent.
I was very glad to have all your news. Ampthill seems to be growing apace. I found letters from Valder and Perton here, I usually send them a postcard from abroad. Valder used to send me the Magazine, but I told him not to about two years ago, as they used to pile up here, and I felt too that they could ill afford the postage. But I would be glad to have this year's magazines, as you so kindly suggest. Yes, remove the SIGNS. Perton used to send the "Ampthill News" every week , and I used to send him £1. a year to cover postage; but, again, there was such a mass of them on my sofa when I came back, that I really could not get through them. So I told him to stop sending them. His letters are most quaint and amusing. He has been referring to Mrs.P. as a "poor thing" for years, but she seems to survive!
I must congratulate Andrew on his book on Richard Nicholls, which I was delighted to receive. I once had the idea of writing a really big book about him. But I doubt if much information is available. Perhaps the British Museum Library would produce something; or one might find something in New York. What a pity there does not seem to be any portrait of him!
I am intrigued about the Nicolls descendant who wrote to Andrew from Gibraltar. Can it possibly be the same man as the one who called on me just before D-Day? What is the name of the Gibraltar man? I have just looked in my Visitors' Book, and turned up 1944, and I see the man who called on me was called Allison Kent Thomas, and he came from Lansing, Michigan. We exchanged one or two letters on this return to USA after the war. He became a lawyer, and married. When I read about Andrew's book in the "Telegraph" (I got it every day in Italy a day late), I immediately thought of him and that I would send him a copy. If Andrew's correspondent is the same man, what on earth is he doing in Gibraltar? Or can there be two Nicholls claimants? The odd thing is that noe of the Nicolls brothers married; so how can there be descendants, unless they have come down the female line. Miss Nicolls apparently married.
Your cutting relating to the unfortunate Peter Hillam who died in the motor smash was most interesting to me. So far as I know, I have no Hillam realtions in England. (There are some in America). My father was an only child, and my only brother was killed in the First World War. He was a midshipman on the "Cressy" which wa sunk in 1914, at the beginning of the war.
But it so happens that nearly three years ago, on the DRESNICE from Yugoslavia, when we were in harbour at Buenos Aires, the young Captain of a British merchant ship came aboard, and when I was introduced to him, he said "Hillam? We have a Cadet on board my ship called Peter Hillam!" And I remember distinctly that he came from Kent!! As we were due to sail any time, I had no opportunity to follow it up and go round and meet my namesake. But as the young man killed in the accident was 20, three years ago he would be the right age for a cadet. It must be the same! Isn't it extraordinary?
And I was most interested in the picture of the wedding of Patricia Wingfield. I remember her of course as a schoolgirl. You know of course that her brother Gervase who went into the Navy, died in April 1964 after an illness borne with great courage (I quote the D.T. announcement ... but i expect you saw it). He was 32 and retired apparently from the Navy. He left three children, Andrew, Nicola and Philippa. Sir Anthony would have been glad to know that there was a great-grandson to carry on the name. I must ask my Russian friend in Paris if he knows Prince Dmitri Galitzine. My friend is one of the Vinogradoffs - an aristocratic family of the old Russian regime. His family escaped to Paris at the Revolution in 1918, along with a lot of others, and there is quite a colony of them in Paris. I have met quite a number of them (including the man who killed Rasputin!!).
Piano? Yes, I have played quite a few pianos in the villas of my friends in Italy, and the houses of my relations in France. I love staying with my cousins at Menton, but even more with the cousins at S.Andre-sur-l'Orne in Normandy. Their lovely 13th century farmhouse (once a monastery) was right in the path of the D-Day landing, and fierce fighting took place in the village, and the house was practically destroyed. However, they got compensation after the war, and rebuilt it on the old plan, and the village looks very much as it looked when I went in the 20's, apart from the petrol pumps and garages. Well, these cousins are very musical, and have a beautiful Steinway, which I play by the hour. Oh yes, I remember those recitals at Ampthill. I still have the programme, and every time I see it I wonder at my amazing temerity in tackling from memory a programme of Chopin that even a celebrated virtuoso pianist would hesitate to play at one go! Ten items, including four of the Etudes!! I was certainly not lacking in confidence; but how on earth did I get through it? Ah well, it was over twenty years ago.
My future arrangements. I leave England again for Amsterdam early in December to join a Dutch ship. I am repeating last winter's voyage. The Shipping Company assure me that I can play the fare in sterling to the London agents. This covers first class fare to Amsterdam and the round voyage. On reaching South Africa, which is a sterling area, I can change as much money as I like, by taking travellers' cheques payable only in a sterling area. So I shall get enough money to pay for extras on the ship and ashore. When we reach Genoa in the spring, I shall go to Menton and my rich cousins will have to do something for me. In fact, they told me they would fix it. My Italian friends also told me not to worry.
Meanwhile, I have promised to visit my young relations at Winchester (the titled ones), and I am going up to Hoscote for a few days, and then down to Yorkshire. I shall also have a week in London at my club to look up friends I have not seen for so long. By that time it will be a case of getting the two bags out again, and packing for warmer climes. Then we shall be back to postcards again!
I do hope I don't send duplicates of those I sent you on the last voyage!
Yours sincerely,"