Reference
AU10/102/1/176
Title
Typewritten letter
Date free text
3 December 1968
Production date
From: 1968 To: 1968
Scope and Content
"Many thanks for your two letters - also the magazine which arrived this morning. I have had a busy time recently with visitors both from parts of England and also abroad. Mrs.Stavert was the last - she was here two weeks - and she went last Friday. Now I seem to have a clear Visitors' Book until December 17th. when Jeffrey Todd - the American boy at Fettes College, Edinburgh - arrives for two nights when Fettes breaks up. He leaves London by 'plane for Los Angeles on the 19th. I am going up to London on Friday for the annual dinner of the New College Society (old members) at the Savoy, and I shall spend the weekend with my old friend Gordon Campbell and his wife in Surrey. He is my only surviving friend from my RAF days in World War One: unless one counts my old friend Ida Huckings in Oxford, who still seems to be going strong at 78. I think I told you she has a serious operation three years ago. I imagine it was cancer of the throat, though she did not say so. But she seems to have recovered.
I have decided to postpone my visit to Peru and Chile until next winter. My relations are anxious for me to spend my 70th birthday in February here in England. They want me to go up to Yorkshire for it, and dear Anne wants to throw a big party in my honour. The Norburys will go up from Winchester. How nice it is to be made such a fuss of in one's old age! But I shall probably get a bit of winter sunshine, since a friend of mine who recently retired to Malta has invited me to go and stay with him. I have also had an invitation from Mrs.Grant (who was up at Hoscote for a few days in the summer) to go to Malaga in Spain. In any case, I must have the bathroom here re-decorated, and it will probably be a big job, as the walls are in a bad condition through condensation, and they will probably have to be re-plastered. If so, the drying-out will take some time before paper can be applied. And I must be here when all this is going on, or one never knows what they will get up to. Well ... it will be the first winter I have spent in England for many years. I have promised to go to the Norburys at Winchester for Christmas.
Next Sunday - December 8th - I shall have been here 14 years! That was the length of my time in Ampthill. The years have simply rushed past. I begin to notice the deaths of people I have known in the past in the columns of The Telegraph. One recently was Harold Beardmore, Bishop of St.Helena. Yes, I saw the notices of the deaths of Mrs.Dopping-Hepenstal and Dorothy Ambler in The Telegraph. It reminded me of Mrs.Farrington-Downes, who was a great friend on mine, who died in 1947, the year I left A. Dorothy Ambler worshipped her. I wonder who will now occupy her houses.
Do you remember my telling you about the Japanese boy - Satsuki Eda - who shared my cabin on the JESENICE returning from Japan to Jugoslavia some years ago? We have kept in touch ever since. He married last year, and now has a baby girl. He is coming to England next year to study law at an English University, bringing wife and child with him. He hopes it will be Oxford, of course. His father is sort of deputy Prime Minister in Japan, so he will have plenty of influence in the Embassy. He says he is looking forward to seeing the Castle and hearing me play Chopin (I shall have to get into practice!). Anyway, I have told him to come here on arrival in England. Can you see me nursing a little Japanese baby?? As I am hoping to go to the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth with an English and an American friend, I have told him he can have my flat while I am away. As the University term does not begin until October, I expect they will be glad of this. And Mrs.Stavert says she would love to have them up at Hoscote ... I think the Japanese baby is the attraction! He is due to arrive in July, when I shall probably have my French boys here. I shall, of course, be going to Normandy in the spring.
RECIPES? I was amused by your request, as I am no cook. I can do an omelet, and make a salad; but the rest of my cooking is what everyone knows: i.e. I know how to roast a chicken, and grill a steak. I can keep the wolf from the door, so to speak. But I do not like cooking. I always rely on giving my guests so much wine that they do not care about the food. My Mrs.MacLeod will come in and do something special if I ask her: otherwise I find it convenient to take my guests over to the Castle Keep Hotel! When I am alone, I manage on cheese and fruit and salads mainly. The less time I spend in the kitchen and the better. However, I enclose a recipe I picked up somewhere which I do do occasionally. It is popular with people who normally prefer a savoury to a sweet.
Thank you for all the bits and pieces about people in Ampthill. Of course, I don't know a lot of them, after all this time. But it is interesting. As I told you before, if I live to be 80, I shall come and stay in the White Hart and hold court. I do not see any possibility of coming sooner, now there is no station at Ampthill, and I have no car. And in any case, I seem to have too many other engagements. But it is an event ... or a happening as they would say nowadays ... to look forward to.
My best wishes to Andrew and your family.
Yours sincerely,"
operas
Level of description
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