Reference
AU10/102/3/3
Title
Typewritten Letter
Date free text
20 December 1951
Production date
From: 1951 To: 1951
Scope and Content
"My dear Eva,
Thank you for your letter and nice Christmas card. I am glad to say I am quite better now, and getting about as usual. I must have missed your letter and the cake you sent in June, but this year has been ssuch a crowded time for me that I have hardly had time to think. I had to go up to Yorkshire in June to sell up my father's house and estate (he died a week before Miss Di, in May) and that took me several weeks. Then later in the summer I went to America on the Queen Mary to pay another visit to my cousins in California, the second visit since I left Ampthill. While I was out there, I began to have trouble with my inside. I consulted a doctor in Los Angeles, and he said he did not think it could be anything very serious as my general state of health was so good. But he wanted me to go into hospital for observation and blood tests. I thought that if anything was wrong with me, and I was in for a big illness, I had better get back to England, as I knew Miss Florence would be in a fearful twitter if she though I was in hospital in America, so I flew all the way home early in September, and went to see a Harley Street specialist. He soon diagnosed the trouble, and I went into a Richmond nursing home in October and had an operation. I should have been coming back to England for Christmas in any case: so it simply meant that my visit to USA had to be shortened.
Miss Florence is in fairly good health physically, but her mind is getting more and more clouded as time goes on. The doctor says it is a case of senile decay. With most old people, it is their bodily health that fails: in some cases, it is the mind that goes. And Miss Florence seems to be one of the latter. She has been going off like this for some years now. It began with a loss of memory. Now she has got to the stage when the past and the present seem to be mixed up in her mind, and she cannot distinguish between who is living and who is dead. She still talks of Miss Di (and even her sister Alice who died 50 years ago) as if they were still alive. Of course, she is 85 now. Her eyes trouble her a great deal, and she is quite unable to write a letter, or read much. But she finds great comfort in the Siamese cat I bought her three years ago, and he is her constant companion. She could not possibly be left alone now, and we are fortunate in having good friends who can look after her when I am away. Nowadays, with travel so quick and easy in the air, it is possible for me to get here very quickly if anything serious happens.
We have two children staying with us over Christmas, my godson, a young Eton boy of 14, and his sister, who is at school at Arundel. Their parents are in India, and the children usually fly out there in the summer for their holidays. They will be going up to Scotland immediately after Christmas till the end of their Christmas holidays. So we find we have a quite lively house, and that is a good thing, as it has been a very sad year for us with the loss of Miss Di and my father.
We do not hear very much of Ampthill now. What great changes there have been since we left in 1947! So many people we knew have died.
I do hope you are keeping well. I am helping the Vicar of Richmond with the Christmas services, and also the Chaplain at the Hickey Chapel where we go to Mass on weekdays.
With all good wishes for a happy Christmas.
Yours sincerely,
John Hillam"
Format
letter headed paper
Level of description
item