Reference
AU10/102/4/10
Title
Handwritten Letter
Date free text
28 January 1954
Production date
From: 1954 To: 1954
Scope and Content
Letter heading: "113 Queens Road, Richmond, Surrey".
"Dear Miss Ira-Smith,
This is to wish you Many Happy Returns of the Day! I do hope you are not feeling this bitter cold too much. I expect you have to be out of doors a great deal doing your jobs, and you must be thankful when everything is over for the day and you can sit cosily by the fire. We have had no snow yet: but the day is very overcast: we look like having it soon.
I am having one of the saddest weeks of my life. Florence was taken away last Monday night after dinner to Roehampton Priory, where you may remember I was Chaplain for a time a year or two ago. It was carefully planned to remove her without causing her any distress. The doctor came to dinner (I had another doctor friend here also who stayed the night) and put a sleeping draught in her coffee. Half an hour later she went off, fast asleep, in the ambulance. They were awaiting her at the Priory, and put her to bed straight away. It is a lovely place, only a few minutes from here, a mansion standing in its own park, adjoining Richmond Park. It is one of the best nursing homes in London, with its own Chapel and Chaplain, as as both the resident doctors and their wives came to dinner here several times before Diana died, Florence will be with friends. So we shall have no worry about her. Poor soul, she has become very senile, and her condition has deteriorated very much during the past year. It is sad that she could not end her days here in her own home: but her condition had become so serious that she needs constant trained nursing attention such as only a nursing home can give. I do not know what will happen here. As Florence is much too senile to sign a Power of Attorney, all her financial affairs will have to go before a Court of Chancery. They will probably say the house must be sold, as there is no possibility of her returning here. It will take some months to settle the question. Meanwhile I am staying on here, and shall not be going abroad until May. The house seems strangely empty without Florence, though any kind of conversation with her has been impossible for some time now. She talked a great deal but it was all sheer nonsense. How sad it is when the mind gives way before the body! Far better to be an invalid with a physical infirmity, so long as it is not a painful one!
I hope both you and your mother are keeping well.
My love to you both.
Yours sincerely,
John Hillam"
Format
letter headed paper
Level of description
item