Bedfordshire Archives Service Catalogue
  • Reference
    AU34/21/7/16/12
  • Title
    Letter from R P S Waddy
  • Date free text
    10 December 1972
  • Production date
    From: 1972 To: 1972
  • Scope and Content
    A handwritten letter from R P S Waddy (former Rector of St Andrew's, Ampthill) on headed paper from All Hallows convent, St. Fursey, in Ditchingham, Bungay (where he has is chaplain and teacher), to Honora Grimmer: "My dear Nora, Advent is for Christmas letters, so may we send our greetings and best wishes for 1973. It is odd to reflect that 25 years ago we were in the White Hart for Christmas, while the Rectory was being decorated. (50 years ago I had my only Christmas in Bethlehem.) And yet, after less than four months, we feel that we have been here for ages. Life is very happy - a nice warm house of the right size; enough teaching to keep me out of mischief (two forms and 50 girls to know); a dozen teenagers on probation who are a trial to the patience, but who do respond and get themselves re-orientated. The nuns are very much characters in their own right, but a happy community: and the chapel services are really lovely. So life is good indeed, and Margaret is enjoying it too - all the more so as Christopher and his young wife live only 4 miles away. (Judy and her husband are in New York for Christmas, with Havana, aged 9 months: she will be a much travelled young lady.) We do continue to enjoy the magazine. Did Andrew even get a copy of Charles Cooper's autobiography, on being Sir Anthony's butler? He lent me a copy to read, and I enjoyed it, but it was out of print by then: it ought to be part of Ampthill's past. One story lingers from the day of my institution as rector - a nasty foggy night, and the Ampthill News photographed me in the church beforehand, looking like a surprised flying-fox. Philip Loyd had the first of his heart attacks, which in the end killed him, during the service but no one knew; then we groped our way to the old Conservative hall, which was so packed that there was no air to breathe, and I lost my voice. But afterwards, when we were back in the White Hart, a man arrived from the Wingfield Club - would the new rector come and visit them? I couldn't say No, was led down Church Street and into the bar, when my captor announced 'Gentlemen, I've won my bet!' I was the bet! (But I've no idea now who it was.) Eheu fugaces. Yours sincerely, Pat Stacy Waddy p.s. One of my pupils, a 13 year old in Ann Grimmer, but I haven't yet met her parents. She's rather bright! East Anglian children spell abominably - or (as you might say) couldn't even spell abominably!"
  • Level of description
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