Bedfordshire Archives Service Catalogue
  • Reference
    AU34/21/7/16/15
  • Title
    Letter from R P S Waddy
  • Date free text
    13 December 1975
  • Production date
    From: 1975 To: 1975
  • Scope and Content
    A handwritten letter from R P S Waddy (former Rector of St Andrew's, Ampthill) on headed paper from St. Fursey, in Ditchingham, Bungay to Honora Grimmer: "Dear Nora, Thank you once again for keeping us au fait with Ampthill's goings on. We were especially interested in the plans for an extension of the church - I guess, by the vestry. I still think that our great mistake was to put in electricity, when the old gas lights kept the church so warm! But few 'reforms' are all-round improvements, and I never foresaw that. I remember Miss Preston as one of the many who lent chairs for the old parish room - a wonderful selection we had for our first Lent School of Prayer. (I have just been invited to do another and will look up my 1948 notebooks: after all, prayer doesn't go out of date, and I love my old sermons!) Miss Preston also put up one of the Cambridge undergraduates who came for a fortnight over Easter 1952, a memorable time for us - I wonder what they are all doing now. Bishop Edward Knapp-Fisher has come back from Pretoria to Westminster Abbey. We still enjoy the quiet and energetic life of East Anglia - I am still allowed to teach two forms at school (where an Ann Grimmer acted with great spirit in Christopher Fry's 'The Lady's Not For Burning' last night. She was going to leave, but did so well in O'levels that the school snatched her back.) Our two grandaughters flourish: Havana Marking, coming up to 4, is in Seattle for a year and enjoying her first school - her father is teaching, and studying architecture at the University of Washington, Wa (not D.C.) and Judy is doing all sorts of odd jobs as well as being Guardian correspondent in those parts - and when Judy goes, things happen! Drusilla Waddy, just 2, is learning to read; full of friendliness and intelligence - we shall be sharing Christmas with her across the Waveney in Suffolk, and we are sometimes allowed to baby-sit, which makes us feel proud and responsible. So life is good, albeit jolly cold just now. But last summer was worth staying alive for. All good wishes from us both, and many happy memories. Yours affectionately, Pat Stacy Waddy"
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