Bedfordshire Archives Service Catalogue
  • Reference
    AU34/21/7/16/21
  • Title
    Letter from R P S Waddy
  • Date free text
    10 December 1979
  • Production date
    From: 1979 To: 1979
  • Scope and Content
    A handwritten letter from R P S Waddy (former Rector of St Andrew's, Ampthill) to Honora Grimmer, on headed paper from his new address in Maiden Newton, Dorchester, Dorset: "Dear Nora, Thank you again for the Ampthill monthly mail, and for your letter. I am sure that the time has come to say No to another year's postage. It has been very good of you to go on sending it, and I did suggest that it was a burden. So - thank you again: and No More Copies. I thought the final insult to Rowland Hill and his Penny Post was to produce all those expensive stamps in his honour last summer! I am glad that you have achieved the Move Back into Ampthill and what I hope is your last home - at least, that is how I think of this one. It was time to move from Ditchingham: I was fortunate to go on teaching so long, but at the last, like Ecclesiastes and the grasshopper, it became a burden - I never expected to grow tired of girls. My golden jubilee at the Epiphany was a good last fling, which not even snowstorms could spoil. We do miss the glorious sung Eucharist,: my chief objection to Series 3 is that it scuppers so much of the musical setting (and even the George Goodes can't really do better!) Here I have been fortunate to be a honorary curate of the Beaminster group of 12 churches, and that means an altar three Sundays out of four, to my delight. These are all Series 3 in village churches which could only sing hymns anyway, and that is all right: Havana likes it because she can join in it all. But when we get the new prayerbook with all its variety and alternatives, we shall have worship a la carte, as the Church Times put it, instead of the One Main Dish that we were brought up on. Well, I can enjoy them all, and I still love preaching. Our two-up two-down cottage is now a happy home: Margaret has got it straight, and the pinewood round the Aga in the kitchen is very pretty. We had been told to get rid of half our worldly goods, and soon discovered it should have been three-quarters. But 1500 books survived, and there are plenty of cupboards and radiators - and a telephone, though it took more than six months to materialise. The cottages next door are now being revitalised for Judy and her family - Havana, now 7 1/2, brings them down about two weekends a month, and they will be here for Christmas. Havana is now at St Clement Danes school (in the Strand) near their Covent Garden flat, and soaking up her lessons - as red-headed and lively as ever. Judy (now Stacy, Marking) is a senior lecturer at Goldsmith's College, on Communication which means filming and TV - Giles is a successful busy architect. They went off to Mexico in July, both to lecture in the University there - by plane to Florida and the by car through the southern States and back by Yucatan: so Havana add to her already world-wide travels. Christopher and his family were in Italy in May - he is with an Italian bank in Nassau - and we had our first ever Italian holiday: a week with them above Lake Como in the azalea season and then a week in Florence. It was a real joy, and Margaret is already softening me up to do it again. We do find, at 75, that energy is in limited supply: and Margaret has a lot of arthritis, but she remains undefeated, and sends greetings and good wishes for 1980. May it be an 'acceptable' year for you, as well as a leap ditto: I thought of that: from S.Luke 4:19 for last Sunday's sermon - it was the Series 3 Gospel: and I like it! Yours affectionately, Pat Stacy Waddy"
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