Bedfordshire Archives Service Catalogue
  • Reference
    AU34/21/7/16/25
  • Title
    Letter from R P S Waddy
  • Date free text
    27 July 1983
  • Production date
    From: 1983 To: 1983
  • 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 Maiden Newton, Dorchester, Dorset: "My dear Nora, You will have heard, I expect, that we passed through Ampthill last week, without coming to see you. It was something of an accident: we were driving back to Dorset from Norfolk, and saw that on our way to Thame (for the night) we could go from Baldock to Shefford, and then on from Ampthill to Woburn. We were not prepared for the growth of Maulden: but there was the hill down and the hill up and the tower of St. Andrew's. Within a minute of dropping Margaret at the gate, Elsie Nottingham had seen me: and we amassed some of the news from her after a tour of the church - lovelier than ever, and still so delightfully light and white. But we had to get on, after a snack at the White Hart (where we stayed for 3 months when first we arrived in 1947) - and we survived the maelstrom fo the Market Place safely. I did not expect evre again to drive as far as Norfolk, because my eyes are not on speaking terms with one another and after 3 1/2 months all the efforts of Acas, in the person of our Dorset specialist, have not persuaded them to work together. But I am allowed to drive, with a pirate patch over one eye, so that I only see one set of cats-eyes instead of two. And I was invited to go back to All Hallows School, Ditchingham to Speech Day and the swansong of my headmistress. It was a great success: we made a fortnight's holiday out of it. Three days on the way and two more back: and we had so warm a welcome (warm indeed!) that we could not have bettered. We really felt that East Anglia had missed us! I preached at the School Leavers' Eucharist, and the prizegiving was in the open air, in the sun, temp 90 degrees or so. An hour of the school report - very well done, but - half an hour of presentations: and after 90 minutes "Father Waddy will give us his address". I was sorely tempted to do just that: but having told them that it would be kindest to omit my first ten minutes, I boiled my 'message' down to seven or so - and then the proposer of the vote of thanks spent 10 minutes doing it! But he was a parson, and you know what the clergy are. The surprise of all this was that Margaret and I both survived, without even a headache - and there were lots of parents afterwards whom I had known. The Upper VI were those I had known best in Upper IV 4 1/2 years ago - I learnt Cooking with them and they learnt the Acts from me - and they had grown into such swans as I always saw them! So that was and odyssey indeed - but never again! Back in Dorset, we continue to grow older and Margaret's knees are painfully arthritic. Our young rector has just left, but Maiden Newton regards me as too ancient a mariner this time: so I shall continue to belong to the Beaminster team; sorry in a way because I don't get to know our neighbours, but I shall be 80 next year: so will Margaret: and our golden wedding looms on April 4. The family has Plans - so I hope we shall survive. Havana has taken her parents to the south of France, which makes life duller at the moment. Our three Waddy grandchildren all have chicken pox, in Kent - which means that they have only mumps left, and they are still all in single figures. Judy - Stacy Marking - is pleased with her Channel 4 programme, History Today (sorry Today's History - the other title was regarded as an advertisement for her monthly magazine) and she has lured AJP Taylor into doing more mono/dia/logues. And Christopher is back in the City and busy. So there - did you ever hear the Bishop of Norwich's story of visiting a country church and being disappointed at the congregation. "Did you tell them I was coming?" "No" said the Rector "and I can't imagine who did." Yours affectionately, Pat Stacy Waddy
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