Bedfordshire Archives Service Catalogue
  • Reference
    AU34/21/7/16/32
  • Title
    Letter from R P S Waddy
  • Date free text
    11 November 1987
  • Production date
    From: 1987 To: 1987
  • Scope and Content
    A handwritten letter from R P S Waddy (former Rector of St Andrew's, Ampthill) to Honora Grimmer, with a printed eulogy for Margaret Waddy, his deceased wife: "MARGARET WADDY Among the Horizon words in the New Testament - that is my name for them, as each time we come across them they unfold new vistas and deeper meanings - is HYPOMENE. One of the noblest of Saint Paul's words, it is usually translated Patience or Endurance: but often it is linked with Joy and Hope, as well as with Pain and Hardship. But especially it is a growing, creative word. It does not suggest resignation, just putting up with things: but accepting and overcoming them, as every dark night is defeated by the coming of dawn. Among the Greeks it was regarded as a manly virtue - a masculine constancy under trial. But Saint John Chrystostom, who knew all about hardship, called it the Queen of Virtues, and it was indeed that to Margaret, who lived with pain for 35 years. It was used too by botanists to describe the ability of a plant to survive under hard and unfavourable circumstances; clinging perhaps to a cliffside, but still flowering. Did Lord Tennyson know that? Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies; Hold you here, root and all, and all in all, Little flower - but if I could understand What you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is. That is what Margaret now knows." "Thank you for a lovely letter - the only sad thing is that Margaret is not here to share the so many. Otherwise we can only be glad: we coped together until the last six weeks, and found a Home so kindly and gentle that it was indeed one more home, after the many that Margaret made for me. She was herself to the end; sure that we were going on a journey, and was I ready for it? She was - 'All ready: the good fight fought, the course finished, the faith kept.' 40 years since I was rectored - I've written a screed for the news-shelf. Pat Stacy Waddy"
  • Level of description
    item
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