Bedfordshire Archives Service Catalogue
  • Reference
    AU34/21/7/16/39
  • Title
    Letter from R P S Waddy
  • Date free text
    6 December 1989
  • Production date
    From: 1989 To: 1989
  • Scope and Content
    A typewritten letter from R P S Waddy (former Rector of St Andrew's, Ampthill) to Honora Grimmer, on headed paper from his home at Manormead, Hindhead, Surrey, plus the text of a sermon he's written: "Dear Nora, You shall have a copy of my First Epistle to the Outside World; I do not mean to make a habit of it. But it brings my Christmas love and greetings. I hope to be in Dorset with Stacy (Judy to you) Marking where they have moved into their new home, and acquired 18 Exmoor sheep and a Suffolk ram to keep the grass down. She is still teaching future directors the secrets of the television world, doing her best to improve the standards; meanwhile I am to be rewarded with a more comfortable chair in which to slumber while I watch the present programmes. (We went over to Bryanston to watch Havana act in a school play, by a Czech dissident, now one of the leaders of the revolt; it was called Largo Desolato, and that about sums it up; but she was competent and lovely. But it was followed by an American 'comedy' so appalling as to be unwatchable; and the seats were too small, and the knee-room inconspicuous by its absence - indeed a memorable day! There is a little church in the family manor, and I hope to preside over a carol service there on Christmas Eve, and then to celebrate in one of my old churches on Christmas morning - which will be a joy. Then I go on to Christopher in Kent to enjoy his three - after which I shall come back here and hibernate happily. We have just enjoyed a concert by a quartet from the Royal School of Music - Haydn, Beethoven and Mozart, and all four in their early twenties; a real joy, and it makes me feel younger already - in spite of a cough and cold and snuffle - but not yet flu, thank goodness. I hope you don't get it - 70 years ago the Spanish flu was raging as we left Australia, and if we survived that we should manage to survive a mere English variety! But I don't want to try. All good wishes for Christmas and 1990. Yours affectionately, Pat Stacy Waddy" "Welcome to Manormead, home of some 85 assorted clergy and their relicts: and a Happy Christmas to you all. I came here in January, after my glorious Diamond Jubilee celebrations at Beaminster on the Feast of the Epiphany; when the sun shone, the bells pealed, the Bishop of Salisbury came to preach, and the church was decorated with sparkling grafitti from my past sermons. Here I have a delightful flat, dutifully facing west over a wide garden and splendid trees towards the sunset. There is a chapel which I love, and our goodly company of ageing hims and hers provide a stimulating variety of ripening saints, a Dad's Army happy to make allowances for each other's quirks. The Bible has but one book of reflections by a retired clergyman. Ecclesiastes would be at home among us; we would make fun of his cynicism and mock his aphorisms, for we rejoice in variety and rub off the sharp edges of former prejudices. Vanity of Vanities, he cried; well, none of us look forward to moving westward from Us to Them in the nursing home, though they are most lovingly cared for into their nineties, while we still clamber up the eighties. Regretfully, the New English Bible changed Vanity into Emptiness, its latest version went one worse with Futility; we would repudiate both words, and prefer old versions and the Book of Common Prayer. Ecclesiastes had regrets about the past and was gloomy about the future; we too are critical of bishops and synods, and what our successors get up to. But time does not drag, nearly as much as I once feared, though energy wilts and all the symptoms of his famous last chapter are rampant. Others will not speak up clearly enough for us to hear; the grinders champ less hungrily on baked beans and Edwina eggs. And the music of our TV sets is toned down, lest the silver cord of patience be loosed, or the golden bowl of privacy be broken. But - Vanity of the Vanities?, not a bit of it. I rejoice to be allowed another year of driving my car, to Kent and Dorset, and to the local library and parish church. We are a busy hive. The more flexible tend their own garden beds, and all of us feed potplants with magic drops and variable success. I have been given charge of the library, and have enjoyed giving it new life. Later it also fell to me to arrange the chapel services, a complicated form of scrabble which makes me feel important. But the enjoyment of my family's activities provides the jam on this bread and butter existence. I share in that by proxy, and rejoice to stay put. Vanity of Vanities?, no, Oh no! Osbert Sitwell, ordered by his colonel to grow a moustache, replied 'What colour, sir?' Age does colour life, but we still choose the colour."
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