AU34/21/7/16/42

Letter from R P S Waddy

3 September 1990

From: 1990 To: 1990

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,: "Dear Nora, I have another copy of Church & Town to say thank you for; lively as ever - more than £3000 for Christian Aid is wonderful, and music festivals (with John & Vic Gillett still in the thick of them.) And I see that Peter Chapman's mother has died; I have vivid memories of her, especially producing one of our plays in church, and telling me a story of Peter's schooldays which I have used in sermons ever since! (She said it was true, that at school he set out to make her a wardrobe, and ended by handing her a clothes-peg, all that was left of the wood he'd started with.) Life continues placidly here, and I have had much enjoyment from the shade of our only surviving chestnut tree - successive gales have destroyed two others. News of my grandchildren's activities keep me amused; Havana has been wandering all over Europe with one of those universal railway passes, including a stay at the Vatican - it is important to have friends in high places - and her own house party, in a house belonging to the family near Cannes, for FIFTEEN of her schoolfriends. Drusilla, my Waddy granddaughter, has been content with a trip up the Thames, with a friend in a small boat, exploring the old stories of Three Men In A Boat. Her brothers have been cricketing all over Kent and now Daniel goes on to Charterhouse for his first term there. So they go on growing up. I did have one jaunt, to take a wedding over the Somerset border, near enough to Stacy's manor house for me to stay there. The bride was a pupil of mine in Norfolk, it was about the hottest day of summer, and half the guests drove down from London and found a convenient hedge behind which to don their glad rags. I borrowed a lovely gold cope and produced a notable address, and great fun it was. But I'm afraid that is really the last! Only our own wedding was hotter - April in India 108 degrees by 10 o'clock (but we were married at 8!) Yours affectionately, Pat Stacy Waddy"

item

Grimmer, Honora Patricia Annie,
Waddy, Richard Patteson Stacy,
Gillett, John,
Gillett, Victor,
Chapman,
Chapman, Peter,
Marking, Havana,
Waddy, Drusilla,
Waddy, Jocelyn,
Waddy, Daniel,
Marking, Stacy,
Christian Aid

CORRESPONDENCE, parish magazines, national charities, general music, festivals, churches, plays, schools, woodwork, weather, chestnut, travel, Vatican, parties, boats, Thames, cricket, boarding schools, weddings, church services, AMPTHILL, Hindhead, Guildford, Surrey, Cannes, Somerset