Dear Mother
Very many thanks for your letter last Sunday, dated Jan 3rd. There was an extra mail out on Tuesday this week, & I know I wrote to you by that mail, but I don’t seem to have jotted it down in my diary, a thing I always do nowadays & I find it most useful. My sword has’nt turned up yet, but Cox is retrieving it from the Customs & various other obstacles & says he is sending it along very shortly.
Yes I sent off those rugs at last; I’m afraid I did’nt send them all to you, but I wrote the address of each of the girls on 5 of them & sent one to you. I hope I did’nt promise them all to you originally! But I suppose most of them will find a resting place in Delaford eventually. Thanks awfully for getting Nell the gloves; she had’nt got them when she wrote last mail but I know she’ll love them.
I can’t understand how Topher has managed to join Dick, as Dick is with Indian cavalry & there are no Europeans in the Indian cavalry except the officers; but perhaps things are a little more elastic in France, anyhow it’s awful nice for them both. I see one of the Yeatman boys has been wounded again; that’s Harry in the Wilts is’nt it; was’nt he wounded before, I remember him being at Delaford one day, & is’nt he the one in the flying corps now? I hope he’s all right. So glad Willie Perkins has got home on leave at last; he certainly deserves it.
Poor old Dryden hard at work again in the Bank. How I hate the idea of her being there & I shall be awful glad the day she chucks it. I think it’s most frightfully good of her to stick it the way she does, splendid, but I’m sure she could find somewhere where the work would be far more genial & less tiring, & I think she’s wasted in a stuffy old Bank. I haven’t eaten the plum pudding yet; I’ve been dining out such a lot lately.
I have been out to dinner once or twice, & various teas & tennis, & a dance last night, so I’m very frivolous are’nt I! A regular Cordwalles dinner at the Miles the other night, Metcalfe & I were there, & Ricketts who was at Stoke Poges next door, you remember we used to play them at cricket & footer. I wish you’d look up the Cordwalles Chronicle of 1897 & see how we fared against Stoke Poges at cricket that year, & if any of us made any runs, especially Ricketts, who swears he was playing for Stoke Poges & made a lot!
How we talked & rattled up the past; Miles came to the conclusion that he remembered being a robin in the acting, when Metcalfe & I were an old man & his wife, & we recalled a thousand & one incidents long forgotten. I loved it all & I think I must write and tell Mr Fowler, I think he would be interested, on the mantlepiece in their drawing room was a photograph of Poppy Gough, Lady Miles’ best friend! A small world, & now I remember surely the Goughs were at Cordwalles later on were’nt they? Lady Miles told me one had been killed & one wounded. Poppy calls herself Mona now, & they write to each other every mail so I sent various messages to Poppy, though I can’t say I ever knew her very well. I remember her frizzy hair well, & of course we all went to all those dances together.
I had a tremendous Guildford F.F. with Mrs Moss when I dined there last Wednesday. She says she will certainly come round & see you when she gets a chance. I dined with Fox & some lady friend of his at the Club last night & there was a very cheery dance afterwards. Everyone was in such good form & everyone knew everyone else so it was quite a good show.
The Viceroy gave away various medals & decorations to Indian troops at Viceregal Lodge last Tuesday, quite a good show but rather long & boring, as there were 200 recipients of medals! However it was a gay scene & lots of colour. I have been playing tennis & teaing with the Bingleys too, & have made great friends with them, they are awfully nice people; I told Mrs B. you remembered her quite well, I thought it was best to!!
Must change for dinner. Turned nice & cold again now after the rain. We have had 6 new officers in the last week, so are now quite a big mess.
Best love to all
Yr loving son
Ted
Photos from Cordwalles School, 1890s
Viceregal Lodge today
