LONGMOOR
MONDAY
17/8/42

Dearest Heart,
It was sweet of you to be so kindly to me this happy week-end. And you looked most utterly adorable in that large bed in that tall tapestried room this morning. At the end of the corridor a whiskered flunkey turned me downstairs where the Grand Head Night PORTER waited. He ushered me through a side door onto Charing Cross station, where a train waited which whisked me to Waterloo. I then found my train and the guard unlocked a     first for me and I had a comfortable corner all the way down. I read my notes and polished off my revision and arrived neatly on time in glorious August weather. A vast breakfast, a change and a morning’s work, exam and lectures and then all the afternoon on S.S. Apple-Pie. Erecting purchases. Home, hot and grubby, a pint of beer with Peter, a bath, dinner, and here I am, having written to Glasgow BB about the scripts there, to Bertha about the broadcast, to Mr. Puller agreeing to some little alterations in the play, to Anne Maxwell about meeting her on Saturday week, and to Mrs Matthews with a slightly amended Nelson, and saying I’m glad Lister was O.K. which is what she said, bless her. I have Auntie to write to and then to bed, because its been a long day.

Our honest and frank discussion of ways and means cannot be but good.  We must Take a Hold and be realists. But we ought to be able to keep the little house going,   and its a comfort to me having your mother there. The fact that she is an expensive luxury just means that we must forego something else. But think over our talk, as will I, and at Wales we’ll get a genuine plan of campaign, a sensible one. We can’t slither downwards   towards disaster financially speaking. I just can’t for one aspect of it. Its a grim business a Court Martial for insolvency! I’ll think out positive ways of clearing the decks, maybe   some evening plays of some sort if I can manage it. The BBC is a good friend to me and I seem to have the nack – knack – nack. But we must get a policy and a rate of expenditure matching our income. No more now, but it was good sense, and don’t think you are to blame,   the responsibility is mine and the action to change it must be mine. Not yours, I reproach myself that it isn’t just 100 % plain sailing for you. It ought to be, it will be, it must be.

Dear Auntie Edie and Uncle Fred, so sweet to us and so fond of and proud of you, as I am and all I know are. I can’t go into the pleasures of your company now because Jock is going to bed and its unfair to type in the room.

I’ll cope with Swansea and see what’s likely to happen. And I’ll write more fully tomorrow.

For now, all my dearest love and kisses and gratitude. Bless you dear heart.

Ever your own…