HQ 4 Docks Group RE MEF
Evening…..

Dearest….
This is urgent.   I am a stickler for presents being presents – not expected, not necessary things and not dull. I have just strolled up and down the Avenue Fuad, and with the shops ablaze with light and full of lovely things I am struck dumb and impotent. So please say, and you shall not know what the action will be, whether you need :- a handbag   (I fancy that is unoriginal), a permanent kind of compact for powder, a suitcase,  jewellery, something odd and unlikely. Or anything else. Write soon because we have to post by 7 Nov.

To be too matter of fact and practical would stifle the make-believe necessary for our trade; therefore a little castle-in-the-air building, even if prefabricated ones, cannot harm. So I was brooding of a First Night and you with a new and snuggly furry coat for the occasion. First write your play, then find the animal that died with a smiling sigh, then buy your fur coat, I know.   I know.   Dickie would love you to be befurred. Candy might be slightly jealous or even superior about the fit.   Hers is a lovely coat.
Pigs well.

Inspectionitis tomorrow, at 10 o’clock the Lord Mayors Show starts from this office and round we go and at the end darts and Guinness at the Sergeants Mess. Tennis on Sunday, needle match, mens fours at the Sporting Club. Got my unmentionable bit of bronze up for the first time. I don’t know.

It doesn’t bear thinking of, the delights, the whole catalogue of delicious things, in this other life of mine. You, you all the while, you on walks, you singing little songs in the kitchen, you in the sitting room and us at peace and a quiet fire and Candy lying stretched right out; and now with a sleeping Dickie above added to that heavenly scene. You in the morning, padding prettily here and there, the view of our Rowan tree through the casement. The crockery I know, the backs of the books, Uncle Jack on Sunday mornings, regular and secure and kind, the village street in the evening, the view from the wash-basin over gently dipping fields, that fascinating weir on the mill walk, Postie coming. And as I say, a whole large catalogue of new unknown and only guessed at aspects of living through Master Richard John.

Best not to think of it, yet I must, and God willing it shall not be long before I am there to revel in these delights.   I think much and love very much, and it is of you and you, always.

Bless you, dearest….