THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

Saturday night [5.1.46]

Belov Boo
You will have some merry times with your harmonium – Is the sound powerful? I suppose it lives in the Studio.
R gave his lecture to about 100 men and Wrens¹ – & then had lunch with Ursula & Maud² at a wine restaurant run by his old Colonels son & afterwrads they went to Caesar & Cleopatra³ when they might have met the girls but didn’t – R admired Cleopatra – the film’s a bit showy & the gibes at the English very silly – however it was a good change from hens & stoves – Today he hoped to dig but found the ground as hard as iron – the thaw has not penetrated
[…] R is full of ideas re Sir John in Love – to make it better
Y^r A

R finds yr book very good for relaxation. King Hall dismal reading⁴

1. A lecture on Beethoven’s 9th symphony, according to a note on the letter in the hand of UVW. The ‘Wrens’ were the Women’s Royal Navy.
2. Ursula Wood and Maud Karpeles
3. The film Caesar and Cleopatra starring Vivien Leigh was released in London on 11 December 1945.
4. Magdalen King-Hall’s Life and Death of the Wicked Lady Skelton was published in January 1946.