THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

Dorking

Nov 2 [1940s]

Dearest Grace
Welcome home to London.
I shd love to come & see you one day when & if possible – but I hardly ever go to London now – & when I do go I rush up to a c^tee meeting and back again
But we might meet in Central London & have a meal.
I now belong to a one horse club called the M.M. Club¹ we might meet there
As regards Betty² I don’t know what to do – she’s known at the BBC & to H.J.W.³ & has a publisher to push her.
– I think we must recognize that her kind of music does not make a sensation like say Britten – she is Wordsworth to his Byron & therefore cannot expect to take the world by storm but be deeply loved by a few.
But if there is anything you think I could do, do suggest it – I’m not very good at pushing, as you know
all my love
Uncle Ralph

1. The M.M. (Mainly Musicians) Club was founded by the cellist May Mukle. It was a converted basement near Oxford Circus underground station, and provided a meeting place and air-raid shelter for musicians during the early years of the war, and apparently continued after the war, as VW and UW were having tea there on 10 May 1951.
2. Elizabeth Maconchy
3. Henry Wood, the conductor of the Promenade Concerts.