THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

The White Gates,
Westcott Road,
Dorking.

Monday [4th September 1933]

Dear one
Your bufe sled¹ – So grateful for it –
Don’t be anx – I so trust the sheps will shine out as it ought to do² –
All goes well – our valiant Rose is here so you can see how we are being helped.
Pegs & her bloke came at 6 & were very merry & delightful she with cider³– he with whiskey  – I am sending ye olde black socks wh you may find more comforting than the new brown –
Love to Diana⁴  –
AVW

Spring Rice knows Mr Bulmer. They meet at Kings – He had been to Moya’s “Salon” in Dublin – “widow” he called her!  She is a “great lady” – her lion was Bertrand Russell – I said “that old dish”  I enlightened him about Crompton.

1. i.e. beautiful letter.
2. There was to be a performance of The Shepherds of the Delectable Mountains, Catalogue of Works 1922/6. See R.V.W.: a biography, pp195-6.
3. Pegs (Margaret) Ritchie, the VWs’ doctor at Dorking. See R.V.W.: a biography, p.138 and, especially, 173. Edward Spring Rice was her fiancé.
4. Diana Awdry – see VWL1130.
5. Crompton Llewellyn Davies, whose wife, Moya, is referred to. See VWL493 and VWL565.