THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

Nov. 16th [1918?]

My Dear V.

I’ve been trying to write to you for many days – It’s funny with the news so wonderful that I ought to be able to write pages – but somehow it’s produced a complete slump in my mind, & I’ve never felt so fed up with my job.
I wonder how you are getting on & whether you are arrived at your job yet – I hope for your sake it’s not that God-forsaken place Summer Hill Camp.¹
Meanwhile we are probably going a long journey – I don’t look forward to it much – trekking all that way this cold weather – nor our job when we get there – but still one has to take things as they are.
Let me have a letter – & a less dull one than this – this is only to let you know I am alive & well – I feel incapable of anything else.
Yours always

RVW

1. Holst had been seeking work on active service and had obtained a post as YMCA music organiser. After training he had been sent to Salonica and was indeed at Summer Hill Camp. See Short, Gustav Holst: The Man and his Music (Oxford 1990) p.166.