THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

Grand Hotel
Birmingham

Thursday [October 4 1900]

My dear Randolph

It has often been in my mind to write to you – but you see it has got no further – not from want of something to say but from wanting to say a great deal – & that might have bored you!  I wish you could have left yr docks & come to hear some music here.  Every day it grows better, the chorus & orchestra have just got into magnificent order – & alas it all ends tomorrow – earlier for us than for your mother & Cicely¹ for they stay on for the proper wind up of things, the Messiah.  I do hope your mother has liked it.  I have been surprised at how much she has done in the way of going to concerts & it seems to me she is better than when we were at Hallsteads.  I think I shall come to Birmingham as a Kur Ort,² for I came here not very well & the long draughty corridors & the storms of rain have quite set me up.
Ralph is very happy here – Did he tell you there is a chance of his extension lecturing on music – he will like I think if it comes off³  – also he has got 2 schools to teach in & some odd jobs so he is more comfortable –
I saw a great deal of M^r Amos⁴ when he came for 3 days to L. H. Place.⁵  I hear that fault was found with him at Hallsteads for talking too much & wanting too much talk.  I think he has been a little spoilt by americans.  Certainly he is very dependant on people & always wanting to exchange ideas & get sympathy.  I never met anyone of such unequal spirits before.  A strange want of balance somewhere – though that’s not to be wondered at if one thinks of Mrs Amos – Am I making too many desultory remarks about him? I will say, lest you think I am trying to be ill-natured, that I got on quite comfortably with him & I won’t say anything more.
I hope we may see something of Felix,⁶ now that the military atmosphere is calmer.  I so often find myself thinking of Hallsteads & you all – & now it is such a pleasure to be meeting your mother & Cicely again.⁷
Goodbye dear Randolph
Yr affte

AMVW

1. Ralph Wedgwood’s sister.
2.  i.e. a health resort.
3. The possibility of extension lectures at Oxford was in the air in VWL132, dated 1900.
4. Maurice Amos.
5. Leith Hill Place
6. Felix Wedgwood, brother of Ralph.
7. Hallsteads was the home of Ralph Wedgwood’s mother in Staffordshire.