ABOUT THE LETTERS
Ralph Vaughan Williams’s correspondence - with his friends, family, pupils and fellow musicians - paints an intriguing portrait of the man, as well as providing fascinating insights into his major preoccupations: musical, personal and political.
The VWF database includes transcripts of over 5,000 items of annotated correspondence, fully indexed and searchable, which can all be read online. It includes all the letters of Ralph Vaughan Williams known to the editors and is an ongoing project. Find out more about the database.
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Featured Letter
from Vaughan Williams, Ralph, 1872-1958 to Karpeles, Maud, 1885-1976
Letter No. VWL3650
Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Maud Karpeles
Letter No.: VWL3650
[ca August 1940]
Dear Maud
(war time paper)
Please take care of your health it is every ones duty now
I don’t do much – I’ve made my hay & weeded my garden – both I hope of ‘national importance’ and I’ve learnt how to put out a fire with a stirrup pump.
Also I’ve promised to go collecting for wartime savings!
Do remember that everything of this kind is war work & helps to down Germany – so don’t hold out for a more definite war job.
I know Douglas has gone to the I.O.M.1
The enclosed is just out at last – it seems rather a dim memory now.2
love from
RVW
1. Douglas Kennedy, who had been director of the English Folk Dance Society, was appointed to te staff of an internment camp on the Isle of Man in 1940.
2. It is not clear to what this refers.
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General Notes:
Date from reference to Kennedy going to Isle of Man (see ‘A tribute to Douglas Neil Kennedy’, Folk Music Journal, vol. 5, no. 4 (1988), p.535.
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Shelfmark:MS Mus. 1714/2/3/2, f. 65
