THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

The White Gates,
Westcott Road,
Dorking.

July 23 [1934]

Dear Bessy

Thank you so much for writing – I am sitting up for the 1^st time. I feel ridiculously well – only I mayn’t put my stupid foot to the ground till it is quite healed¹ – I’m not learning any new instrument² but luckily a lot of proofs have come in to keep me busy – also I’ve completed “plucking the partridge”.
Yrs

RVW

P.S. A fine puff of Ursula & Julian in the ‘Evening Standard’ yesterday!³

1. VW had a septic ankle, and spent eight weeks in bed in summer 1934.
2. He had thought of learning the clarinet while laid up with a broken ankle the previous year, and Elizabeth Darbishire came to teach him – but this time, presumably, it had been realised that the enterprise was unlikely to prosper.
3. Refers to the marriage VW’s cousin Ursula Darwin to Julian Trevelyan, announced in the newspaper in July 1934.