THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

The White Gates
Dorking

Oct 19 [1940s?]

Dear McCleary
I love hearing your reminiscences¹ – you bring back to me vividly that funny room at the musical club and Grab² singing “That fine old nigger has a jolly good figure” & all the other voices from a very happy past. When can we meet again?
Yrs
R Vaughan Williams

1. McCleary had been at Cambridge University with VW.
2. Possibly Hugo Grab, an Austrian member of the Cambridge University Musical Club. He is described as singing comic songs of this nature (see British Library MS. Mus. 1714/1/1, f. 26); this may have been George Grossmith’s ‘The Society Nigger’.