THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

The White Gates,
Westcott Road,
Dorking.

[12 September 1934]

Dear Herbert

Thankyou so much for your amusing & informative letter.¹
It was awful missing all the Nymphs of Gloucester² – & it was I who was jealous of you and Billy.³  Did you hear R.O’s tune – I particularly wanted to hear that.⁴
I really think I shall be up in a few days – though I don’t boast as I’ve tried 3 times & had to go back.  The ridiculous thing is I’ve been quite well  – but not allowed to move in case anything bad sh^d result.
All the result of neglecting a blister.  Do you hear that poor Ken Andrews⁵ has got TB & has to go off to Switzerland for some months.  I shall like to hear very much what you thought  of C.B.R’s tune.⁶
Yrs

RVW

1.  About the Gloucester Three Choirs Festival, which VW had had to miss because of a poisoned abscess on his ankle which had kept him in bed for 8 weeks. The abscess had developed from a blister gained, according to UVW, on a long walk in Sussex following Gustav Holst’s funeral.
2.  i.e. all the pretty girls, such as Diana Awdry.
3.  W.H. Reed whose Symphony for Strings was performed at the Festival.
4.  No work by R.O. Morris is mentioned in Anthony Boden, Three Choirs: a history of the festival (Stroud, 1992) as being performed at the 1934 Festival.
5.  H.K. Andrews, later Heather Professor of Music at Oxford.
6.  A setting of Milton’s Ode on the Morning of Christ’s Nativity by Cyril Rootham.