Robert Stevenson

Love letters from 1936 is a precursor to love Letters from World War Two. Alan Stevenson, a young doctor, is in love with and engaged to Sheila Steven. They are both from Glasgow but Alan has that London offers a better future and agreed with Sheila that he will work there until he is earning enough money to support her and a family.

He finds it very much more difficult then he had expected. The pay as a General Practitioners assistant is pitiful. He had planned to keep himself going by doing autopsies if necessary. However it seemed less people were dying in London then before so this idea did not workout.

Love Letters from 1936

Preface

Fifteen years after my father’s death in 1995 at the age of 86, I found a cardboard box in my loft containing 524 letters. I know this is a ‘device’ used by authors to introduce fictional characters, but in this case it’s true!

They were personal letters. The larger package was letters written during World War II between my father, Alan Stevenson, and his wife, my mother Sheila. I have already published them under the title: “Love Letters From World War II”.

The second smaller package of eighty two letters were written earlier in 1936 between Alan Stevenson and Sheila Steven before they were married. In 1936 they were engaged but unable to

marry as their parents expected Alan to have an income sufficient to support a wife and family first.

Many of the letters written by Sheila had no dates on them. Not long before his death in 1995 (Sheila had died in 1989) Alan had sorted through them and written the months on some of those lacking it.

How much they read! I had never realised how widely read they both were.

These letters cover a year of Alan’s struggle for employment in London as a penniless young doctor. I have prepared them as this separate booklet.

I have provided footnotes, introductions to the events of 1936, an epilogue and appendices, but they can be ignored - the letters stand on their own.

Where words in a letter are unclear and I could only guess at them, they are printed in italics.

Where I cannot even guess, they are shown as [illegible]. Sheila frequently missed dates out completely, or wrote the day with no month or year. I have tried to work out where her undated

letters fit in to the timeline, I am sure some of them are out of sequence. To show where the date, or part of the date, is my estimate, I have in the letter heading put that part of it in italics.

Any corrections or suggestions are most welcome.

Robert Stevenson, Lymington, Hampshire 2018

INTRODUCTION TO 1936

Alan and Sheila were war children. World War I was very close to their childhood with its awful slaughter. Sheila was five when it ended in 1918, and Alan was nine. So when Hitler came to power in 1933 and started re-arming only fifteen years later, most British people were incredulous. Surely the Germans didn’t want a re-run? Had they not caused enough deaths? By 1936 it was becoming clear to many that they did.

So, only 18 years after ‘the war to end all wars’ Germany was determined on revenge.

Unwillingly Britain started to re-arm. It was a time of economic depression. Alan with an incomplete medical degree had thought his opportunities would be better in London than in his native Glasgow. He’d met Sheila when she was only seventeen and neither of them ever seem to have looked at another. In 1933 they got engaged but he had to earn the magic £500 a year before Sheila’s parents would agree to the wedding. Today, 2018, the ambition to get £500 a year seems extraordinary. But consider that, adjusted for inflation £500 then is about £32,887! The average wage was £129, or today £8,485.

Sheila’s mother Mamie was very ‘stiff necked’ and was never happy about her only child marrying a young struggling doctor without a penny to his name and no significant inheritance.

This was still a day of chaperones for ‘respectable’ girls! On Sheila’s visit, by train, to London to see Alan, a chaperone was required and Aunt Daisy (Margaret, Mamie’s younger sister who was 54) agreed to go with Sheila. (See letter dated 30th April, though a chaperone is not mentioned). There must have been collaboration here because Aunt Daisy parted from Sheila on arrival in London and met her at the train for the return journey.

So on the few occasions in 1936 that Alan and Sheila got together it was very difficult for them to be on their own. Such occasions were remembered with relish.

The great crisis of 1936 to most people was not Hitler, who seemed to many like a comic figure with his toothbrush moustache and ranting speeches, but the abdication of King Edward VIII. Strong passions both for the king and against him were aroused. It is difficult today to relate to what a crisis it was seen as at the time.

The King- Emperor had been introduced to an American socialite, Wallace Simpson, in 1932 by his then mistress Lady Furness.

Wallace Simpson was divorced from her first husband and pursuing the divorce of her second. It seems that Wallace Simpson became the king’s mistress in 1934 although Edward denied this.

The marriage was opposed by the governments of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth. Religious, legal, political and moral objections were raised. As British monarch, Edward was the nominal head of the Church of England, which did not then allow divorced people to remarry in church if their ex-spouses were still alive. For this reason, it was widely believed that Edward could not marry Simpson and remain on the throne. Simpson was perceived to be politically and socially unsuitable as a prospective queen consort because of her two failed marriages. It was widely assumed by the Establishment that she was driven by love of money or position rather than love for the King. Despite the opposition, Edward declared that he loved Simpson and intended to marry her whether his governments approved or not. As an indication of the strength of feeling see letter 19th November from Sheila with shop girls fighting, ‘the shop walker had to separate them’.

Still, in these letters there is no mention of Hitler of Germany. Alan and Sheila were totally focussed on his getting a job well enough paid for them to marry and be together. The rest they assumed would be a blissful togetherness. Fortunately; they did not know that two years after their marriage in 1937 what we now know as World War II would break out four months after the birth of their first child (me), and they would be separated for six years.

Sheila was some three and a half years younger than Alan. She had been educated at home and was an only child. We know that women mature more quickly than men and it shows in the letters. Alan constantly needs re-assurance and support and gets it. For the rest of his life he was in many ways reliant on Sheila, something which has become clearer to David, Gill and I as we look back on them.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

Alan Carruth Stevenson. Born 27 Jan 1909. So 27 years old in January 1936. The date of the first letter. Died in 1995. Alan was born in Glasgow and attended the Glasgow Academy. He graduated in 1933 from the University of Glasgow with a degree in medicine.

He did three housemen jobs at Glasgow Royal Infirmary.

In 1935 he moved to Highgate Hospital in London – receiving

£250 P.A. plus board and lodgings. Moved to London because he recognised that to have the M.R.C.P (Membership of the Royal College of Physicians) would give him much more opportunity back in Scotland.

He got nervous about his chances of passing the M.R.C.P and took the Scottish examinations which were separate – giving several sets of initials after his name. He passed them and passed his M.R.C.P.

Worked at Bow Street and took the Diploma in Public Health as he felt that was the quickest way to earn the £500 pa required to marry Sheila.

When Alan landed the job of Assistant MOH (Medical Officer of Health) in Wakefield he was at last able to get married which he did on 25thMarch 1937. Alan and Sheila had got engaged in 1934 so it had been a long frustrating wait of nearly three years.

Alan well remembers the interview at the old Wakefield Town Hall where Sam Buttterworth’s retort came from the end of the table. ‘Ees a clever bugger this’.

Alan had to do a refraction course at this stage because of involvement with testing of children’s eyes in school medical checks.

Before the war Alan was made Deputy MOH and earned and got a pay rise to £600 pa!

Annie Gordon Sheila Steven. Born 2nd Aug 1913. So 22 in January 1936. She always used the name Sheila though she was affectionally known as known to Alan early on as ‘Shiney’. Sheila died 1989.

They met in 1930 when she was 17, and he 21. In 1936 they had been writing to each other for 4 years, so since 1932.

They got engaged 5th July 1934. They got married 25th March 1937.

Alan’s Parent were Allan Stevenson And Christina Lawson

Allan Stevenson had been born in 1878 on Balgray Farm near Beith in Ayrshire. The small farm had been in the family for some 100 years. Allan was the 10th of eleven children and Balgray was quite unable to support a large family. Balgray was inherited by the eldest boy, William, in 1884 when his father James died. So in around 1894 at 16 Allan walked into Glasgow, completed his schooling and got a job as an apprentice draughtsman in the booming shipbuilding business. He rose to be a distinguished citizen becoming President of Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland.

He was awarded the C.B.E. in 1946.

Two of his brother’s went to Australia and the rest dispersed to Canada and elsewhere. Allan married Christina Lawson in 1902.

In 1936 they lived in modest style in 1 Kensington Gardens, Glasgow.

Christina Kennedy Lawson was born in 1878. Her father was Alexander (Sandy) Lawson an instrument maker and amateur actor known for his role as Tam o’ Shanter (Robert Burns Classic poem). Her mother was Eliza Kinnon.

Sheila’s Parents were James Steven and Jessie Hodge

James Steven took over his father’s bronze founding business, Steven & Struthers. Sheila was their only child. Jessie Hodge’s father was a prosperous accountant in Glasgow.

Allardine (Dr) - M.O.H. Wakefield 1936 – Allan first met Allardine when he went for his interview for the job as Assistant Manager of Health in Wakefield in October 1936. He found him pleasant but a little boastful and did not think Allardine wanted him.

Aunt Aggie (Agnes) & Uncle Willie – Agnes Steven B 1878. Jimmy’s sister. Married to Uncle Willie, William Stephens. B 1876. Note the different spelling of Stephens. Uncle Willie was not ‘family’.

Aunt Bet – Bethia Campbell Hodge.

B 1869. D 1943 at 74. Sheila’s Aunt. Jessie Hodge’s (Mamie’s) sister. She was married to Charles Jebb who died in 1909 at the age of 38. They were childless.

Aunt Daisy - Margaret, Mamie’s younger sister.

Bethia Lille Campbell.

Aunt Daisy- Margaret Hodge

Daisy is short for Margaret as the French name for a daisy is Marguerite. She was 54 when she agreed to go with Sheila as a chaperone to London. Margaret married Alexander Crawford, a schoolteacher, no children. Mamie was not happy about her having a shop St Andrews. Not socially acceptable to be a shopkeeper. They mover to Crawford Lodge in Ardrossan later.

Aunt Isa – This was Marion Isabella Hodge nee Robertson. She was born 1889 and married John Gordon Hodge in 1914 so she was 47 in 1936. John Gordon was the brother of Jessie Steven, and so her aunt by marriage.

Aunt Nettie – Died 21stDec 1936 of cancer. Nettie was Janet Boyd Steven, Jimmy’s sister. Married to Archibald Faulds, Uncle Archie. Her death is referred to in Alan’s letter to Sheila of 28th

December. I suppose ‘Nettie’ from the final ‘net’ of Janet.

Aunt Sadie – Sadie Louise Brown. Born 1929. Died 1914. Her father was George Alfred Brown Jnr. Her Grandmother was Sarah Armour Steven so she was from the Steven family. Known as ‘Sadie the axe’ after it was alleged she attacked her husband with an axe. This may be just hearsay as I can’t find a marriage and think she died unmarried.

Aunt Sarah/Aunt S – Sarah Helen Brown, Born 1903. Married 1938. Daughter of George Alfred Brown. and sister to Sadie Louise Brown.

Bernard (Dr) or Dr B - Bernard is a shadowy figure, we never even learn his Christian name (mind you Alan thinks it’s a Jewish name). After a struggle Alan gets a job with him and a flat (part of the deal?) next to Bow Street Courts. It was a struggle to dis-entangle himself from Dr Hill.

Doreen Stevenson – Doreen was Alan’s younger sister. She became a doctor. She later married Dr Thomas Colver and lived in Sheffield. She had children Allan, Graham, Hilary & Christine.

Faulds – John Steven – Known as Steven. Son of Archibald Faulds (Uncle Archie). Born 1901. Married to May nee Mary Murray Morrison. A cousin of Sheila’s and a friend to both Alan and Sheila.

Faulds – May – Married to Steven Faulds. Full name Mary Murray Morrison. Born 1902.

Hill (Dr) or Dr H – Alan worked for Dr Hill as an assistant,

lodging in the Hill’s house. His earnings were meagre and the little boy, Ian, exasperated him. He was never very good with children.

Alan definitely felt himself exploited and described the position as that of a ‘dogsbody’. I think this is Dr J Anderson Hill.

His address was Glenapp in the village of Mortimer, near Reading, at this time.

Moira Stevenson – Moira was Alan’s elder sister and much loved by all. Her health was never good and she never married and died in 1951.

Steven – James (Jim). Jimmy (James’) brother. He never married and always seemed to be unwell.

Uncle Archie – Archibald Galbraith Faulds. Married to Janet Boyd Steven, Jimmy’s sister.

Uncle James – James Duncan Hodge, B1875. So Sheila’s uncle and Mamie’s brother. He would be 61 then which is about right.

Uncle Willie – William Stephen. See under Aunt Aggie.

Weipers the Vet - William Lee Weipers, FRCVS FRSE

When Sheila knew Weipers he was a young vet of 32. No doubt he obtained valuable experience dealing with Larig.

Poor Weipers had a hard time with Larig, he was a young vet then. Larig intensely disliked him.

Scenes such as appear in the letters do make you feel for him. However he went on to become a distinguished man and I thought him interesting enough to give him his own Appendix.

Addresses

Alan

Achiltibuie Hotel

A small crofting settlement north of Ullapool in Wester Ross. It’s still there though extended.

Sheila and her parents went up there regularly in the summer. All of them enjoyed trout and salmon fishing and climbing. It is interesting that in 1936 there was no electricity.

Glenapp, Mortimer Nr Reading, Berks

Variously Glenapp (the house), Mortimer (the village).

Mortimer was near Reading. Now part of it.

Alan had a room there but had to share Dr Hill’s house with the objectionable little boy Ian.

2 Broad Court Flats Broad Court’ Bow Street London W.C.2

Variously: 2 BC, BC etc. Broad court was a block of flats close to Covent Garden in London. Also in block next to Bow Street Court. He carried out autopsies nearby and worked for Dr Bernard think as assistant.

Public Health Department Town Hall Chambers, Wakefield

Alan had unspecified Lodgings. Think he was moving about so gave that address.

103 Vassal Road, Brixton

Stayed there very briefly. Don’t know why.

1 Kingsborough Gardens, Glasgow

Various KG, 1K, K1.

Now divided into flats but a spacious pleasant house in 1930’s. They moved there so Alan would be close to Glasgow University. They were married in Hyndland Parish Church next door on Hyndland road.

Strafford Arms Hotel, Wakefield about 1936

A hotel where Alan stayed while house hunting in Wakefield.

Essentially a grim pub and known as the local boozer, but it was cheap.

Sheila

32 Falklands Mansions, Glasgow.

Variously FM or 32 FM. Just off Hyndland Road. About ¼ miles from Alan at Kingsborough Gardens.

70 Crown Road North, Glasgow

Variously C.R.N.

Right on the edge of open land and a reservoir.

Ideal for Larig

‘Winder’ Drumclog Avenue, Milngavie, Glasgow

Taken for June but also 20th to 22nd Dec 1936.

Think now demolished.

Black Bull Hotel, Killearn near Stirling

Quite why Sheila was there for a week on her own with Larig I don’t know. The Black Bull has recently been renamed the Killearn Hotel. It is no longer a nice place and locals advise against eating there. A request for a half of lager for Elisha in a bar with four men in it was met with a grim look and ‘we only serve pints here’.

Timeline 1936

Alan

1st Jan to 15th May

Glenapp, Mortimer, Reading

15th May to 22nd Nov

Broad Street Flats

24th Jul

103 Vassal Road

28th Sep

51 Torrington Sq

14th Dec

Wakefield, Strafford Arms

Sheila

1st Jan to 17th May

70 Crown Road North

13th Aug to 19th Dec

Falkland Mansions

4th Jul to 8th Jul

Black Bull Inn

20th Dec to 22nd Dec

‘Winder’, Milngavie

24th Jul to 26th Jul

Achiltibuie

May?

‘Winder’, Milngavie

The 1936 Letters

My Dear,

JANUARY 1936

6th Jan 1936. Alan, Glenapp, Mortimer to Sheila

Monday 10.50 PM

I hope that you will get my note, posted today, tomorrow, but I doubt it.

I got here about 9.45 AM and went with Dr Hill on his rounds till lunch. Then I did some patients from 6 until 7 then had dinner and have since been unpacking.

It’s lovely countryside but Oh my what a way of doing medicine. We visited everywhere from various estates to vicarages to slum cottages.

Dr & Mrs Hill seem very nice. My room is a large one but I can see that my own company is going to be chilly for there is a fireplace but it shows no signs of use in the last 20 years. I have set my alarm for the awful hour of 7.15 A.M.

Well Dear I’ll tell you my opinion of practice when I know more about it. Meanwhile I’m sorry but I must get to sleep as I have not recovered from yesterday’s exertions yet. I was tired this morning.

Oh Dearest I wish I was with you now. Alan

Tuesday

7.45 on a very wet morning. Good sleep and waiting for breakfast.

Give my love to your mother and father. Hope Mrs Steven1 got some satisfaction yesterday. Alan

Dear One,

9th Jan 1936, Sheila, 70 Crown Road North, Glasgow to Alan

Thursday 11.30 PM

There is nothing really to tell you, but I just want to write and probably there won’t be time tomorrow. I heard on the wireless tonight of bad, or rather more, flooding round Reading and bad storms in England. At that time the night here was very calm, but now suddenly the wind is tearing round the house and driving torrents of rain. I do hope you are in for the night, I have visions of you in the floods and a little while ago wanted terribly to phone you, but discovering it was eleven

o’clock restrained myself, with the pious hope that you were in bed and asleep and a feeling that I was becoming funny.

Mother didn’t feel so good tonight, and I’ve got Larig2 on the sick list too. He became very listless and dull eyed in the evening, refusing to go out, and lying at the fire here taking no interest in the preparation of dinner downstairs, usually a time when he is most in evidence. He has been very sorry for himself all evening. But after refusing some warm milk a short while ago thought better of it and finished it when I was out of the room. He has a bit of a cough and must have caught cold somewhere. I’m remembering now funny things he did during the day, when he was rather more subdued than usual. For instance for no reason at all he turned on a border terrier, savaged it and eventually hit its head on the wall, letting it go when it screamed. It tore off with a large muddy mark on its head! There was a lady with it too, I was ‘fair ashamed’.

I excuse him now, perhaps he was feeling bad and the sight of it revolted him! By the way he had a fight with a bull terrier when he went out with Dad on Saturday. Well well; this is a tale of woe.

The ‘pup’ is in his basket now, decked in an old green jumper of mine, can you imagine what he looks like? I’ll issue a further bulletin in the morning!

I was speaking to Moira today, she said she thought you were interested and I can’t remember the exact word, but it was something like soothed, by your conversation last night and the

suggestions. Poor Moira she really is giving a lot of thought to you and doing her best to be helpful. But – what do you think of the bright suggestion of writing to Gordon Holmes (is that the name?). Perhaps one of the big pots in your own locality will leave you a fortune (even a half fortune) in gratitude for the light you brought into their lives!!!

Dear old soul, I love you. These days I think I’m looking years younger and much nicer than you’ve ever seen me, and it seems a waste! As sure as fate when you come home my hair lies down flat and I get a spot on the end of my nose!

I didn’t go to badminton tonight, dinner was late, it was horribly wet and I was lazy. I suppose that’s the real truth of it.

You will have noticed by this time that every few lines my pen spits out a blob of ink. It’s my poor old fountain, but it’s bust and has to suffer the indignity of the ink-bottle, but seems to have a way of getting its own back.

I had a letter from Steven a day or two ago in which he expressed the oft repeated hope that we would ‘honour’ them some weekend.

A letter from Aunt Aggie last week discloses that she sent a card at Christmas to Alan and does hope it reached him!

I must get to bed but I just want to go on blethering. Oh! my dearest that I could tell you how much – our old cry.

But ‘not on the lips of men love’s secret lies, remote and unrevealed his dwelling-place’, and after all we know all that needs to be known; and as to that secret of love which is fettered within us, and lacks crude expression, let us be glad to have it so, content to let it remain with each other, knowing by that which is within one inexpressibly what is struggling wordlessly to express itself in the loved one, and so understanding silently that great thing whose dwelling place, as the poet observed hundreds of years ago, is most certainly hidden.

Yes dear I think I definitely ought to go to bed, by this time I expect you will agree with me.

Good night dear one.

Friday 2.40 5 PM

One thing after another. Poor old Larig’s got distemper. He wasn’t any better this morning so I phoned the vet and asked him to call and see him. Weipers arrived at lunchtime and gave his verdict, after we’d wrestled with what W calls the most powerful dog he has ever come across, and this morning the most murderous looking, while he took his temperature and sounded him. Then I got his mouth tied up and he had the serum injected.

So now there’s nothing to be done except keep him warm and put on a coat I’ve devised out of some old soft felt when he goes out, and makes him look like the pantomime horse. However his outings are of about ½ minute duration, then he crawls back to his basket and flops, as if he were sore all over. Glad he got the serum so quickly, vet says it will make a big difference.

Mother is better today, but still inclined to be headachy.

Well dear that’s all the news and as I’ve some things to do I’ll finish this and let you have a note on Monday. Always Sheila

A highly contagious and often fatal viral disease of dogs.

‘Weipers’ or ‘W’ was a young vet who lived in fear of Larig in 1936. He became Sir William Weipers and was a most distinguished vet. See D P & appendix.

My Dear,

14th Jan 1936, Alan, Glenapp, Mortimer to Sheils

Tuesday

Thanks for your letter and for Bulletin which arrived today. Glad to hear poor old Larig is improving.

What I was going to say about your Dad was that one day he would suddenly ask me when I was going to be in a position to get married, and advise me to get on with it.

Very glad about new car. My my, won’t you be posh! It ought to be really fast and nearly as fast as mine.

Mine is being decoked today and I hope to get 70 out of her then.

Fine you getting out on 27th. Jim1 has been very decent taking you around. I don’t feel like writing about dances. It makes me blue – so I won’t.

Well it’s a hard life. I gather from your writings that while I would not win a beauty prize I’m your ‘Old Dutch’. Thanks Dear – satisfied.

Shiney this exile goes hard at times – tonight being one of them. Have been less busy since Dr H came back but still did 34 visits today. Have only 16 tomorrow, nominally my half day, so I’ll go down and help with my car. There is little or no cylinder wear and the valve seatings are very good. In other words as I always said ‘tis a grand wee bus’. I’ll be sorry to part with it if I have to in my next job. I get days when I like practice.

I intend to go up to London on Sunday and see John Fergie, Highgate and McNicols. I’m looking forward to a run in my extra-sporty going well car.

Dear I would like to have you just to talk to. To no one else can I just blether about things I see and think. In other words there is no relaxation – that’s the word – here.

I’ll be sorry when Mrs H & Ian come back tomorrow. He’s such a noisy wee devil without being interesting.

Dear I must write home now. I have not written more than a scrawl since I was up at Christmas.

Love Alan

My Dear,

20th Jan 1936, Alan, Glenapp, Mortimer to Sheila

Monday 11.30 AM

I’m sitting before the fire alone hearing at intervals the repeat of the bulletin about the King. It is sad for I think he has been a good king.

Well I went up to London yesterday, first to Edgware. Great distress about leaving & good wishes. They have ordered a new 25 H.P. Wolseley Coupe.

Then to Highgate where I enjoyed seeing ‘the boys’ again & in some ways wished I was back.

Then to meet John Fergie & have dinner with him and his sister. I left about 9.30 and was in at

11.30. It was a rotten journey over icy roads rapidly thawing. However I enjoyed the change yesterday and will have another day of revelry when I go up to interview Prof Frazer.

We have been very busy for the past week and a measles epidemic just started has added to our troubles, however it is making time pass quickly Dear.

And Dear you said you would not send me any more love letters. Dear please do. Please write just as you feel at the moment.

John Fergie was an old friend of Alan’s from University.

King George V died that day. The new king would be Edward VIII. Edward VIII appeared in a window of St James’s Palace to watch the proclamation of his own succession, quite against protocol with his, still married, American mistress Wallace Simpson the following day. He was to be a destabilising and controversial figure.

Alan had moved in 1935 to Highgate Hospital – received £250 PA plus board and lodgings.

Dear, as I feel just now, I just have the need of you pervading all my being and it would be untrue to say anything else.

I long for, hope and pray for the time when we can get married Dear. For I want you selfishly all to myself.

I received your postcard today & it reminded me of your very first one to me in Ireland. And ever since Ireland I’ve known too often the feeling of emptiness in separation from you.

I can lie back in my chair and really feel as I did then in Dublin.

The doubts and fears of it – the longing & the shyness can even now make me tremble.

I very well knew, as I lent on the rail of the boat going down the Clyde that evening, that all the good and decent impulses in me long to put my arms gently round you.

I knew that the ideal scarcely formulated in my mind had come to life and that I was going away from the girl whom I adored if not loved, reserving love for something returned. I knew that nowhere in that coastline was that girl in whom all sweetness and fragrance was, and in whose eyes there was truth. And I knew that for me there was a vision to be cherished unsullied and that, come what may, that vision or it’s memory would never be dimmed by anyone else.

And in these days in Dublin when I was tired and when I was seeing very sordid and very beautiful things, there was before me always just Sheila Steven. Always in those difficult days when I was afraid to think of the possibility of having your affection, I rigidly reaffirmed my Creed that I wanted only one thing – that Sheila Steven must be cherished and be happy.

And Dearest if my hopes have been frequent my Creed remains. From doubt to realisation of my most sacred designs took a very few months from these days in Dublin.

Since then I have been received into the fullness of your love and in intimacy have found more sweetness, more fragrance and joy surpassing.

Dear One in your love I live. About me always there is the new atmosphere of you. Dear One please tell me if ever I fail you unknowingly.

Good night Sheila and may God keep you. I am, yours always. Alan

My Dear,

FEBRUARY 1936

1st Feb 1936. Alan, Glenapp, Mortimer to Sheila

Saturday

Thank you for your letter and the enclosed drawing which is very good. I don’t know Blanfield

though.

Well I’ll tell you of my doings first. I’ve been busy and am very pleased to have this evening to myself, the others being at the Cinema. I have been too busy to think all week but have had no work to do since lunch time today, and I have read and enjoyed ‘Jeremy’ by Hugh Walpole. It’s a story of a little boy, and a good one. I agree that Linklater is no wonder but he has some wonderful flashes of risky humour which make me very amused.

My cold is much better and beyond being a little stuffed up am perfectly fit. Yes the hanky is a ghastly colour but a very dear hanky for all that.

Don’t you worry even if you can’t write long letters just now. I had very good ones last week, and after all I in turn may soon strike a meagre patch.

Poor old Larig is certainly having a rocky journey. He has been more trouble than he is worth. I have an appointment with Prof Fraser on Wednesday at 2.p.m. so we shall see what’s what.

I wonder if you were at Murrayfield1 today. It seems a long time since International Day was such a thrill and had an atmosphere all of its own.

You are very funny about Dads offer. You just say it’s kind and you hope it won’t be necessary. I have not felt so sleepy for a long time as I do now.

10 minutes later.

Having just put on the wireless am feeling much more awake.

I hear that Moira is coming down a fortnight today for the weekend. It’s very decent of her but I wish it was to be you.

The evenings are lengthening and sometimes I see old Spring about. The floods have been out again and I’ve made some very undignified visits.

But Oh dear. If you could know the sick empty feeling that comes to me at times. For almost 1½ years it has been my too frequent companion. Dear one live in my love and like me, admire me if you can for your affection maintains me now and always.

Remember me to Mrs and Mr Steven. Love, Alan

P.S. Have phoned the Dr Bernard and am seeing him at 5 P.M. The flat is just next to Bow Street Courts.

Bless you I want you in the sun today. Alan

My Dear,

2nd Feb 1936, Sheila, 70 Crown Road North, Glasgow to Alan

Sunday

I’m sorry, but not in the least surprised at your blowing up over practice and your job – but there I get stuck and don’t know what to say, which is of course small wonder as there is nothing I can say, except what you already know, that I love you and understand and that’s not very helpful and may even be irritating.

We were at Greenock on Friday, mother deciding to come too. Aunt S was in town and Sadie was out when mother and I arrived having dropped Dad at one of the yards, but Jim (who was in bed) was glad to see us. We had tea with him and talked till Dad and Sadie arrived almost at the same time. It is only comparatively recently I’ve realised how wonderful Jim’s spirit is. When one grows up with a thing like that one is apt to take it as a matter of course. He chatters away as cheerfully as anyone and with knowledge about so many things. How melancholy it would be to be left often alone (as he necessarily is) with only Ronnie wandering in and out.

I had one of the nastiest drives ever going home, heavy rain, greasy roads and banks of fog. But the new car is just great.

I’m glad I didn’t go to the match yesterday as it seems to have been a rotten game. I would pretty well have to have gone had it been a good day as about a fortnight ago I said I’d go with Inez.

However I’m just as glad it was wet (I’m going to become a miser!). Mrs Harry treated us to tickets for The Scottish National Players at night. It was an excellent show, two Scotch plays, the best things I’ve seen for some time. Adeline had tea with me in the afternoon, she seems to be getting mildly grey.

My Dear what would I not give to spend even an hour with you today. The sun is shining and it seems even less right than usual that I can’t be with you. Perhaps it’s just the beginnings of my cursed spring restlessness happening. I remember you once, years ago, annoying me very much about that, by saying superciliously, ‘of course you’re a woman and so less civilised than I’.

I must have changed a bit since then because now I can chuckle when I remember it.

Larig is still giving a bit of worry being far from his old self. Vet says if he’s not much better by tomorrow he’ll give him a good overhaul. I think he (the Vet) hopes he’ll be spared this!

About phoning. I think Thursday night would be good as Aunt Isa and Mr John are coming and family will be sitting downstairs. It’s a pretty hopeless business conversing by phone anyway, but a chance call with people in the room is worse than that. I would say I’d phone you on Thursday but it’s so difficult to forecast your movements. But if you’d like me to, let me know. Yours ever and love, Sheila

My Dearest,

5th Feb 1936. Alan, Glenapp, Mortimer to Sheila

Wednesday

Could you manage the old 3 days in a week idea? Even if it’s only a note to say that you have no news, it’s a letter. I’m alone in the morning room, Dr H being in London and there being no surgery this evening. In the afternoon I had my spring changed and was chatting to a local worthy the old carrier.

He is 79 and goes about in an incredibly old chariot. He has been carrier for about 50 years and has never been in bed. We stood and watched his old horse being shod in the smithy and he said ‘I’ve had him 14 years and he’s never had a sore or felt a whip. He gave up beer 40 years ago on the advice of the doctor at that time.

I got back about 4 and have since been lazing about not very sure what to do with myself.

I’ve got the blues badly and I just don’t know how I’ll stick out the winter. It’s all right when we are busy but its foul to have spare time. But I must just sit tight and make money to save. I shall try to stop smoking. Don’t laugh dear.

Awful mess in Welsh Colliers1. They are a quarrelsome crew in South Wales.

I’m going to start reading Prescott’s ‘Conquest of Mexico’ tonight. I read the Conquest of Peru many years ago but it was an abridged edition. I shall go to bed early and try to wake early. I don’t know whether Mummy went home today or not but I rather think she will leave it till tomorrow or Friday.

I am still stuffed with that last cold and I shall try the effect of long sleeps and no smoking. What a toll of misery? I never can understand why you did not fall in love with a rich young man with a few cars, a ‘place’ in the country and an Oxford accent. Life would have been simpler with such.

Bless you for having me my dear. I was going to give impressions of practice but I shall not until a month or so more. Well now for Prescott.

Thursday 7.40 AM

Was called up at 1.25 A.M. and went to Burghfield and sent a surgical case to Hospital. But although it was 3½ miles away and I had to phone the Hospital, I was back in bed by 2.20 AM.

Your thermometer in a case is coming into its own. I use it at least a dozen times a day and every time I think of Shiney1.

By the way Dr H has a glass eye. It was injured by a tennis ball and had to be removed.

Well today I expect we shall be not too busy. I’m not sure whether that is an advantage. I’ll add something if by any chance there is news in the post.

Love aye, Alan

Dear,

10th Feb 1936, Alan, Glenapp, Mortimer to Sheila

Monday

Just have a moment in Morning Surgery and keep thinking what a dear you are so thought I’d write and tell you so. Alan

My Dear Alan,

10th Feb 1936, Sheila, 70 Crown Road North, Glasgow to Alan

Monday

First I’ll tell you a little of the doings of the last few days.

On Sunday afternoon after I’d finished your letter we went to Bearsden. After tea Dad and I took Larig his first decent walk since his illness, on the golf course. It was bitterly cold with an East wind which made one weep ceaselessly. In the evening I went to Trinity Church and enjoyed it very much. McC is a grand preacher. There was a riot there recently when he had, in the interests of miners and brotherhood or some such, a Hindu and a Moslem giving their points of view from the pulpit. The Scottish Protestant League were there in force, made themselves very noisy, then walked out – a protest!

Monday was busyish and in the evening I went to badminton wearing a very smart white jumper, of which in the making you impolitely inquired, ‘was it an undervest’!!

Yesterday Daddy had business at Burntisland, Kircaldy and Dysart, so I went as chauffer and, as it was a lovely day, mother decided to come along too. It was a heavenly sparkling day, but dreadfully cold with ridges and piles of snow in the country where the sun had not reached it, and icicles hanging from the rocks. The car is just fine and very snug. Yesterday was the first time I’d driven her any distance. With mother aboard it was obviously impossible to see what she’d go up to but she cruises at 60 with a minimum of noise and effort.

This afternoon mother is at a matinee with Aunt Nettie and I am being very pleasantly lazy sitting at the fire with the wireless on and when I finish this letter I have lots to read. I saw an advert in the paper today ‘Are you winter weary? If so take Ovaltine’. Well I am winter weary but not so far as to seek the help of Ovaltine. I’m weary of this intense cold and iron earth and yet it’s only Feb and I remember a day in May last year at Tod Head when we were half frozen. It’s just struck me that it’s an impertinence to say this when sitting in front of a good fire, there are those less fortunate. You know I long just now for the house and garden at W.K.2 But no, the place is awful now. I was very attached to Anfield3 and it was great fun having it to go to, also there was no never ending battle against ceaseless dust and dirt as there is here, people dropped in any time, sometimes for a weekend and were still there at the end of the week often more and it was never any trouble, it was a very elastic house, we could sleep seven at a pinch besides ourselves. Yes it would be nice to go to sleep again, hearing the sea, knowing one was not only a brief holiday maker at its side, but belonged. And when one woke to look out on the garden which was not shared by someone else. I’ve not done that for well over five years now, but at one time it was very much part of me. This will all sound daft to you. I can’t hope you’ll understand – to quote from a book – no you’ll think I’m quite potty. Larig is sitting looking at me with an expression of profound melancholy. I think music depresses him.

Dear thanks for your letter which reached me on Monday after all. I will! It was good to hear your voice on Sunday night and to hear your laugh. Dear I love you so. I have tried to understand your letter, it’s revolutionary isn’t it? I know how you feel, is it how you’re really going to feel or just a spasm. Does that sound nasty? I’m sorry but I know from experience in a lesser way, that for some obscure reason one has days when one sits on the crest of the wave, but I also know that some people seem to be able to stay there. Dear I never expected to be married to you in less than a year, it will most probably be much nearer two, so don’t worry about that. Re: parents. You have a quaint idea as to their functions, they may, oddly enough, not be so keen to be quit of me as you suspect.

I think you say that you do not want to be in Glasgow. Now everyone seems to say that your best chance would be in Glasgow. It would be okay if you could live a wee bit out, but your objection is, I take it, from the work point of view. Then you say ‘preferably in London’. I don’t know whether that is intended, or if you’ve missed a ‘not’ out of the sentence, but I do know that last winter it was a festering place, for many reasons, and a place which you would on no account think of living in. Do you now consider settling there? I think London would be all right for some years, but that prolonged residence there would get you down.

I think I’ll stop, even to my eyes the foregoing remarks aren’t very bright. If only you could appear for an hour on the chair opposite me.

I’ve had an invitation from the Berkeley Robertsons, to a dinner dance at the Auto Club on March 13th1. I haven’t replied yet. If Doreen is able to go I’ll not think twice about it, in any case it might be rather amusing. I don’t know, perhaps I shall go. Oh! Why aren’t you here? Were you ever at home?

Bless you dear one. Sheila

My Dearest,

15th Feb 1936. Alan, Glenapp, Mortimer to Sheila

Saturday 3.15 PM

At last I can write a decent letter. I’m sitting alone before a fire. The others are at golf and I stayed behind on pretext of fiddling with the car.

Well this practice business is curious, sometimes I like it and sometimes I hate it. It would certainly be much better to be alone in practice but it’s very curious. My time (6 weeks or so) is up now so I’ll give you my impressions.

I shall tabulate them for and against. Supposing it to be in the country.

For:

1) Lots of fresh air and a peaceful life.

2) An ample income can be obtained in practice after a year or two.

3) You get to know a large number of very decent folk.

4) Leisure for reading and sport can be made.

5) You see some cases early.

6) You can observe a few people over a long series of years.

7) It’s the easiest means of a livelihood.

8) You get gratitude.

1 A Friday.

Against – Mostly Professional

1) You see very few interesting cases and lots of rubbish.

2) You diagnose with certainty few cases and you lose all your interesting ones.

3) You talk lots of ballyhoo.

4) You are always in the position of ‘this is too difficult for me you must see a specialist’. When the truth is – you are a B.F.1 and I’d like an X-Ray.

5) You get gratitude at the wrong times.

6) You are at the beck and call of everyone.

In bed just been out having seen a case. My Dear to sum up I think G.P. is as good as anything else, no worse, no better.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the future ever since I came here. It’s clear to me that we could be very happy in practice, preferably in a country district near the sea. For I dream of us alone on our fishing boat.

My Dear I love you so hard and fiercely, and yet softly and tenderly. Thank goodness I never have to doubt that you will cast up my mistakes to me. I know that if I choose wrongly you will be kind.

But Dear I miss you so much. Nothing is quite worth doing. Everything is dated by my next time to see you. I have not heard from you since Tuesday – The longest interval for 4 years2. You seem very far away tonight.

Sunday 9 AM

Another very wet morning. It has been pretty wet recently.

Oh My Dear I’m longing to hear from you. I am lazy and depressed this morning. However I’ve only four visits to do and then I shall get down to my car dynamo which has been giving me no little trouble for the past four days. I do hope it’s not going to land me in for more expense as I’m not saving as much as I’d like. That £7.10 to the Medical Agency is a big blow. And running a car is expensive no matter how you take it.

I feel very much these days that I’ve wasted my time taking my M.R.C.P.3 and it weighs rather heavy on my chest.

Oh my dear if I could only see you. It’s such a long time till Christmas.

I hope your mother is improving. You have not mentioned it in the last two letters. Well I must get along and start my visits.

Bless you my Dear and Oh Dear Shiney (4) let’s hope time passes quickly till we are together. Alan

2 So Alan has being writing to her since 1932!

3 Membership of the Royal College of Physicians taken in Glasgow.

4 Shiney! Yes this was apparently Alan’s pet name for Sheila.

My Dear,

MARCH 1936

5th Mar 1936, Alan, Glenapp, Mortimer to Sheila

Thursday

It was a very pleasant surprise to get your letter today after having one yesterday also. Yes Dear next Friday is quite close now but it seems such a long time to me.

Dear one I have a scheme I’m going to try to get off on Friday at midday1 so that I can get the

1.30 P.M. train on the excuse of the Robertson’s Automobile Club Dance invitation.

Wouldn’t it be good to have a dance and a few sweet hours more with you. I could change on the train and be ready to take you for I hope (if I manage) that you would wait and come late with me. Would you please?

Dear One its ten weeks since I saw you. I can’t see your face any more. I can’t feel you in my arms. But I long for you with all my heart.

Letter is only page 1 of a longer letter.

My Dear One,

19th Mar 1936, Alan, Glenapp, Mortimer to Sheila

Thursday

This is just to reach you on Saturday. I’ll have peace and leisure (I hope) to write at the week end as Dr & Mrs + Ian are going off to Rottingdean.

It’s fine to hear of Doreen passing in Chemistry. She & Mummy are probably coming down on Monday and I hope to see them on Wednesday.

You worry me Dear by saying ‘do you feel as if you can hardly remember unalloyed happiness without deliberately shutting out trouble’ or words to that effect. It seems to me that I’ve given you almost your first taste of sorrow and that in so many ways are you less happy. I am not convinced that my appearance has compensated.

I was always a sorrowful soul but I kept it all to myself and no one realised. Now I have a ‘confidant’ and have unburdened myself.

I’ve changed tremendously in the years I’ve known you, I’ve become less easily roused to enthusiasm but I feel that I have acquired a capacity for determination and when an enthusiasm is roused I may be more constant. You see my first big disappointment (and it seemed at first the very bottom fallen away) was failing in the Final Exam. No one could have been so ‘just right’ as you were then. You consoled me and never mentioned any possibility of it being a delay to our hopes. You bucked me up by forcing me to do other things. I’ve had great faith in your wisdom since then.

But life since I met you has assumed a more vital purpose. I would have been content to slip along in Glasgow if it had not been for you.

Dear it’s a week tonight since I left. May few weeks go by till I see you again. Dear you must think I have a funny way of being affectionate. But believe me even when I sit and read a paper with you about it’s with a grunt of satisfaction.

I’ve written to Prof Turnbull and hope to hear at the beginning of the week when he can see me. I don’t know whether to go even if he takes me. I don’t see my way very clearly at all just now. Only I loathe practice and want to avoid that.

But only one person in a million would just put up with me dithering and I don’t want to take advantage of you.

Well I’ll write a decent letter at the week end. Dear dear one I love you. I wish I could kiss you goodnight. Alan

1 Alan is determined to be with Sheila if she goes to the dance. We know the dance is on Friday 13th March, a week ahead, so that gives us the date of this letter written on a Thursday as 5th March.

APRIL 1936

My Dear Sheila,

4th Apr 1936, Alan, Glenapp, Mortimer to Sheila

Saturday

I await very eagerly your letter. I’ve nothing really to say just now but I feel that I must write. It somehow establishes contact that I miss so much.

I see that Ian Hart is getting married today. He is going to East Africa and his wife follows in a year.

I do wish we could get away for a while and we may manage it yet although America is out of the question as the ‘Rockefeller Travelling Scholarships’ have I see been abolished.

Anything more cramping, more detrimental to clear thinking, more stultifying than practice I can’t conceive.

It’s made me dull and more uninteresting. Now for your sake I would like to be more colourful. Do you compare me unfavourably with such colourful people as the Everest Climbers?

Remember if you do, that opportunity is a great thing and that I am to a great extent passing through lean and grinding years just now.

We must get away from the rut when we are married and together. Even at first if it means economies we must get right away for our holidays. I do long for a boat.

The sea is so clean and there are no potholes on it trodden down, with matchboxes and beer bottles alongside in mute evidence of all pervading humanity.

Could you suggest an original way for us to spend a week in May? Think, rack your brains old girl. Think how free you will be with your short hair and what a lovely month is May. We must do something with it.

Could we go to some little seaside place with one, or both, mothers as chaperones and go sailing.

Or somewhere where we can plan and execute long walks taking a whole day. Walks when parental councils will be disregarded and waterproofs left behind. Hills there are in Wester Ross.

Oh Sheila let us climb An Stack (1). It’s never been out of my mind since I saw it.

Sheila could we? Sheila that’s a great suggestion. Tell me your ideas. In May there are no shooting parties, no trippers. I’ll get on shorts again and be 17 with you.

Dear I’m grinning from ear to ear and I’ve just discovered it.

I hope you like the dog (I suppose you know it’s a pyjama case).

After a good deal of wandering I found him in the embroidery department of Heals and I thought you might not have one. (I mean a dog – case not a pyjama case)

Dear one write me as often as you can till you come down. The days without letters are not worth having.

Dear if you can put something in about trusting and loving me. And if you can, forgiveness. Dear it’s a long time till Monday midday for your letter.

Well Dearest tell me all about yourself. I’ll stop for just now and carry on again.

Sunday 5:30 PM

The Hills are out to tea and I sufficiently showed how much a nuisance Ian was yesterday for a maid to be detailed to look after him after tea. So peace reigns.

I feel tomorrow 2 PM when you’re letter comes is so far away. I’ve done two blood counts, each at £1.11.6 for Dr H today. He might give me something for them, for after all he has always had to pay for them outside before. But the more he makes the more mean he is. He sent out 350 accounts this quarter. Two of them for over £100. I calculate he will pull in £900 from all sources this quarter and he admits that he has never done nearly so well in a quarter.

1 Stac Polly

But if I was in practice I could not even ask for about ¼ of his accounts and none would be so big.

So it’s perhaps as well I won’t be.

I ought to have been greasing my car today but it’s so cold and raw that I was lazy.

I’ve been reading Pathology in a desultory manner and dream a lot of you between times. I’m so wondering how annoyed or fed up you still are.

Dear this being away is very hard. All the time there is aching and sorrow and I wish it was over.

The very last week in April is 23rd to 30th. So at worst I shall see you a week on Thursday. Could you not stay at K.1.1 for a few days before that girl comes down? When will you know?

I said after I left – I’ve counted only three weeks ago today – that I felt that this would be a short separation but Oh it’s a long one and I’ve nearly as long again to wait till I see you. Two more weekends with mighty little to do and two more weeks of uncongenial work.

Dear even if I am earning nothing in London I’ll count it well spent capital to come up every two months.

Oh Sheila I’m very tired I’d give such a lot to spend this evening with you as it is only right that I should.

And Dear the worry of knowing whether I’ll be able to marry you soon. If even I could fix a date within narrow limits I’d be happy, as I think you know, uncertainty (for example as to your visit) always makes me wretched.

Whenever you know tell me when you are coming.

Dear I’m getting to the stage of repeating myself. I’ll just stop, and think of me if you can aching for you and needing you with all the energy I possess.

Look after your Dear Self and know how precious you are. Alan

My Dearest Sheila,

13th Apr 1936. Alan, Glenapp, Mortimer to Sheila

Monday

I should like very much to phone you tonight but I feel that I should probably either miss you or will get you away from your dinner. So I think I’ll leave it and wait with as good patience as I can till tomorrow night.

Well I got to Brooklands only to find the racing off because of the rain. I arranged that Dr H should leave any visits till I returned but I was back by 3:15 PM.

However the main thing is that I had a run and I enjoyed seeing the wonderful cars in the paddocks.

I’m only just recovering from a frightful day yesterday and believe me I shall be glad to split the list with Dr H tomorrow.

In spite of all this business the time will drag and it still seems very far away to your visit. At any rate Dear I ought to get a fair amount of time

off.

Enclosed is an advertisement which I have of course answered and am anxiously awaiting a reply. It sounds pretty much what I had in mind.

I suggested that I would do both the evening surgeries and the weekends for keep and 1½ Guineas.

That would keep me and I’d feel much happier. If I got another £1.1. for an afternoon clinic I’d be happy.

1 1 Kingsborough Gardens, Alan’s parent house.

I must take you to Brooklands some day. It’s a very amusing place and I was very disappointed not to see any racing.

Well now I began to write at 6.30 and it’s now 10.30 so you may see there have been some blank intervals.

We have finished the week’s booking which is a relief.

I’m afraid you would not get your usual picnic lunches with this cold weather.

Are not some people lucky? Think of the Robinson’s both by results in their work petty medicine.

Yet they can afford the Ski Club and above all to see you this weekend.

Dear Shiney I love you well this week and I still get a bit of shock when I think of your hair and it completely disturbs my mental picture of you. (Which always puts me off to sleep!)

But somehow I feel that I’m loving you as you would wish. That is gladly in that you are having a change, but sadly in that I can’t be with you to share the joys of the Spey country. You will not be so pleased to hear that I’m very anxious to hear you tomorrow and know that you are safe home.

Dear Shiney so many times – this afternoon for example – there are fine things to do which would be very much finer with you. I hope when we are married that we shall remember these times of anguish and be thankful. But the past has a habit of appearing rosy and we may forget.

I cannot settle to think here somehow and I’ve done no decent reading recently. Even medically I’ve only been able to keep up with BMJ and Lancet recently. Somehow although its lonely living alone I’ll be happier.

Shiney I’m hoping for a letter tomorrow. It seems a long time since Saturday.

Well Dear I do hope nothing interferes with your visit. Dr H is going to town on Thursday to a consultation and will go to the Medical Agency to see what can be done about my successor.

Perhaps luck will have it that he gets someone early.

Tell me what does the first week in May mean. Do you know any dates? Please let me know if you do.

Well Dear there is not much else to say, this has been a long weekend but it will be a short week.

The shorter the better. Agreed?

Bless you, Alan

My Dear,

17th Apr 1936. Alan, Glenapp, Mortimer to Sheila

Friday 9AM

I want you to get this on Monday so I’ll get it posted tomorrow morning.

I’m having a gala day tomorrow and expect two letters, as yours posted late last night have not arrived today.

You will be dancing now and it seems very strange to think of you in the Union where I first took you to dance.

Dear I’m very jealous tonight and wish it was over. I hate to think of you so nicely dressed and attractive, dancing with lots of people I don’t know.

But soon I shall have you for a short time all to myself.

Dear I shall meet you quite definitely at the train on Wednesday.(1) It’s all arranged, and if by any chance we are busy, I can come down and do a few visits here in the morning.

So please tell me by what train you are travelling from Glasgow and at what time it arrives at Euston.

Please write just a note on Monday and then phone about 7.30 on Tuesday before you leave.

Great news there is a direct line Southern Railways from Weybridge to Reading. So some evenings you can come across that way to Reading and I can take you back.

Isn’t that fine?

1 That’s Wednesday 22nd April.

This will make it much easier to see you almost every night.

I think we may manage every evening with lunch. Dear I’m terribly frightened in case you don’t manage.

I’m really building up myself this time and a disappointment would be very hard to bear.

I’m waiting up till 11 o’clock when Mr Sainsbury’s1 Rolls Royce is coming for me. I’ve had one trip already today.

He blew up well and truly today and took an overdose of chloral when drunk. Fortunately it is not my prescription but one he had from Lord Horder.2

The German Concubine is in great distress. I don’t think she has an assured pension!

I went into Reading and had a short haircut in preparation for your visit. Dear I want to look well in your eyes as well as beloved.

I wish the intervening days till you come would fly. It’s still four days and a night off. It would fall that there is an extra hour in between with the coming of Summer Time.

However I suppose it will pass, though it seems about impossible at the moment. Dear I’m never

longed for you so much. I want the peace of your presence badly and I can’t think what it will be like when you go again.

By the time you get this it will be within 48 hours of reunion. Oh Sheila my Dear Darling it will be grand to have you again.

With all that is decent and good in me I long for you. I can’t write more. I shall drop you a note to reach you on Tuesday morning.

Meanwhile I’m impatient for tomorrow’s letter and your phone on Tuesday. Remember I’ll meet you definitely on Wednesday at Euston.

I’m too full of longing and tenderness to write more. God bring you safe to me My Dear. Alan

My Dearest,

30th Apr 1936. Alan, Glenapp, Mortimer to Sheila

Thursday 6.50 A.M.

You are still on the train and I hope asleep.

I was wakened at 4.45 A.M. and caught the 5.30 to Reading and here I am back in the old room and I’m rather wondering if the last week has been true. Dear One I have not felt the blow yet. I read newspapers feverishly till I fell asleep last night in the train and again in the train this morning and it was only coming out in the car that the full enormity of my loss was apparent for the place at my side was your place and you were not there. So what would have been a bright lovely morning for wanting to go on and on in the fresh air, fell very flat.

Oh My Love it’s no easier to write than to tell you of my happiness and now my loss. But if you can recall the past few days of good companionship I think you will be happy, for I felt yesterday, when you told me how happy you had been, that there was no limit to the standard of living together for us.

For us the rest of the World is a fine place with good folk in it and beauty to our seeing eyes. But it can be very private and very complete to us without the aid of other people.

I feel like Mr Micawber (3) waiting for something to turn up but perhaps we shall be lucky and be able to get married before we expect. I look forward fervently to that day.

It made me very happy to hear you say that you thought that misunderstandings would go with the strain of separation. I have felt that rather nervously for a long time. But in the interval Dear Girl of Mine I shall try with all my strength to avoid the rudeness and lack of sympathy which have led to such bickering in the past.

1 This is probably John Benjamin Sainsbury. Died 1956. Who the ‘German Concubine’ was I cannot say.

2 Thomas Jeeves Horder, 1st Baron Horder. Born 1871. Died 1955. A leading clinician and diagnostician of his day.

3 A Dickens character from David Copperfield who lives in hopeful expectation that ‘something will turn up’.

I don’t suppose you know how much I respect your guidance and am willing, aye wanting, to be advised by you. Twice again over the past week you made me realise that. Guess when and I’ll tell you if you are right.

Dear I want to write on and on for I feel near you and – Oh my Dear Love of the Bright Eyes and pink cheeks whose lips feel still on mine. Oh My Dear I can’t go on now.

Dear one take very great care of yourself for I can’t think of anything happening to you. God bring me safe to you again and grant us again much happiness.1

Alan

1 So Sheila has been in London for the past week, arriving 22nd & leaving 29th. Alan is still based in Mortimer.

MAY 1936

My Dear Sheila,

5th May 1936. Alan, Glenapp, Mortimer to Sheila

11.15 in Bed Tuesday

I meant to write earlier tonight but had forgotten that Dr Hill wanted me to go to the Morris Film at Hewsons Garage tonight. So off we went and it was very enjoyable. It certainly makes one keen on Morris cars and therein fulfils its purpose. I had really a slack day and only did 15 visits today but had a busy afternoon clearing up the car insurance.

Apparently Tomkins did not fill in space about brokers so the Insurance Company wrote me & said they would not insure the car unless the brokers were relieved.

This was of course absurd as the brokers are very powerful and I cured that snatch to the left by simple adjustment.

So I got Dick Mason to give me an independent report and got another from Tomkins. Then I sauntered in and told old Tebbit what I thought of his old Insurance Company. I think it will be O.K. now.

I was very glad to get your letter on Monday and I look forward to tomorrow.

I have had word from the Doctor in W.C.1. I am to phone him tomorrow morning & make an appointment. His letter contains no details whatever. His name is Bernard which sounds Jewish.

So I may go up to see him tomorrow night. The trouble is that Dr H has no-one at present even possible. I don’t want to do it but at the worst I might have to leave him before he does.

As a matter of fact he could manage alone if we don’t get any business as he only did under 10 visits today.

I wish I could hear of you settled with a house. It was funny of John T to ring up.

I enclose photos of Flossie the Spaniel pup of which I spoke presented to me by her in person in an envelope. I saw a five litter of liver & whites 3 weeks old at a farm the other day.

Two separate people have told me that they are sorry I am leaving to get married! Apparently the news of your presence in my car spread like wildfire and it’s been village gossip for days.

Well its fine to be coupled with you even if they don’t know how lucky I am. Dear Old Shiney I’ll not see you in 70 C.R.N1. again I’m afraid.

What memories that house holds and what secrets! Shiney since seeing the Morris engined boats I’ve gone all nautical again. I do want a fishing boat!

Wednesday

No news this morning. I must get this posted to get the mail. Love, Alan

My Dear,

7th May 1936. Alan, Glenapp, Mortimer to Sheila

Thursday 9.30 AM

The Hills are out and I am alone before a fire in the morning room. This has been a really bad day, very dull, misty and wet. I was not busy and in the afternoon went into Reading to a breakdown yard where I purchased a reversing lamp for 2/-. It is a necessity here when out a nights as there is very little between you and deep ditches in the little lanes.

I’ve settled down to my chronic state when away from you which is a sort of quiet delirium in which nothing seems worth thinking about, in which no idea comes clearly. It’s so very true a description of yours about those sudden moments when a ‘wave of tenderness’ sweeps over one and when the curious combination of tenderness and sublimity are associated with you.

I received my longed for cheque today (£30) so your (longed for) £2 will be arriving soon.

1 Crown Road North, Glasgow.

I enjoyed the visit to Oxford enormously and am more than ever convinced of the wonders of the Morris. We were held up with Dr H’s car at the Service Dept so they gave us a guide between us for the tour. I would like the 16 H.P. Coupe.

Then last night I went into Reading and saw ‘Algy’ Robertson who has been in a nursing home for a month following tonsillitis. He was very pleased to see me and we had an interesting time comparing practices and so on.

So I’ve been leading the gay life. I hope you enjoy your spot of the bright lights at the theatre on Saturday.

Well Christmas is not very far away and perhaps I’ll not have such a rush as last week-end.

Oh I do so want to get married and know the bliss of being with you, living with and for you. For my dear I do love you so deeply, so tenderly and so very truly. I like you. I admire you as the decentest person I’ve met. I want to be so used to your presence that in the things we do together I’m hardly conscious of you but very content with my lot.

I can never think of you as younger than me for I think you are very much wiser. It all amounts to this – you are my own dear love.

Bless you and keep you. May I make you happy. For Dear I do want you to be pleased with me. Regards to Parents. Bless you my Darling. Alan

My Dear One,

9th May 1936 1936. Alan, Glenapp, Mortimer to Sheila

Saturday

Your letter came this morning instead of midday as usual and gave me a pleasant surprise.

I’m grieved to hear of you conversing with men from your bedroom but then I always knew you were rather immoral. Look how I’ve been led astray.

Glad you’ve had some decent weather. This is our first decent day so far.

A walk to the Mull sounds great. I like your shorts no matter what anyone says.

Was at ‘flicks’ last night. ‘Jack of all Trades’. Jack Hulbert and Robertson Hare. Very good show. I hope to get some tennis with Percival tonight. It certainly is dry enough now.

I am going to start packing my trunk and getting it off, on Mon or Tues, by advance baggage. Where everything will go I don’t know as I brought a lot here loose in the Riley.

Dear Girl I wish it was next Tuesday. I’m very fed up and anxious to see you. Dear you must know that I feel the depth of your love. I don’t know why but I don’t care. I just know it and accept it thankfully.

It’s not logical to love me but I don’t care. I need you too much. I always knew that you were of the decent folk who love through thick and thin. And seeing that you have made me your object of affection I have never doubted it. In some ways it would have been better if I had for then I would not have dared to be so unkind to you sometimes. For always being too sure of you I have taken advantage of it. I’m sorry dear love of mine. I’ll try never never to be knowingly unkind again.

I love and cherish you. I respect you. I admire you and I can see you apart from my love as all that I’ve ever desired of and admired in woman, and more besides in my love than I ever suspected.

Oh my Sheila what happy times lie ahead if we are spared.

I try to behave when away from you as you would like me to. I can say truly that the old childish rule of ‘never doing out of mother’s sight’ is one which I follow in that I try to behave as if you were always present. Dear One I look forward to M with great longing.

Bless you, My own, Alan

My Dear Girl,

9th May 1936. Alan, Glenapp, Mortimer to Sheila

Saturday 6.30 PM

It was extra fine to get your letter today. I can’t tell you how happy I am about the house. It sounds just what you and I would like.

And to think of you there gives me tremendous gladness. I’m only sorry that it’s just for a month.

Well I woke up today very fed up with toothache which I’ve had on and off for 10 days now. It was rotten last night and I slept badly. So I hied me to a dentist this morning and he yanked out to brutes.

I’m now all swollen out and very glad for once that you are not here to see me.

Sheila when I’m happy I think of you and today when I’m rather under the weather I think of you.

There are three part-time jobs advertised in the BMJ this week. I’ll answer them all and see if I can’t pick up something. I’m rather fed up about Dr Bernard.

Re-your projected September visit. To blazes with funds. Besides remember it is my turn to stand expenses.

Oh Shiny I’ll try my very utmost to get a week between jobs. I want it as badly as you. But if an opportunity presents it would be madness not to take it. I do wish Dr H would get a move on.

It’s fine that Doreen is getting home for her Birthday1. I wish I could be up to celebrate. I’m stuck now. I can’t think of anything to write but I’ll add more later.

Sunday 6 PM

My predominating thought all today has been – what a grand day it would have been with you. It’s sunny and warm and the Hills and Mrs Hutchins are off visiting. It’s just a bore as it is. It is not so much the lack of you that I mind for the moment. It’s the sinful waste of such a lovely day.

I sat and read in the garden for a bit – The Tale of Two Cities. What a grand film it was and what a great man old Thomas Dickens. I always feel that even if some of his characters are too good to be true one is almost glad to welcome them as symbols of a type. That’s one of his great gifts.

It’s his picking up and crystallising a type of humanity. Compounding the character out of many real people he must have met. And I always imagine him with his glance darting from person to person simply gloating over each one’s eccentricities. He if anyone knew human nature. I can imagine psychologists mocking. Yet he has produced standard characters still quoted of physical and psychological abnormality. The fat boy in Pickwick was a case of pituitary disease. Barnaby Rudge was a wonderful example of a feebleminded person. Sydney Carton is to me quite possible as one who has demanded psychological explanation for every happiness and who would and could not do anything until its worth was proven. But doubting past and ‘the only way’ open he was capable of supreme heights of effort.

The tetchiness of Oliver Twist’s guardian’s friend is a wonderful example of psychological fear of showing emotion. They stand out in serial ranks the Dickens characters and if his so-called cheap emotionalism is decried now-a-days, I’m not ashamed to say that it touches me.

I’ve never read a book by him however long that I was not sorry when I came to the end.

My face is much better today and though my jaw aches a bit I’m much more comfortable. I seem to be very resistant to cocaine2 and co, for although he blocked the inferior dental nerve that had no effect. Then he anaesthetised both locally but that did not seem to me to deaden tugging much. Yes, yesterday was a bad morning. It’s not the pain so much either. It’s the fiddling about in one’s mouth. I’ll be a bit more sympathetic when hurting people in future.

I’ve been told several times lately that I was leaving to get married! The story goes that the wife to be stayed here for a week and was seen with me in the car!

1 Birthday is Sunday 10th May 1915

2 I double checked this but he does say ‘cocaine’. I thought it might be ‘codeine’.

Percival the Wimbledon expert next door has asked me to play tennis sometime. The more one protests one’s incapacity the more people seem to suspect a light under a bushel!

Oh I do wish I knew when I was to get away. The only blessing is that it looks as though you would be over your removal by that time and so we might get away.

I see that Ian Fraser, Ian Anderson and Norman Burrell all came down in the membership. It makes me all the more keen to make use of mine.

I really am proud of it but it has been no use to me yet. Well here’s hoping. I’ve a tremendous drive to get married these days. Dear I hate to repeat income in vain repetition in case you think you detect indecision, but I want you as my dear friend more than anything. If my passion seems overwhelming when I’m with you that’s just because I’m a man and you are all that passionate man could desire. In the ordinary way when the sore flash of longing comes to me, is to say something or to ask you something, or even just to be with you and feel your presence.

Now for example I don’t want you to crush you to my breast, but I want you boldly to go for a walk with or to play tennis with. Wasn’t the tennis at Aviemore simply superb?

I often remember these games followed by a bath, dinner and then the merciful excuse of exercising the dog.

The cool evening with one’s face hot with unaccustomed sun. The cool evening breeze, the still water with the occasional splash of fish. The distant noise of Larig in the undergrowth. The trust of you, the scent of you, Oh may heavens send us many such times.

Somewhere up there in the peace the world seemed just what we could see. Dear love I don’t need to ask if you were happy to for I felt it.

Dear I’m glad when the mornings that bring my letters are better mornings.

I’ll write an extra one above the quota now and again. I’ll stop now and read some pathology.

11 PM

My Dear it was nice to hear you. I’m so glad you have all been together. I was just in bed and Dr H was still downstairs.

Calling each other dear over the telephone as I like to do reminds me of a rather sweet thing mother told me on the way to Bath recently. Apparently her father (who died when she was seven) always called her mother Lisa or Eliza Dear. So constantly did he do so (he was very devoted to her) that Mother and her Brothers on growing up thought that that was her name all in one; Liza-dear.1

Doreen sounded very happy and I’m so glad. Yes and I can remember when she was born and I remembered the other day Moira at 12 saying to me at 6. ‘You know it’s very funny but when the Dr brought you Mummy was ill too and (we were staying with aunts) do you know I was away from home then too. I always remembered that as a remarkable coincidence. I remember now as a special treat now and again I used to be allowed to assist in bathing the baby. I can see her now hitting away at the water with a very favourite celluloid duck floating about on its side. And I can remember her first steps. She ran from Dad to Mummy across a rug on the ground outside the home at Machrie Bay. I was terribly proud of that baby and now she’s so old that I often feel her no younger than myself.

Dear One if you could but know the infinite longing your voice has raised.

Dear Girl is it worthwhile. Would I not be better to go into the Prison Service at £550 per year plus a house then I could use my leisure to some purpose and perhaps write (don’t laugh) or go all political. You know politics attracts me.

Talking of that I’m booked to address the Mortimer Conservative Club on May 26th on ‘The Midwives Bill’.

I bet you would like to be there for a quiet laugh.

1 Alan’s mother was Christina Kennedy Lawson, born 1876 so her father, Alexander (Sandy) Lawson died 1883. Her mother was Elizabeth (Eliza) Kinnon.

Well dearest this is a long letter and if not very newsy it will at least lessen the gap for a while. I have a most elaborate ritual for reading your letters. Wash (I don’t know why) then up to my room and after the composing myself almost as for prayer, I finally open it and read it slowly, smiling to myself and Shiney very close in the spirit.

My Muse is tired, and by this time so no doubt is My Love’s. So I’ll rest both. Your sweetheart – Alan

Dear,

9th May 1936. Sheila, Crown Road North, to Alan

Saturday 11.PM

I came home today to a lovely bulging letter – hang Morris cars! Alright Dear I admit there was a letter too and a very nice one, I took the flattery all in.

I had a nice evening at Greenock and nearly got the first prize! Things looked pretty formidable to start with, there were nine tables and I kicked off with the minister (I didn’t know then) who owns a clever hatchet face and piercing eyes, he began by saying ‘now I always like to make this clear before I start, as it saves trouble, (little did he know) that I play the point system; do you?’ me - just gaped, he ‘well I suppose you play Cuthbertson?’ me – more gape, and a tendency to go under the table, he ‘I mean do you play direct?’ me – with sudden recovery ‘oh yes perfectly, always’, our opponents saw the joke and giggled dutifully, he permitted the vestige of a smile and we were off, and I did very well getting a game or a hand off my calling, I make this perfectly clear, because I think it’s good for you to know! well after that I just sailed along and all was roses.

Jack Hutchinson was there, and here’s another co-incidence, Helen Strong hadn’t seen me since I became engaged and was asking about you, where you were and how and all that, I said you were in Reading and she asked if by any chance you were a doctor, because she had a cousin a doctor in Reading and the funny bit was he was Jack Hutchinson’s brother-in-law’s assistant! I said ‘well if he’s Dr Hill’s assistant I’m going mad’ and sat down. As you will have realized she was speaking of your pre-decessor, funny isn’t it?

Well the party broke up about 1 a.m. and then we started tidying up which took quite a time, then decided sherry was the only possible beverage suited to our needs, and foregathered for the inevitable talk after a party. We got to bed shortly before 4 a.m. arrangement being, Sadie was going out at 9 to sell ‘poppies’ and I was getting the 10.20 train – result I was wakened at 10 a.m. by Aunt Sara, who had evidently been up for hours, and informed that Sadie and [Kay] were still in bed, but showing slight signs of life! I didn’t get the 10.20.

This afternoon was very wet and I went round for the ‘larigsborough’ pup to amuse Larig, as I was opening the gate of the gardens, a white terrier rushed past me and stated careering about with L. I recognised it for a dog he’d played with before and whose master says ‘good morning’ and ‘evening’, just then he appeared, called for the dog who paid no attention and said to me (the man, not the dog) ‘would you mind if they had a little play together? It is so good for them’ me ‘oh! no not at all, won’t you come in’ he did and there I was with three dogs, then the Dalmatian man blew along, with it in tow and showed distinct signs of wanting to join the party, but the thought of the faces of some of the Princes Terr residents and the remarks re. me and my zoo restrained me, so we had our own chat over the gate and our dogs through it.

Then my terrier man and our 3 dogs proceeded on a tour of the gardens. Larig and his dog had a great time, but Runie (?) kept charging them both and had to be carried most of the time. The terrier man kept addressing his pup in a queer jargon, then said ‘sometimes I speak to my dog in Russian and sometimes in Chinese!’ I registered polite and lively interest, men in my life who speak Russian and Chinese are few and far between! He apparently lived for years in Manchuria and speaks of taking his dog back to the States, so seems to be a bit of a Heinz, possibly half Russian. Larig enjoyed his romp. Runie is not a mixer.

This evening Moira and I set out for concert, St Andrew’s Hall, couldn’t get in so ended up at the

‘Brandon Thomas’ and saw a really splendid play ‘Many Waters’1. It’s now a dense fog and as I sit here there isn’t a sound from outside, or anywhere else for that matter. This has been threatening for a few days now and has just suddenly come down. Moira and I mislaid the pavement coming home.

Dad is supposed to be going to St Abbs Head tomorrow, and I must rise at 7.30. so goodnight my dear one, I love you terribly and Oh I want you, I want you.

Sunday 10th 10.55 p.m.2

This has been a very cold day with a tendency to fog, but nothing compared to last night. Dad left early for St Abbs and got back about 6.30. Out with Larig in the morning, the frost seemed to go to his head and he went clean mad, latest devilment is to greet each passing car as a plaything and rush at it, disillusionment has not yet followed whackings.

This afternoon I spent on the sofa reading and I regret to say dozing, my pet cold has not yet departed so I shall blame the resultant heaviness for the snooze. Evening, knitting and listening to the wireless, (sounds almost too blameless to be true!) there was a programme of Verdi’s music, never realised how much I liked it before, hunted out a book and read up what I could find about him, sometime we must go to some of the Operas especially ‘Aida’.

My precious darling, in day dreams there is so much to remember. I’ve known you for a very long time now, since I was 17, it’s somehow a good slice of my life and trying to discover my state of mind before that is difficult, like another life. A moment ago I was musing as to what things would have been like if we’d never met, you say I would have been happy and I expect I would, assuming there was no special cause for sorrow, for one has to live happiness to know in the least what it feels like, and sorrows too, so if I had not found you such happiness as I have shared with you would be an abstract ideal, envied and dreamed of perhaps, but not felt and not knowing the joy, overmuch regretted. I suppose sometime there might have been, someone whom I might have loved, for altho I cannot think it possible, I suppose it is only sane to consider it likely, but, five years, and a very important five years, because a change of outlook is almost inevitable in them, as one matures, have left me with the conviction which has become my life, that you are the one person alive who could have awakened the almost frightening love within me, by which I have scaled the highest pinnacle of joy.

It isn’t possible to speak from those pinnacles for tho responsible for each other’s pinnacles, once at the top one is apart from everything except the joy of love, uncommunicable by speech, but fully understood by a responsible being. We’ve had our bad times, more so than people who love less, they I think have a smoother course, but who would envy it, they never know the exaggerated depths I’ve known when out of tune with you, but they don’t know the highs either. Tonight my mediations have almost reached the stage when I can believe it possible that meeting you was not just a chance, tonight it seems a sacrilege to think that, we are so much each other now, if you were to tell me tomorrow you did not love me, and there was some else, I wouldn’t try to keep you, but somehow you would always be mine, however life went and whatever happened. I think you will laugh at this outburst, and I won’t blame you, because it will read funnily altho it doesn’t feel that way at all.

We don’t know and can’t gauge what our future will be, I mean in love and happiness we will almost certainly fight sometimes, because our dispositions seem to be that way, and make each other thoroughly miserable, but I also know that I love you with all my heart now and for ever and that any doubts I may have lie in my own inherent shortcomings which I am too proud to lay wholly here, but which I’m afraid must show up in time.

Dear I’m like Tennyson’s brook, but sleep is stopping me. Forgive these lengthy scrawls, devoid of grammar, and perhaps of sense, at home you can stay imagining flights, hundreds of miles away you have to suffer them, however you’re bound to get some lean letters soon to make up! I trust you don’t open these excesses of literature at table, or Dr & Mrs H will have fits and probably put me down as a maniac.

Bless you dear, how is the ‘neb’? All Love, Sheila1

P.S. My Russo – Chinese friend kept Mongol Hounds (whatever they are) in Manchuria, but they all took hydrophobia! It must be a nice peaceful life there.

1 A 1928 play by Leon M Lion. An elderly couple reminisce about the romantic adventures of their youth.

2 This date enabled me to date the letter as 9th May.

My Dear Girl,

12th May 1936. Alan, Glenapp, Mortimer to Sheila

Monday 9 pm

Your letter came at midday and was very welcome. (I always seem to begin so – but it’s true).

I’m glad you all had a nice time at Doreen’s birthday. I’m sorry you are still gluttonous. I thought you had got over that deadly sin. I remember a time when I marvelled at such a divinity needing so much food.

I’m glad your Mother is happy about our holiday. Oh Girl I want it and I’ll try. By the way Hay Fever begins in middle of June and so we should have to go to the sea for our holiday.

I shall give Dr H till Monday. He goes to London to visit the agencies tomorrow. I’m sorry you are only having a week at Achiltibuie when you like it so. Still it’s nice in a way to move on.

Dr Ambrose has just phoned to answer my reply to his advertisement.

He is just at the London Hospital and offers board and lodging in exchange fortnights work (after 8 PM). I have to see him on Thursday night. I’d like some hard cash however and I’ll see.

Well I’ve had an amusing afternoon. I went out and then rolled the tennis court. Then I marked it out and it looks fine. I’m looking forward tremendously to a game. I took my rocket out of my winter quarters and its strings are splendid.

I do wish I could get away without unpleasantness. You see a month here under such circumstances would be intolerable. But still I can’t stay indefinitely.

In Bed 11 PM

1) I’ve just had a talk with Dr H about the position. I pointed out how awkward it was for me:-

2) I wanted to get to the London as quickly as possible

3) I wanted my part-time job to be fixed as I could not afford to be without one.

4) I wanted a holiday and that at this rate I would not be free till July!

But I could not get him to say anything such as ‘Well you would arrange to go at such a time’. So I’ll wait till Monday and then tell him I can’t wait any longer.

You know he is very funny about some things. Dear you know from experience how I hate not knowing ahead about things so you can imagine I’m not very pleased.

The crux of the matter is of course nothing to do with the above but simply that I want to get ahead and bring nearer the time of earning a ‘marrying wage’.

The Hills are away from 11 AM tomorrow and they are off from Saturday midday to Sunday midday on a Theatre jaunt to London.

So I’ll save money this week. If I get better replies to my other adverts then I’ll not bother seeing Dr Ambrose and I’ll write him tomorrow. The present arrangement is for me to see him on Thursday night.

Dear Shiney Monday 9 PM to think that soon perhaps we shall be bathing together again. Dear

1 Sheila does not go for short sentences. Full stops are mostly used for paragraphs. So there are incredibly long sentences broken up by commas. The commas usually followed by ‘and’. So ‘, and …’. This gives her letters a breathless feel, as if writing in haste but that is clearly not always the case. In many of her letters I have broken up some of the sentences with a ‘Full Stop’ tho being careful not to change the meaning. In this one I have transcribed exactly as she wrote as an example of what I mean. She is pretty keen on ‘!’ as well, though they are often not followed by a capital letter.

love I want to do all the things with you which are so good that I’m completely natural and lose any grown-up manners.

Do you understand? I mean like jumping in and out water at Loch Morlich when there was no thought of past or future, no thought even of the present – just great fun.

Dear with you secure by my side I feel that no height of attainment is beyond my reach. But till then the attaining of (minimum marrying wage. Henceforth M.M.W.) seems just about my limit.

Dear this is a rambling boring scrawl. I’m going to sleep and here’s hoping I meet you there.

Wednesday May 13th

Well I’ve only one visit to pay today! So I don’t know how I’ll fill in the time. I may go in to a picture house in the afternoon. I thought I might practice serves by myself in the morning. It sounds sad but I can’t settle to work at pathology or anything else in my present state of uncertainty. Oh Beloved One the waste of writing time when I might be with you.

Bless you always. Regards to Mrs and Mr Steven.

13th May 1936, Sheila, 32 Falkland Mansions, Glasgow to Alan

My Very Dear,

Tuesday

In case you may have got hazy on the subject – I love you – quite daftly! But seriously I’m sure there is something out of the ordinary in our love, whether it will make us any more successful in our

times together I don’t know, but I’m sure it’s there. Dear I’m happy here, but I ache to be married to you, we’ve belonged to each other so long, but I want the peace we’ve never had.

Dad and I were at ‘Trinity’ on Sunday night and heard a masterly address on ‘The Christian and War’. Well it’s a vexed question, but I now know McC’s view to add to the other conflicting ones.

Dear it’s suddenly become an awful long time since last Sunday week and it seems such an age ‘till I see you again.

I’ve been reading very little these last few weeks as I’ve been sewing a lot – finishing a famous piece of tapestry which I started some years since and which looks surprisingly nice. Isn’t it extra ordinary to think of living together? But very nice.

I recovered my lost umbrella today which Glasgow Central seems to have scoured England for. I was a little bit stiff after the ride, but last night’s skipping about at Badminton cured it.

I’m listening to ‘Scrap Book for 1908’ on the wireless, it’s rather amusing. I think Mother is looking much better, I saw her yester...................................................................... 1

My Dear,

14th May 1936. Alan, Glenapp, Mortimer to Sheila

Thursday

I’m still no forwarder about getting away. It’s obvious from my repeated attempts to bring up the subject that Dr H would consider himself an injured party if I give notice. So there is going to be a bit of a row.

I’m very fed up with the whole business but there it is. I’ve decided it was not worth seeing Dr Ambrose as I want some money as well as keep. So I wrote that I would not go tonight.

Had a letter from a fellow J.B. McDonald (I think you met him at a Plaza Party of ours) who wants to know how to set about MRCP. I felt like telling him it wasn’t worth it!

I was free again at midday, there is so little to do just now, but although the tennis court was ready I had no one to play with. A ‘wee bit pathetic’ as you would say. I should like a game with you badly. I’m very grateful for your tickling me up to playing a year or two ago. I’ve enjoyed it immensely.

1 Following pages missing.

Dear never apologise for advising me. I value your opinion and want it more often than I get it Advise more often please.

I’ve been trying to arrange to see John Fergie in town next Wednesday. I wish I was in town for good. It’s lovely here just now but it all only makes me ache for you to be here.