Aug 17 Wednesday.

Preparing for James & Ethel Reeves. No work at all either before or after they came. * We were just showing them over La Chevrie when Anita (who is having another child) Juan, Juanita and Francisca Ripoll arrived & stayed the whole afternoon. A game of 7 ¼ with James, David, Alan, Beryl, Juan, Anita, Laura, me; ×××× [indecipherable] in the course of which I won 44 francs – to buy 4 lottery tickets for general benefit. Tea & coffee & cakes on the grass on the lake side of the house. In the evening we sat round the fire in the dining room – more full of bees than ever – building up by contributions in turn the story of a sick engineer with troubles with his wife & initials C.M.L. and a temptation to go to Sweden and a fussiness about clothes; and another about a woman of 58 who hunted, had been to Portugal, lived in Earl's court, inherited money, had a solicitor friend with whom she played a complicated card game. James gave us a brown[RG] lustre sugar basin and we him the glasses I got in the Place de la Bretagne1.

Editorial Notes

1 Place de Bretagne, Rennes, France eds.

Hands Referenced

    • Annotation: ink correction
    • Character: regular
    • Ink: black

Places Mentioned

  • Château de la Chevrie

    Montauban-de-la-Bretagne, Brittany, France
    translating as "Venison Castle," La Chevrie was manor of an estate that RG & LR rented with Alan Hodge and Beryl Pritchard during their stay in France in 1938

  • Earl's Court

    Kensington & Chelsea, London, England

People Mentioned

  • Alan

    Hodge, Alan
    Oxford history graduate. Became close friends with LR & RG. First husband of Beryl Graves. CP & WG

  • Laura

    Riding, Laura
    (1901-91) American poet. Laura Riding (née Reichenthal; then Laura Gottschalk).

  • Anita

    Ana, Anita
    Marroig. Gelat's daughter, married to Juan Vives the Doctor's brother. Live in Rennes, France. WG

  • Beryl

    Pritchard, Beryl
    daughter of Harry and Amy Pritchard, R.G.'s second wife. Formerly married to Alan Hodge. Robert and Beryl had four children: William, Lucia, Juan and Tomas. eds

  • Juan

    Vives, Juan
    The Doctor's brother. Married to Gelat's daughter. Lived in Rennes, France. WG

  • David Reeves

    Reeves, David
    Brother of James Reeves [and Ethel Herdman] RPG 292.

  • James

    Reeves, James
    Schoolmaster, writer and Poet. Friend of Jacob Bronowski. W.G./ K.G.; m. to Mary Phillips; daughter Stella born June 14, 1938 eds.

  • Ethel

    Reeves, Ethel
    Sister of James Reeves. AMG 317.

  • Juanita

    Vives, Juanita
    Juan and Anita Ana's daughter WG

  • Francisca

    Francisca
    The "Francisca" of "Laura and Francisca." eds. A young resident of Deyá; her mother Francisca Messiana helped out at Canellun. W.G. Also called Francisquita (but so were other Franciscas in the village). Later m. to Miguel Ripoll (see Friedmann 179) eds.