The Wycliffe Companion

Letters from the Eighties

Aug 1984

WJB to Dr Grothusen, Kiel

St Patrick's, Holywell.

Dear Gehrd,

You heap coals of fire on the head of your delinquent friend with a wonderful letter after my brief missives (not even ranking as letters). The fact is that I have been annoyingly though not, I think, seriously unwell. If you have never had a recurrent earache I can tell you that it is an experience to be missed! As long as I remained relatively inactive I suffered only discomfort but things got much worse whenever I tried to do anything or even show an interest. My own doctor tried various medications and eventually referred me to a specialist in diseases of the ear. He turned out to be a Dane and might very well have been a reincarnation of Hans Andersen himself. He was equipped with an impressive array of electronic equipment which persisted in telling him and me that there was nothing wrong. I was not convinced. Eventually, whether to please me or because they had found something, I do not know—they agreed that the trouble was trigeminal neuralgia, a complaint I had suffered from before in a different form. The upshot was a wretched drug which certainly controls the symptoms but has a general depressive affect as well.

I hope that I am not given to (I think it is Mr Polly's phrase): hypochondrical verbosity but if it seems so at the moment you must forgive me because I certainly owe you an explanation of why I have not written decently before.

We were delighted to hear that you had a good holiday and especially interested in your Welsh experiences. Muriel was born and brought up on the Wye and we have been back several times for holidays between Chepstow and Hereford. It really does seem that the true Welsh are born with music in their blood. Even listening to their conversation one is aware of the rhythmical melodious quality which all but turns their ordinary speech into poetry.

As to your Scottish Civil Servant I am not going to be trapped into solecisms by a grammatical expert. I remember, in our junior school, the awful example that was set before us from an advertisement in the local paper: 'For Sale: a piano, by a lady with carved legs.' Incidentally, it is a peculiarity of our educational system that grammar is rarely taught as a subject. One is expected to 'pick it up'. I never did. I think the lack of a foundation in grammar goes some way to explain our difficulty in learning another language.

I was more than amused to hear about your chat with Lord Denning. I can well believe (a) that he would have been a Cromwellian, sword in one hand, bible in the other, (b) that he is not a friend of our dear Maggie. I sympathize on both counts but the alternatives to M appals me. The combination of Arthur Scargill (Miners' leader) with Ken Livingstone, (leader of the Greater London Council) would have us all good Comrades in a year or two. The Middle Way has lost its appeal in Britain mainly because we have reared two generations who have been told of their rights but not of their responsibilities. When things don't turn out as they have been led to expect they are liable to swing to one extreme or the other in a desperate attempt to make the real world fit their delusions.

As to Maggie's economics I have no views because I have never understood the first thing about economics. In simplistic terms it makes sense to me to take as one's economic text the old tag: "You can't get a quart out of a pint pot'. Those of the more gullible left seem to tell us that every pint pot is really a gallon jar. And I refuse to metricate that even for my friend!—not that I shall need to with his knowledge of the vagaries of these perverse Anglo-Saxons.

Going racist with you: are we admitted to the Nordic Valhalla? I hope so, because it seems to be the only version of paradise licensed to serve alcoholic drinks. More seriously, Race (with a capital R) is a subject which I try to avoid because my ideas are so mixed. Race in terms of nationality is clearly quite meaningless. In terms of groups of people who have been genetically isolated long enough to develop distinctive physical characteristics it does mean something. Clearly we are justified in distinguishing between Caucasoius, Mongoloids, Negroids, and Australoids, and between certain sub-divisions of those groups. In a world which brings these races more and more closely into contact is there any reason why they should not intermix? Biologically, the answer seems to be, No.

So we come to the most difficult bit—people who have been isolated by one means or another for long enough to evolve significant cultural differences, whether or not they are racially distinct. To my mind these make the most dangerous bedfellows and the tragedy is that such groups are being deliberately created in our modern world as a matter of political ideology. This, in my opinion, has nothing to do with race. This is the twentieth century nationalism which has been responsible for two world wars and may well cause a third. End of lecture! You will see that knowing nothing about the subject hasn't prevented me from writing about it.

Back to pleasanter things. I liked your poem in translation and share its sentiments, but your frequent claims to be 'an old man’ are by no means justified by the memories we have of you. We were impressed by a still vigorous and loving couple, so much so that it made us think we should be more adventurous, less complacent, and more resolved to be young in heart.

Incidentally, and in parenthesis, I have been reading Andre Gide's journals recently, also a biography of Ernst Fischer—An Opposing Man. I mention them because both these truly brilliant men showed a childishly naive credulity in regard to Communism when it really mattered. The more I read the more I incline to the view that in the thirties we were 'sold down the river' by our intellectuals, with, of course, the best and purest of motives.

On another note I have a book coming out in January—Wycliffe and the Four Jacks. When I get the advance copies I hope you will allow me to send you one.
It is set in Roseland—an area I think you know and where Muriel and I did the tramping of roads and by-ways which constituted our courtship.

I really must bring this rambling epistle to an end with the hope that my dilatory response will be forgiven in the circumstances.