[35A School St., Andover, Mass.]
I have not heard from you for some time, and hope that it is no more than the normal beginning-of-term pressure, and that nothing has gone wrong with your health after the so successful tour of the West Country, or that there have been difficulties at 1000 Beacon Street. ICheetham, Revd Ericleaves affairs in a mess;h8 have been busy enough, andSt. Stephen's Church, Gloucester Roadvestry goings-on;a2 the complications left by Father Cheetham continue to be very worrying. It is odd that he has never communicated with me or with my fellow warden since February. Yet he has been back in England and gone away again. The little old Father Howard who has been carrying on manfully since the beginning of February, but he is 76, a retired man who came in for the emergency [sic]. And the fact that Cheetham has left us with nothing in the way of a vicarage or domicile for a new man deters clergy who might otherwise accept the living. I am afraid that Fr. Cheetham is beginning to be less popular with some of the congregation than he was, which is a pity. He sent a most unfortunate letter, blandly ignoring our difficulties, to be put into the parish magazine1 – I shall ask Fr. Howard, if any more such communications come, to show them to me and Becker first. I am afraid, alas, that Fr. Cheetham is more self-centred than his friends could wish.
However, that’s just one worry. PoliticsSuez Crisis;a1 is a pretty severe strain at present – with (as it seems to me and to some other people) a weak Prime Minister, and a reckless and irresponsible opposition; and with Dulles blowing hot and cold over Suez.2 WeAmerican Presidential Election1956and American foreign policy;a1America
IElder Statesman, Thein abeyance;a4 shall try to put some of these matters out of my mind in a few weeks time, when I am able to resume work on my play, which had got such a little way in January. My abscess is still rather a nuisance, and will probably have to be drained again – unless he decides to have it lanced – which means, I think, a general anaesthetic. But it’s not really painful. I do hope you will be able to write soon and give me news of yourself.
IHale, Emilycorrespondence with TSE;w3TSE reiterates 50-year prohibition;j1 have thought over the question of the letters. Many of them contain comments on living people; I should not like the letters to be made public until everyone whose feelings could be hurt, or whose interests damaged in any way, are dead. Fifty years is the usual time; and they shouldn’t be published before then without the consent of my literary executors. I have arranged for a continuing executorship – there will always be a member of the firm of Bird & Bird in charge. But if they were made available to students earlier than 50 years after, although they could not be published, a great deal would get out, and it might not be possible to deal with those who quoted from the letters until the mischief was done.
———— P.T.O.
That seems to be the end of this letter! Do write soon.
DudleyFitts, Dudleyhis Frogs;a3 Fitts’sAristophanesFrogs;a2 FROGS was broadcast on the Third programme, I believe with success, but alas I had to be out that evening and couldn’t listen.4
1.‘ACheetham, Revd Ericinsouciant letter to parishioners;h9n Letter from Father Cheetham’, St Stephen’s Magazine, Oct. 1956, n.p.: ‘Dear Friends, / I returned from my long rest on the cargo boat at the end of July, but as I felt as tired as when I left London on March 1st, I went at once to the nursing home in North Wales where I have been a patient from time to time during the last twenty years.
‘The doctors impressed on me the necessity of learning to live at a slow pace, resting each day as much as possible, and above all to avoid being caught up in the stress and pressure of the period which is past. No letters had been forwarded during the five months I was away, and so a large mail, over four hundred letters awaited my return.
‘Thank you so much for writing so kindly. When I read how the workers at S. Stephen’s had carried on during the big festivals under Father Howard’s good priestly guidance, I was indeed happy.
‘If I obey doctors’ order and go slowly and very quietly, I hope in due course to see you, but for the next six months I must be, as it were, in Retreat, and I hope to escape the coming winter by going abroad in October.
‘In due course a new Vicar will be appointed at S. Stephen’s, and life for us all will be more normal once again.
‘I am remembering you in my prayers, how could I ever forget, and I know I am still numbered in yours, and am so grateful.
‘My blessing, / As always, / Your devoted friend, / Eric Cheetham.’
2.The nationalisation of the Suez Canal by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, in July 1956, led to an invasion of the canal zone on 29 Oct. by British and French forces. John Foster Dulles – President Dwight D. Eisenhower’ Secretary of State – had long worked to redirect Egypt’s foreign policy towards an anti-Soviet stance, and would not commit the USA to support the Anglo-French claims. The conflict, which went on until 7 Nov., led to the resignation of PM Anthony Eden, who was thought to be ineffectual throughout the conflict.
3.The US presidential election, held on 6 Nov. 1956, gave Eisenhower a second victory over Democrat Adlai Stevenson.
4.Dudley Fitts’s English version of Aristophanes’ The Frogs, directed by Christopher Whelen, was broadcast by the BBC on 1 Oct. 1956. (It was to be repeated on 28 Dec. 1956.)
4.RevdCheetham, Revd Eric Eric Cheetham (1892–1957): vicar of St Stephen’s Church, Gloucester Road, London, 1929–56 – ‘a fine ecclesiastical showman’, as E. W. F. Tomlin dubbed him. TSE’s landlord and friend at presbytery-houses in S. Kensington, 1934–9. See Letters 7, 34–8.
3.DudleyFitts, Dudley Fitts (1903–68), American poet, translator and literary critic, won especial praise for his translations of Euripides’ Alcestis (1936) and Sophocles’ Antigone (1939), King Oedipus (with Robert Fitzgerald, 1949), and Aristophanes’ Lysistrata (1954), Frogs (1955) and Birds (1956). Other work includes Poems 1929–1936 (1937).