Badsey
Evesham
Oct 22/02
My dear Kathleen,
I think uncle Dilnot will come here on 30th or 31st he is now in Glasgow, leaves Saturday and will be in Folkestone on Sunday, then he has to run over to Rotterdam on business before coming here, as May’s mid-term holiday commences on 31st I think she will come here to meet him as she will be able to stay till the Monday afternoon and I shall write to Mr Chambers asking him to let Arthur off after school on the Saturday and allow him till Monday evening, we shall ask Marian for the week end and if she can come and uncle Frank turns up too we shall be quite a big party for a day or two. I shall now wait till I see uncle before making plans for you and the other two boys to meet him, but you shall not be forgotten, I suppose you could manage almost any Saturday afternoon and Sunday at Richmond, returning early Monday morning.
The group came to-day and is certainly very good and if some likenesses are better than others there are no failures.
You will be glad to hear that Cyril was again top of his form but only by the narrow margin of 4 marks, however other boys seem working hard, he was 1st in Latin and 2nd in French which is quite satisfactory.
I hope your debate will go off well and that you will get a majority for the bill, I think there are signs that the nonconformist sectarian fury has rather overshot the mark and I am in hopes the Government will bring the matter to a successful issue in due course, there can be but little doubt that the bill is calculated to improve education throughout the country and after all that is the chief thing for the religious difficulty is more in imagination than in practice. The Radical Dissenting chagrin is chiefly owing to the fact that they hoped the voluntary schools would be gradually starved out (whereas this bill will strengthen them) and thereby Church teaching weakened and with it the position of the national Church.
The contract for the bells is signed and they are to be put in before Xmas so we shall be before the clock notwithstanding all their scheming, by the way it is rather a joke that after all they will have to use one of the new bells for the quarter chimes, shift could have been made with the old six bells but the eight are required to give the proper tones and effect.
The Hunt window is to be unveiled on Nov 4th and I very much hope it will be quite a nice one and then it will be a great improvement to the Church. The clock selected is a really good one and will be ready early next year, of course there were some who would have preferred a cheaper one and thought the Westminster quarter chimes rather superfluous but then these were mostly of the kind who wanted clock as a dinner gong without any reference to its being an ornament and a credit to the Church.
We have not yet heard about Auntie Polly’s visit, she is leaving Rosway shortly, I don’t suppose she will come until after our short influx of visitors.
Mother joins me in love to you and I remain
your affectionate Father
Julius Sladden
