6th October 1932 - Terrick to Mary

Highland Hotel
Fort William

6th October 1932


Dear Mary

Thank you very much for lending me the snaps.  Most of them are jolly good, especially the ones with people in.  I should very much like a print of me on the stone and me & Norah on the mountain peak.  The ones of you two together do not do you justice, but I have a good one of you both in the print that Miss Olifant has just sent me.

I jolly well hope you do come where I am next year.  It will be a great relief when I am surrounded by old maids in their dotage to have you two young maids of no age at all.

I have not taken anyone to the pictures since you left.  I went alone the night before last to see William Powell in “High Pressure”.

The (?) is in full swing.  Compton Mackenzie has been staying in the hotel and last night there was a big party here with both Ramsay MacDonald and H V Morton present.  The latter phoned from the office to the “Daily Herald.” They are both the most ordinary-looking men you can imagine.  Morton is a very Londonish type and I absolutely refuse to believe that he can appreciate the highlands and islands properly.  When I saw him I decided not to bother to read “In Search of Scotland” at all, but I think I will, out of curiosity.

Everybody in the place is in a kilt and every night is made more or less hideous by Gaelic song until the early hours.  In the first half of the week we had about a hundred and fifty choir children who used to murder one another outside my bedroom door at 6 o’clock every morning, to an accompaniment of shrieks and groans; till I put my head outside the sheets and yelled: “Shut up!”

We are desperately busy.  Tomorrow night we are not going to bed at all.

I should love to come to the pictures with you some time.  It will be great fun to see you both again.  Here is your dainty handkerchief which you dropped under the train.  I hope you had enough to last you out the journey.

I am very sorry that you should have had such rotten seats on the coach; and I think the company does not sound at all suitable for two young girls fresh from school, with the schoolgirl complexions still on and all unused to blushing.

Give my love to Norah.  By the way, I climbed up Faith in Glencoe last time I went there.  I started with three other men and only one of them got to the top with me.  Going up was much more difficult than the one we did, but coming down round the side was a lot easier.  I have also been wading through the River Nevis with nothing on but a pullover belonging to Mr Ashe; but that is a long story and I will tell you about it when I see you at the pictures.

Love to yourself

From 

Terrick