43. "We think that the kitten is a lady"- My First Letters.

Drawing on back of letter of 8th June 1947

In September 1945 my father enrolled at Ridley Hall Theological College in Cambridge and my mother, sister Elizabeth and I went to stay with my grandmother in Edinburgh. In the spring of 1946 we moved to Sussex where my mother helped to run a children's house, White Turret. It was from there that I wrote the two earliest letters of mine that my mother kept [see blog 30]; they are reproduced here. The first was to my father in Cambridge just before we moved there in 1947. I was a couple of weeks short of seven years old.

Me at White Turret

The second letter was written from Cambridge to my Mum and Dad in May 1948. I am not sure why they were away but they did spend time over that summer checking out possibilities for my father's first curacy after completion of his theological studies and ordination.



These two photos were taken in Cambridge when we were lodging with the pentecostal Miss Job, her springer spaniel, cat and two ducks Cleo and Theo [see blog 30, "Of Primary Schools, Pets and Pauper Lunatics"]. I don't remember the name of the girl standing between Elizabeth and I. Nor do I remember what it was finally decided to call the kitten.