5 AUGUST, 2021

Good morning again, Harry!

We did have fun, though, didn’t we, with the Bletchley girls? They were especially kind to us children. Adoring, even.

There was that time at Christmas. It was a tradition in our family—one that was surely originally your idea—to celebrate the arrival of Father Christmas (Santa Claus, over here) with great fun and games, rather than make it a furtive, middle of the night affair whose only trace was the stuffed stocking left to be discovered in the morning. No, for us, Father Christmas came with fanfare and much clanging of cowbells loud “ho-ho-hos” reverberating through the upstairs of the house. One time he was a giant, arriving on stilts—not your skill, Harry, but one of your guests; another time it was an alternating pair of bristly mustachio’ed twins from the RAF base at Cranfield down the hill (“I know what you think, you think I’m Frank. Well I’m not, I’m Douggie!”)

And then there was the time that Father Christmas arrived with great hue and cry, driving a sleigh—an ancient perambulator (baby carriage, here) rescued from the attic and hauled along the top corridor by two harnessed “reindeer”, Vivian and Fiona wearing fur coats, on their knees. I suspect it might have taken a good few gin and tonics to induce their cooperation, but there they were, good sports, the whole party laughing wildly.

Fiona starred, too, in another Rectory extravaganza inspired by your old love of theater. I don’t recall the occasion—but perhaps you would? The title of the play was “Murder in the Rectory.” Did you write the script? I’m guessing so. You did love your mysteries: Agatha Christia, Ngaoi Marsh, Dorothy Sayers, Margery Allingham. You devoured them endlessly, there was always one on your bedside table. And your play was obviously inspired by them.

You staged it in the drawing room—the large, formal room with great windows looking out to the rhododendron bushes that marked the boundaries of the garden, the room where tea was served on special occasions with finger sandwiches and biscuits (okay, cookies here) and cake set out on the best art deco Burlington china. For the occasion, you rigged a curtain across one end of the room and arranged chairs for your audience at the other. Of the play, I remember only the heart-chilling scream of Fiona as the murder victim and the slash of bright red lipstick across her cheek where the “blood” poured out. I was terrified, clutching at my mother’s hand for reassurance.

I believe that you, Harry, were the murderer. If memory serves…

And here's my dark suspicion: that you lusted heartily after her, the seductive Fiona, as I did, just a child, and unable yet to understand my lust.

Lost in these memories, Peter