Exeter.—Lucy is unwell (in London), and will not be able to get up for two or three weeks. Describes Minnie’s amusing recital of the creed. Congratulates Sir Frederick Pollock on being made Queen’s Remembrancer. Has written to The Times to suggest that the Oxford railway accident may have been caused by the use of an old carriage.
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Transcript
Exeter.
Dec 27/74
Dearest Mother
I can’t write anything coherently because there is a man here talking to Papa and and nothing muddles me like a noise. Poor Lucy is laid up with a very severe cold and slight fever. She had a violent toothache and her face swelled up to an awful size and I took her to Fletcher who did her some good. But the doctor says she won’t be able to get up for two or three weeks, poor little thing. It’s very wrong of Mr Providence to make her ill just as I have to be down here and can’t look after her. My little sister Minnie (9½) has distinguished herself. She was saying the creed to Edith “he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead ‥ and after several other adventures he got back to heaven.” They all send their love to you. Please to congratulate Sir Frederic from me on being made Queen’s Remembrancer and ask him to remind her that I am going to be married and would like a nice large pension.
Mind you get rid of your cold and don’t go to see Hamlet too often. I have written to the Times to say that an old carriage broke down on the train I came down by, just at the time of the Oxford accident; merely to illustrate the practice of the railway company. {1} It may be put in tomorrow (Monday). I shall write to Morley tomorrow and tell him to apply to you. I have read more of my book about the Arabs (Dozy, histoire des Musulmans d’Espagne) and am more than ever delighted with it. Goodnight, dear Mama; a happy new year to you all.
Your loving son
Willi
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Letter-head monogrammed ‘W C’, presumably the initials of the writer’s father.
{1} On 24 December a serious railway accident occurred on the Great Western Railway line close to Shipton-on-Cherwell, near Oxford. Thirty-one people were killed and more than seventy injured. Clifford wrote to The Times the next day to suggest that the accident might have been caused by the use of an old carriage ‘which had not been used for some time’, since the breakdown of an old carriage had delayed his own journey from Paddington to Exeter on the same day. His letter was printed on Thursday the 31st (p. 7).