Item 166 - Letter from Grettie Tovey to Elizabeth Trevelyan

1 item.

14 Napier Road, Edinburgh. - Apologises for not replying sooner; the month of concerts [by the Reid Orchestra] was 'a time apart'. The concerts were a great success, but in future they will be arranged for once a fortnight. The question of payment then became a concern, but the 'financial member of the [University] Court... a kind, interested friend' solved their problems and persuaded a private individual to pay the hundred pounds lacking; everything Mr Walker could do to relieve them was done cheerfully. Don's programmes, over which he took great trouble, sold well. They have not yet moved house; her aunt Maggie Anderson has invited them to stay at her house by the sea at Elie, which will provide beneficial rest, then they will organise the move. They do not expect to go south this summer, and have taken a house at Yetholm for September; her Aunt Jane will come with them. They all admire Robert Trevelyan's poem about Krishna; she and Don have also been reading 'Tom Sawyer' and 'Huckleberry Finn' aloud. Bessie has asked her to explain 'Sir Walter's "Dutchman"': she can only suggest that 'Dutchman' may be used to mean 'foreigner'. The Toveys went to Glasgow on Friday, as Don presided over the prize-giving at the Athenaeum school of music; Grettie describes the experience of being photographed at Lafayette's in the afternoon. Don is 'resuscitating' Kirkhope's Choir: a circular was originally enclosed with this letter. Hopes to be able to take up Bessie's kind invitation to come to the Shiffolds, and that they will also see the Trevelyans at 'The Wabe', as Don jokingly refers to the new house.