10.04.1933. Hot Springs Hotel, Harrison Hot Springs, British Columbia
Dearest Parents,
Dear oh dear. It seems a long time since I wrote to you. Let me see – I sent you a letter by Air Mail from Vancouver at the beginning of last week, last Monday I think it was, and it’s now the following Monday.
We came here on Tuesday to have a spell before the beginning of the House Party on Thursday. This is a most glorious place on the edge of a lake, with hills all around and looks a cross between Switzerland and Scotland and there’s still snow on some of the higher mountains, and it’s all o’er loffly. On Wednesday afternoon, 3 of us rode on funny shaggy ponies, with a horribly jiggly trot, but it was great fun riding through the bush and along the lake side at the foot of the mountains. Then on Thursday people started to arrive for the House Party, and it really was the best one I’ve ever been to I think.
Such very remarkable things happened. We had a marvellous service on Sunday morning, at which a man called McGeer, who is what they call over here a radical lawyer, spoke to start with, and then Colonel Fell, an Englishman, read the lesson, which he prefaced by saying, ‘There are two very remarkable things about this morning. One is that I should be on the same platform as Gerry McGeer, and the other is that I’m reading the Bible’, which he then read very well. The joke was that they simply hadn’t been on speaking terms before, and when the house party was over McGeer gave a reception to which he invited Colonel Fell, who went.
Then there was the most appallingly cynical journalist who arrived ready to tear the whole thing to bits, and was generally on a high horse, but who by the end, although he wasn’t converted completely, changed his attitude, and said it was the first time he’s seen anything real. A young man called Hugh Robb, an old Etonian, came with his wife, hoping that we should think he was an interesting case and tackle him. But all the men had guidance to leave him strictly alone, so he had to swallow his pride and ask for an interview, and got changed and gave a party to all his friends yesterday (by the way it’s now Thursday) and told them so. They’re both leaving for England on Sunday, so they may turn up and call on you some time. By the way, again, before I forget, Col Fell said he used to know Canon Richmond of Carlisle, and danced with his daughter Mary Richmond, 30 years ago. I said I felt that Canon R was my great uncle; it sounded familiar somehow, so we became great friends. The Archdeacon came rather sniffily, but came round during the weekend, and also various businessmen who all decided to run their business on a basis of absolute honesty.
On Tuesday we came back and had a come back meeting, or rather the same four that we’d had the week before, at which all these people spoke and said what they saw in this for the future of things in Vancouver. Prison officials, insurance men, clergymen – to say nothing of women of different kinds and standing, some speaking in the ballroom and some from pulpits in the Cathedral and 2 other churches. I was in the Cathedral myself, and it was an extraordinarily impressive meeting. The general theme of it was divided into three, the world of ‘Cavalcade’ with all the mess up and unsolved problems as shown in the play, the world of the House Party where people came to find an answer to those problems through finding the answer in their own lives, and then vision for the future. How to bring those two worlds together through these principles being put to work in different spheres – family, prison, hospital, church, business, politics and international affairs, and ending up with this party at the McGeers that I told you of, where the most unlikely people all met together in a way that they simply wouldn’t have dreamt of doing before. There’s an enormous English population here, and it’s great fun to move in an English speaking world again.
This afternoon we go over to Vancouver Island for an Easter House Party at a place called Qualicum, where we shall have some of these new people on the teams and train them, after which the main body moves east to Calgary, Regina and Winnipeg, but Godfather, Hallen Viney and I are going to stay here for about a fortnight as sort of spiritual overseers to steady people on their spiritual legs and get them going, which should be immense fun, and frightfully interesting – incredible thought to be left in charge of a whole city. Clare (?can’t read surname) will be here by the end of the week, so we shall take the women’s work between us. I may not be embarking on a successful career as far as ordinary standards go, but I’m certainly being given responsibility, and it simply amazes me that Frank should trust me with it, but he takes if for granted that I shall be able to. So if you meet the Bishop of Durham and he says that there’s no room for initiative at this game, you can tell him that with my love, that I shall need all the initiative the good Lord can give me for the next fortnight, and it’ll be tremendous fun spotting the leaders and training them.
No, I really am not getting a swelled head, because the more I have to do, the hopelessly inadequate I feel. I have to refer back to God all the time to keep a sense of proportion.
I think I shall probably sail with Godfather and Clare on the 26th of May or thereabouts, arriving on June 2nd. I forget the name of the steamer, but we did look it up.
Your very loffing daughter, Maria
Please thank Nora for her letter, also thank you Mamma for yours, written just before the Kaye wedding.
English