The Henson Journals

[7]

Monday, June 6th, 1921.

After an early lunch, we i.e. Ella, Fearne and I, motored to Pittington, and there, in the glorious parish church which was crowded, I performed the ceremony of marriage between Major Wallace and Penelope Pemberton. After the service, Ella & Fearne went to the house. I motored to Seaham Hall, where I addressed a numerous company of women, members of the mothers’ union. The brilliance of the weather showed the house and grounds to the greatest advantage. I returned to the Castle, stopping at Ramside on the way in order to pick up the ladies. We were home about 6.30 p.m. Mr Dillon, Lord Londonderry's agent at Seaham, spoke to me rather earnestly this afternoon on the subject of future relations with the miners. He suggested my getting together at Auckland Castle a conference of mine owners and labour leaders to consider the possibility of finding a principle on which the industry might proceed in the future without these rapidly recurring crises. I said – and here he professed agreement – that nothing could be done until the present conflict had been brought to an end. After that, it might be worthwhile attempting something, though I could not profess to much hopefulness. The whole question has taken such vast proportions, and become so distressingly non–local and impersonal since the advent of vague theories running up into a new philosophy and impressing a new morality – both anti–Christian – that the action of a Bishop is hard to fit in.