The Henson Journals

[147]

Friday, July 24th, 1925.

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I chased up as much business as possible, and then (after an early lunch) motored to Barnard Castle, where I presided over a meeting of the Governors. The members in the School are still falling, and there is no chance of any recovery until this still deepening cloud of economic distress lifts from our community. I noticed, perhaps absurdly, that when I entered the Council Room, none of the Governors rose save two or three out of a dozen. It is a 'sign of the times'. Time was, when the knaves had no more thought of showing that rudeness to the Bishop of Durham than of stealing Durham Cathedral! And I don't think they meant to be rude. It is only that the Bishop no longer carries authority, or commands deference. He is just one of themselves, enigmatically entitled & endowed!!

I motored to Knowlden in Darlington, & then continued my course to Riccall Hall, 10 miles south of York, where I stayed the night with Lord & Lady Danesfort, very pleasant kind people, but getting old and ailing. I had much talk with Lord D. He is still as fond an impenitent Irish Tory, and _ this is the dreadful thing about Irish Toryism _ very probably quite right in the diagnosis of and remedy for the disease of the uncivilized Papists who constitute 'the Irish problem'!

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