The Henson Journals

[108]

Saturday, October 18th, 1930.

A beautiful morning, but blustering & doubtful. Captain & Mrs Crapon, who arrived last night, were down betimes & full of energy. After breakfast Ella took them in the car to see the Roman Wall, and Mrs Underhill took her leave.

[symbol] Jack Carr came to lunch, & afterwards walked with me in the Park for an hour. This is his birthday, & today he completes 25 years of his life. Had our boy lived, he would have been about that age, & he too might have been a young clergyman. How differently had all earthly things looked, had he been here! But fiat voluntas Tua!

I motored in to Durham, and had some talk with the Bishop of Jarrow concerning Merryweather. He seemed relieved when I told him that the resignation wd not become effective until the first of December. This will give M. six weeks more income. But he must not again officiate in the parish. The task of placing him in an assistant curacy will not be easy: but he is penniless, married, and the father of four children.

The fact is that the man ought never to have been ordained.

[109]

Sir Charles Trevelyan is reported to have 'gone out of his way' to make an attack on his old school Harrow as being limited to the privileged class, and given over to the cult of athleticism. The accusations are familiar, but they ought not to come from the lips of Harrovians. He is a good fellow, but tactless and perverted by the sophisms of "Labour".

We had a dinner–party. The company were:–

1. Sir Richard & Lady Pease. Miss Pease.

2. General Sir Cameron Shute & Lady Shute.

3. Captain & Mrs Capon.

4. Peter & Enis Richardson.

5. Sir William Marris.

6. The Bishop of Durham & Mrs Hensley Henson.

7. Miss Fearne Brookes & The Rev. C. K. Pattinson

In all fourteen persons dined. The papist Captain came to chapel, but he was plainly uncomfortable: & was, I think pleased when I told him that he could go to Mass tomorrow at the R. C. Church. Sir Richard Pease is a heavy, dull man, whose conversational powers answered faithfully to his appearance. His wife, a quaint–looking person, was more attractive.

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