Letter
Ida Carroll, Geoffrey Griffiths, St James Church Choir at Birch-in-Rusholme
1942

Ooh I love this letter. The first page is full rhapsody about how it's too long until they meet again. "But with due reserve about Mondays, it is the rest of the week I dislike so, now. Three whole successive days, and I never see you."
He laments the state of his desk, that his "treasures" of photographs that can't be seen for the crowding on his desk.
He's arranging a meeting, for a rendezvous, on the corner of Fog Lane and Wilmslow Road in Manchester. And asks if, later, they could perhaps visit Cheadle Church and walk back through fields. He is disappointed in the Birch choir (the church at Birch was one closely connected to Walter Carroll, Ida's father, and the choir is the one he managed which he signed Geoffrey up to before the war started). In Geoffrey's opinion, there are not enough people attending choir rehearsals but "wartime is no excuse for letting it go."
He dreams of them both together, on "a cheerful run with some mysterious bus as the object."
We learn that he's writing from "the blooming cellar" but that the all clear has just been given - he's using his time during an air raid warning to write her this letter!

Ref: CARROLL/IGC/3 GG
With thanks to the Ida Carroll Trust
Date is unknown.

Part of the #NSM2020 project "A 20/20 Legacy: the centenary of the Northern School of Music" supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.