April is the Cruelest Month

Thank you to friends wishing me a happy 68th birthday on Sunday: here, by post and email. I had a home-made birthday cake with candles (not 68).I share my birthday with Conrad Russell, born 3rd April 1878 at his parents’ house in Mayfair. I am reading some of the letters he wrote over fifty years, 1897 – 1947, the year of his death. His brother, Gilbert,  was married to Maud Russell whose diaries I read recently and a friend recommended Conrad’s letters; a top tip. If like me you hadn’t heard of Conrad, Wikipedia says it all, as usual.

It’s worth noting he never went to school yet got a place at Balliol and is evidently very well read. His letters reveal a thoughtful, modest, generous, energetic and charming man. He writes about Brideshead Revisited; Evelyn Waugh was his neighbour in Somerset if not a close friend. He has reservations about the Catholic content and points out an error in the plot – I must investigate.

It’s a cold April here so far. On birthday +1 Robert, Bertie and I went walking with my birthday cake making cousins in North Essex. It was wettish and there was a strong and perishing wind in our faces. April weather is not reliable. It was cold in 1947 and Conrad remembers another cold April in a letter to Flora Russell.

”Tommy (Lascelles) and I went for a ride in France on 19 April 1917 and there were still deep snow drifts on the north side of the hedges. On 6 April my servant dug me out of the snow with a spade and six horses were frozen to death. I saw a man faint from cold and drop in the snow. He would have died if we hadn’t seen him. So winter mayn’t be over yet.”

It was cold on a birthday at Barmeath too.