Letter
Ida Carroll, Geoffrey Griffiths, St James Church Choir at Birch-in-Rusholme
Free Trade Hall
1938

Griff writes to Ida about his journey home, "A woman entered the bus, sat down near me, and WHISTLED to a male companion that she had spotted, the vehicle being a bit overcrowded; there were about ten unfortunates at the Parrs Wood Road stop who had to watch the bus tear by, I felt sorry for them."
They've been to see Robin Hood and he was almost inspired enough to join an amateur dramatics society. He discusses the merits of actor Claud Rains and others.
It sounds like there's trouble at Birch church. She has urged him not to let "general thought about apparent church and congregation inefficiency to warp me about the particular matter - the choir effort." Some members of the choir don't want to support the Whist Drive, holding that their work in the choir is supportive enough and resent the entry fee. Church management is getting in the way of team spirit.
He interprets her slippery mountain dream, not as anxieties about Manchester City's league struggles, but as either a hard achievement to be won or too much supper.
His catarrh medicine makes him "feel like a microbe" and he's running out of paper so that he may have to send her pages from the newspaper "with appropriate letters and words underlined."
He invites her to a concert by Paul Robeson, a bass singer like Griff, who had a cold the last time he saw him. In fact it was the time when Ida saw Griff "that season when you saw me at the Gigli concert, propped up in the corridor of the Free Trade Hall, also with a frightful cold."

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.