Letter
The Hallé, Ida Carroll, Geoffrey Griffiths, Hilda Collens
Northern School Of Music (NSM)
1940

"The greater sins of Hitler had occurred to me too. It is plain the man is a cad of the first water." Griff is writing to Ida during an air raid warning.
They've seen each other in the past year more than he thought they'd manage but dreads the coming winter, especially as he knows she'll be extra busy with the Matthay School of Music with its principal Hilda Collens away.
He asks if she is going to the Hallé this season. "I should like to support them if you are! I should hate to go alone, nowadays - in fact I shouldn't go at all unless you went with me!"
He asks her out for a walk sometime soon and reckons they could survive it on chocolate, "which is very er... nourishing. Yes 'nourishing' is the word."
"I haven't got used to writing to you in the middle of an air raid warning" especially surrounded by family when he can't relax over what he wants to say. He wonders if the recent government advice is worth listening to, in that it's so unlikely that a bomb hits your house that you might as well just stay in bed. Problem is that the bomb is likely to hit *someone's* house so maybe we should all try and get out of its way just in case.
The raid has passed and he's off to his bath. "I hear either 'onions' or guns! Very confusing" (Or was it next door going to bed?)

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.