George’s letter to Rick, 4 November 1952
George wrote this letter to his nephew Richard (Rick), Alan’s son, soon after Rick began three years’ regular service with the Royal Armoured Corps at Hadrian’s Camp, Carlisle. It is typed on George and Jean’s notepaper; the year, the signature and the postscript are in ink. The typist’s crossed-out letters are left out.
45, Pinner Park Avenue, Headstone Lane, Harrow, Middlesex.
Hatch End 1763.
November 4th. 1952
Dear Trooper,
Your mother has only just let us know your address or we should have written before. It’s quite an event having a soldier in the family again. You may not know it, but you had a great-uncle killed in 1917 (blown up by a mine in a suicidal counter-attack ordered by staff officers who were some miles behind the line) and your father skipped out the army to join the R.F.C. I missed it myself, and I’m sorry. It’s thrilling to learn that you’re in for 3 yrs. regular service. I have never heard of a C.O. called Hadrian. Is he a general?
We are all pretty well, and working hard without getting anywhere, like a swimmer in mid-Atlantic. My Dan Dare story about the Red Moon was so successful that they’re publishing it in Australia. But I’m not occupied with Dan at all these days. The Editor accepted one story called “Winds of Space” but the artist (a very fine fellow called Hampson who has a small boy who wears a space-suit and refers to doors as “air-locks”) decided that he was fed-up with the present universe, as known, and the next story will therefore show Dan skedaddling into Outer Space. I don’t know what the story’s called, but it’ll be good. The present Mercury story is a wash-out, and not by me or Hampson. I am much occupied with writing the two cartoon-serials in GIRL – “Robbie” and “Starling”. Robbie is so popular that I have had to think-up another story about her, dealing with a drowned valley, but Starling is to be replaced by a soppy item dealing with a girls’ ballet-school. The artist is John Worsley, who does the PC.49 drawings in EAGLE. I have never attended a girls’ ballet school so had to begin from scratch – very funny to go there and see these shapely little poppets bouncing up and down. Also young men who might be doing 3 yrs. r.s. whirling round and round on the points of their toes. I’ve just had a novel accepted (title not yet decided upon) all about a 5-years-old crime in a small French village. [underlined in ink, with a tick]
That’s all about me. Your Auntie Jean is plumper, Victoria is a grown-up young lady, and Anthea is quite a character. She always runs, never walks, with the result that she turns corners at 45 degrees, head down. A biography is to come out this month about your great-uncle (the famous one) but as a biography it is plain bad. I have read the proofs and don’t remember so incompetent a bit of writing.
Someday you will be posted nearer London and when that happens we want you to make use of us. We shan’t mind if you turn up at midnight or anytime and want a bed. But I shall feel really hurt (I mean this) if you don’t come and see us all you can. That is what uncles are for. Don’t forget. Here is a scrap of paper to remind you – keep it and you will never be penniless. Better still, send it back – I’ve had to borrow it from A. Jean.
Jolly good luck, Rick,
from
Uncle C
Keep us posted with your addresses
Envelope: 22814109 Tpr. Beardmore J.R., 32nd. Intake A Squadron, 67th. Training Regt. R.A.C., Hadrians Camp, Carlisle, Cumberland. Postmarked Harrow, Middx., 9.15 am, 5 November 1952.
Notes: the famous great-uncle is Arnold Bennett, and the biography was almost certainly Reginald Pound’s Arnold Bennett: A Biography, published that year. The novel about a crime in a French village was probably A Thousand Witnesses (1953). The great-uncle killed “in 1917” was probably Sydney Marsden, husband of Alan’s aunt May Beardmore, who was killed with the North Staffordshire Regiment near Loos in October 1915; no one else in the family is known to have died in the war. George’s Dan Dare story was “The Red Moon Mystery”, drawn by Frank Hampson. The “soppy item” about a ballet school became Belle of the Ballet.