| Description | Interview with Davidina B. Garden, (nee Bonner), recorded on 12 November 1993 by Myrtle Anderson-Smith and Mary Williamson
continuation of MS 3620/1/98/1
Transcription of Interview :
AS. We have heard that practically every student went to the Debater. Was that true of yourself?
G. Yes, indeed.
AS. And, do you remember some of the outstanding debates?
G. I really couldn't say.
AS. Or speakers?
G. Actual themes and subjects, No.
AS. Did you go regularly every week?
G. Yes, yes, it was Friday night, and Friday night was regarded as end of week fun night, and we enjoyed that. I remember some of the people who spoke here and there. One of our group was Isobel Sharp, who is, as far as I know, still alive, but I haven't been in touch with her to know, and she was extremely good as a speaker and organiser, and a young man from London, who had a good Scots name, Grant, and he entertained everybody by being very witty, clever, and also because he had a powerful London accent, which sounded rather odd in our ears. Weren't so accustomed to being cosmopolitan as Aberdeen is now. I'm trying to think of other names that come to my mind. What I do remember is that we occupied every interval in the beginning by singing student songs. I expect the same songs as you know. all sorts of things: Clementine, Riding down from Bangor on an eastern train, There is a tavern in the town.
AS. There were serious debates, but yet it was good fun every Friday evening.
G. It was. Yes, and those who were good at changing from grave to gay were always applauded. We got the witty quip and the aside that entertained. And yes, it was a jolly, come-together kind of occasion, even if some of the debates were perfectly serious ones.
AS. Another aspect of student life that we haven't touched on is the annual charities campaign. Did you get involved in that?
G. Oh, yes, we all did, yes. Dressed up and collected and so on. Two kinds of collections, really: we did sober collecting dressed in our ordinary clothes and tramped up and down, given an area, and we often did our own Kittybrewster area, which had lots of tenements and poor people, but they were very good at giving, though what they gave was small. But it did strike me then, how many poor people there were. There's the evidence of poverty that was around us, in more than one way. And then the fun side was when we dressed up for the general collection, when we didn't stick to one area, but joined in the general activities, went down town, had the usual procession of floats, and that kind of thing. And that was fun, and we all joined in that, and loved the dressing up, one way or another, improvised costumes. The only one I remember wearing was. I was a French student of Art, and the conventional picture was a kind of Rembrandt velvet bonnet stuck on one side, a tunic, a floppy bow. I thought I looked rather dashing! And I was dashed, by one old man, who surveyed my companion up and down; he says, "I can see what she thinks she is, but in the name o' Heaven, fit are 'ee?" So Left Bank, and foreign student, said nothing to him at all. Yes, I remember that, it was fun.
AS. This work with the Charities Campaign obviously brought you into contact with the people of Aberdeen. Had you any other contacts? Were you involved at all in any sort of social outreach, or anything?
G. Well, mainly in the houses of my friends, those of them who lived in Aberdeen, whose parents were hospitable, and who invited us to parties and to Sunday supper, and that kind of thing.
AS. You mentioned seeing the real conditions of poverty. Was it quite a shock for a country girl to come into Aberdeen and find how some people were living?
G. Yes, yes, I think so. Perhaps if I say that some streets smelt of poverty; you don't need more detail; they did. In a way that one wasn't aware of in a small country town.
AS. You were in fact rather sheltered from this in the neighbourhood of King's College, perhaps?
G. Yes, yes, there were lots of tenements, but what I should say were respectable working class, like the people, the very nice widow in whose home I lived for three years.
W. But that wasn't the case round about Marischal College. You felt there that you had seen some real poverty.
G. Yes, yes. There were some very seamy, smelly, grotty little streets there that you were conscious of poverty in: Queen Street, which is now quite a respectable - become a little bit of passageway, just - was packed with tiny shops, and the prominent one was a pawnbroker. And that was perhaps typical. The only way you could raise money if you were very poor was pawning something. And it looked prosperous. But other little tiny shops you felt were hanging on by their fingernails.
W. You never felt afraid of people who were poor, as we do nowadays,
feel a bit worried about being mugged, or ...
G. No. If there is one great contrast, and I spent a holiday this year with my closest friend, who was in the same Honours group as myself, and she was remarking to that, she said: "You know, we went out of nights, and went here and there, and visited one another, without a thought crossing our minds that we were in any danger whatsoever."
W. Even passing through areas like Queen Street...
G. Yes, but, you see, we would have taken trams or buses going around, trams, of course, mainly trams down George Street - that's how we got to the centre of town; and then another tram up to Queen's Road, or whatever, wherever we were going. But we went around, I shouldn't think a lot alone, but even when we were alone, we didn't have this fear, it didn't cross our minds, quite literally, that we were in any danger whatsoever. It was a harder world, and a poorer world; but, looking back, we felt safer in it than I do now. That is one big contrast, I think, with today. One is so conscious, obviously, of this ...
And we didn't live by listening to the news, no TV, radio , yes, but we didn't clutch it to our bosoms, as it were. Nor have the daily dollops of misery that we get all the time now, because a good deal of our consciousness of miseries via the media nowadays. We weren't unaware, we were perfectly aware of what went on, but we were not personally insecure, we did not feel unsafe. There is a big difference that I feel in atmosphere. My mother would leave the back door key under the mat, where anybody could have picked it up, if she happened to go shopping, so the first person in would just - or leave the door open; it never occurred to her that she would be burgled. Probably she would have said in her caustic way, "What's worth burgling?" But, even so, that was quite common conduct. In a small country town, we did not think in terms of crime.
W. Did you find the same in Aberdeen? in your digs, for example?
G. Yes, yes. We were not encouraged to be too late in. I think that was about the only rule, if you can call it a rule, that we did observe, so that we were aware that it wouldn't be a good thing to be unescorted at midnight. But, of course, we avoided that situation.
AS. How did you keep abreast of news? Did you read the newspaper; or did you gather round the radio back in your digs in an evening?
G. Very little radio, I'm afraid. The evenings were given up to reading mainly. But then we were talking; we were talking to one another. Probably there would have been a paper in the digs and we would have taken a look at the local paper, and that kind of thing. And people discussed news and we heard that. We were perfectly aware of what was going on, but we didn't know, I don't remember spending time listening to radio. Not everybody had radios, actually.
W. Did you tend to study together in your digs? Did a few of you get together and study? or ...
G. I digged with a friend, and we would have studied together, yes. Yes, we shared a bedsitter in her aunt's house. Evenings would have been devoted to that, or occasionally the Central Reference Library, if we wanted to look things up, in an evening; but mainly, of course, at King's itself, afternoons, and so on.
AS. Was it not open in the evenings, the Library at King's?
G. I don't think so, no. I'm not totally certain of that. But I have no recollection of going there at night, at all. I think on the whole I'm right in thinking that it closed at 5.30, or whatever.
W. Were you expected, then, to buy most of your books yourselves, when the Library was closed so often...?
G. Yes, yes. But, then, we had the great advantage of second-hand books. And there was in the New Market - new then - a huge second-hand shop, which was a chaos, a jumble, but run by a man who could unerringly put his finger in this clutter of stock and the particular one you wanted. And we got these - they weren't in mint condition, far from it, but we got these at prices we could afford and we all bought second-hand books. We relied on the Library for texts and that kind of thing, standard work, criticism, particularly; but, I was going to say you bought your Shakespeare, but I had a Shakespeare. You did buy second-hand and we all did it, I mean; it was just one of the ways. I think there is still some scheme going on; some of the students do that now.
AS. There was nothing organised by the students themselves, within the Union?
G. No, because there was - I'm instancing this New Market one, because it stays in my mind as being almost miraculous, that he could manage his stock. Talk about fathoms deep. They would be ten deep, in a clutter. But it was cheap and it was accessible and it was central and that's how we managed to get on about books. And we borrowed from one another. We clubbed together, or we would exchange, or we'd buy one between us, that kind of thing, if you were doing that. That was generally one. But we did not have money to spare for new books, that would have been very luxurious.
AS. You've mentioned quite a number of your fellow students. Was Olive Fraser in the same class as yourself?
G. Yes, yes, she was.
AS. So you knew her for the four years you were at university?
G. Yes, yes, yes.
AS. Were you quite close friends?
G. Very close friends, yes.
AS. Did you meet up early in the first year and ...?
G. Oddly enough, I met her - I didn't really get to know her until about Junior Honours and I met her through Helena Shire. And how Helena came to meet her, I don't know. Helena had the kind of nose for interesting characters, and she must have met her somehow or other, and by Junior Honours we were down to a small group, of course, and we all knew one another. But we had begun in the Ordinary class of about what? two hundred? So you did not know people until they got winnowed out. So that I knew Olive very well, but we were great friends for our last two years. We spent a lot of time together.
AS. And what are your abiding impressions of Olive?
G. Different.
AS. In what way?
G. A defier of rules, where most of us conformed. An original character. Very bright. Creative talent. In her first year she won the prize for verse, which was open to the Senior Honours group; and that rather set the tone, because she was a considerable writer and poet, even when she was a girl. And we were aware of Olive being unusual in style, unusual in talent, and the creative talent that very often doesn't accompany the critical one. I'm being rather dogmatic there, but I think you know what I mean. She could, and did, turn out astoundingly good stuff. So she impressed with that. And also she was, she had a fourth form sense of humour that never left her entirely; rather liked practical jokes. We must have been wondering round the Aultoun at one point, because I remember a low window on a summer night was half open, and there was a cat resting on the window ledge, and before I could realise what she was doing, Olive just 'posted' the cat through the window. She wrote up a story about that: The night we posted the cat. Didn't do it any harm at all, but I tugged her away, because I thought there might be repercussions. That was the kind of thing.
AS. Where was her poetry published, or made accessible?
G. She wrote, I suppose, she must have written for Alma. This prize that she got, for example, it would have been published. Not in regulation book form, or anything of that kind. I suppose I was aware of it because she would read the things.
AS. She read personally to you.
G. Yes, exactly, yes. Then asked if I liked this or that.
AS. So you were aware that she was building up a collection of poems.
G. I didn't think of it in those terms, but yes, I would have been. I wasn't thinking, really, ahead to her future, or anything of that kind. But I was aware of her as an unusual character, and an unusual talent. Yes, we all were.
AS. And did she have many other friends.
G. Yes, she had many friends, including quite a number of boyfriends, yes. Yes, she was an attractive looking girl in those days. It is a sad story, because I don't think she ever enjoyed life so much afterwards as she did. It was a case of a brilliant morning that didn't go on to a successful close.
AS. And when you left University, were you able to keep up with her?
G. Yes. She was at home for a couple of years, while she ... I don't quite know, I think it was a matter of money a good deal, and she didn't get to Cambridge, although she was an obvious candidate for it, until two years after she graduated, with the result that she went up to Cambridge at the same time as Helena. They went to different colleges, but they went there together and did see something of each other in Cambridge. And from there I think she hoped to employ her talent as a writer to make her way. I think her scheme possibly of what she was going to do was a little hazy. And I didn't hear so much of her thereafter, when she went from job to job, and I was busy, of course, myself. Heard occasionally via Helena how she was doing. And she did badly at Cambridge, because she fell ill there, and got her degree, but it was an ægrotat, in other words it was granted her because of her illness. And I think that must have been the beginning of some of the mental trouble that went on later. And she did ... she had some very good friends, I know that. I can't remember some of their names; I heard of them later. The war, when the war came, I think she must have been coaching or tutoring - she was a little vague about this - but for a time I lost her completely. I sent her an invitation to our wedding. But I got no answer, and she didn't come. And twenty-four years later, the doorbell rang and I went to the door, and what appeared to be a perfect stranger stood on the doorstep, then shoved an untidy parcel into my hand, and she said: "That is your wedding present". She took twenty-four years to accomplish that. And then I heard the sad story, that she had had a massive breakdown, spent years in a London hospital, and had recovered to a very considerable extent, and had come to Aberdeen, rather hoping that she might pick up some of her old friends, or get some help to have a job or something of that kind. And it was a sad story, really, though through all her various illnesses and vicissitudes she must have gone on writing, because there was quite a considerable ... Well, you've seen her book.
AS. Yes, and, of course ...
G. ... quite a considerable volume, and that was not all of it, that was, more or less, the best.
AS. And as you know, all the related papers have been deposited in Aberdeen University Library by Mrs Shire.
G. Yes, that's right ...
AS. Which is why we are here so interested in
G. Well, a good deal of the material she got from me, you see, because when Olive settled down here, if you can call it settling, she came here a lot, and she would write and sometimes re-write her poetry and hone it a little, and she would bring me along a copy, so that I had a vast deal of material that she had been working at, or reworking, and so on, and I handed it all to Helena when she was starting her book.
AS. So you opened your home in Aberdeen to her, when she returned to Aberdeen?
G. Yes, yes.
AS. and were able to support her in those last years.
G. Yes. The last year or two I didn't see her, because she took grave offence - she lost friends with this, I think, because she wouldn't compromise. My husband got tired, I regret to say, of her sometimes over-frequent visits, because, I think, he resented this business of her disappearance for a quarter of a century and then commanding the right of entry when she was better. He wasn't ... indeed, he was the most patient and tolerant and kindly man, but she bored him, because, how shall I put it, if you lead a life in an institution, your horizons narrow, and in her case she was barely aware of a world outside, and my husband's interests were ... he was interested in politics, national, international, the world of today, his interests were wide - and to hear Olive chatting about her poetry, or even more boringly about her fellow patients, just did bore him, I'm afraid, and he tended to withdraw. And she was telephoning me one night, and he lifted the phone, and he turned to me - he was still within earshot of the telephone - and said: "It's Olive, AGAIN". And she slapped the phone down, and refused to speak to him for the rest of her days. Well, I'm afraid, I could do nothing about that. I wrote her, and she wrote me, and said she missed me and so on, and I heard how she was, but she never came back. And I think that possibly was characteristic of some of the things she lost. She slammed doors shut. Now, my husband had been kind, hospitable, generous, but one unlucky word did betray that he was tired. His intonation told her.
AS. She had been in the habit of bringing her writings and inviting comments from you.
G. Yes, oh, yes, yes. She wanted me to talk about it, and say what I thought about it, and give her my opinion of whether it was good or bad, or whatever. Oh, yes.
W. Was she quite accepting of criticism, or ...
G. Oh, yes. She was like most people, she preferred praise. But, if I said: "I don't think that has quite come off", oh, yes. I mean she respected my opinion in that sense. We had been great friends, you see, though it was a chequered friendship, because she withdrew. In fact, it was rather typical of her not even to answer a wedding invitation, and she didn't. But my husband had not the same bonding, of course, and if there was any question of his good or Olive's, there was no argument about who came first. But I felt for her, because I felt she had had a very sad life, a very disappointing life in many ways, and that it was never glad, confident morning again.
AS. Had she hoped to have material published, do you think?
G. Well, I remember her saying once, half in jest, but only half, I expect ten years after I'm dead, they'll publish a book, and I'll be told I was a good poet, or I'll hear I was a good poet. She had faith in her own talent, yes; a justified faith, I think. I mean, she had considerable talent.
AS. And Helena Mennie Shire achieved that for her.
G. Yes, indeed, she did. She made a wonderful job of it, and of the rather sad story of her life. She did do that. It was an act of piety, really, because Helena didn't even keep the little money she made from the book, you know, she gave it away. But, yes, it was remarkably good.
W. Do you think Olive really reached her full potential?
G. That's difficult to answer. You mean, if circumstances had been different, would that have released more?
W. Yes.
G. I can't answer that; I really can't. I think in the circumstances she did remarkably well, partly because, I think - this is opinion - on my part, that she found refuge and escape in her poetry, even when she was in institutions or ill, it was her, her sanctuary. And she did, she wrote some very moving stuff, you know, from hospital here; she was still doing that. I felt it was a very genuine gift. Not everybody agrees with me. One of my great friends who knew her equally well agreed she was a poet, but thought her very minor. But I wouldn't say that. I would say she was a good poet, and had a genuine talent.
AS. Helena Mennie was obviously a very special person, all through her life. I've learned enough, that everyone who had contact with her became a lifelong friend. Now, that started for your when you were both students ...
G. Yes, we overlapped
AS. ... and you were invited into her home.
G. Indeed, and met the family.
AS. Have you a few words on that, on her parents?
G. Well, indeed, I have, because I remember the easy warmth of that home, largely because - I liked both her parents - but largely because of her mother, who was that kind of motherly person, welcomed Helena's friends and we all drifted in and out there and were fed and warmed and comforted, if necessary. So that it was a very happy place to go. I liked Mr Mennie, but he, perhaps, because of the drifting in and out, did spend most evenings in his study, and Dad's study was sacred. We did NOT go in there uninvited. But we were always welcomed ... Yes, many a meal I've had there, or a bed for the night, or anything of that kind, yes. I feel grateful to them all. I was very fond of them all. I didn't know Professor Mennie so well - he wasn't Professor then, of course, - because, as I've explained, he was older and he was away, but the younger sister, became and was, remained a lifelong friend of mine, I was very fond of both of them.
AS. And you kept in touch with Helena right through her life?
G. Yes, again, there were gaps occasionally, but as long as her father lived, she was coming up and down here, and always saw us when she came. And when we were south, we went to Cambridge to see her, and we heard from each other, and were very much in touch all the time.
AS. Are there any particular memories or incidents that come to mind?
G. About Helena? Difficult to remember anything very much that I haven't talked of before. I remember thinking her very dashing. She was always very individual, Helena, and at her wedding she wore cream coloured silk, a sort of classic-looking dress. And I thought, I'd like that, I'd like to get away from conventional white, you know, choose something different. And it suited her, and she looked very well in it, you know. I liked her husband very much. She hadn't been very long married, when three other friends and myself were on a motoring holiday and we rang up to say: "Here we are. Can we come and see you?" We booked ourselves into a hotel in Cambridge, and Helena invited us for supper. I remember that evening, because we got a very good meal; we laughed and we chatted and we ate and the person I really admired was her husband, with five women and himself, and he was benign and calm and a very kind host, and, I think, rather enjoyed, himself; at least, I hope he did. I was, and remain, very fond of Edward; he was a very nice man.
AS. She must have had an extremely busy life, as a mother of three children, and all her teaching, and research ...
G. I remember another occasion when we were there, years later, now there were three children that were there, and her father-in-law - her mother-in-law had died and he came to live with them - and we were staying for the night - we were in London, and she said: "Oh, come down for the night, so we'll all have time to talk in the evening, and so forth." And in the middle of all this I have a picture of a garden, and we were trotting round the garden with her small son, aged about four, and Alisoun, who was the elder girl, was trotting around keeping an eye on us, too, and Grandpapa was working in the garden, keeping an eye on one year old Christine, because Helena was coaching, in the middle of all this. I give you the picture, because it suggests - how shall I put it? - it suggests the busyness of her life: coaching, learning, teaching, running a household for five, and taking it all in her stride; and, like her mother, welcoming guests, you know, yes, yes, a very full life.
W. She must have had tremendous energy.
G. Yes, she had. Yes, she had. And she was calm with it, she was never in a flurry about it. The only time I ever saw her in a flurry was that morning, actually, because, when she came back to the garden to, having despatched her student, and came to talk to us, she suddenly looked round and said: "What have you done with my baby?" She couldn't see Christine. She was sort of round the corner. She was all right, so we reassured her. It was all right, we'd been keeping our eye on Christine as well. About the only time she that she would've been said to be in a flurry, because of her baby. She was a wonderfully good mother. You have talked to her daughter, have you?
AS. I spent a week in Newcastle, helping to prepare the papers to come up.
G. So you know her, yes, yes. Oh, well, you'll know all about that aspect from Alisoun.
AS. I quickly realised she was a very special person.
G. Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed, she was. And she was - I didn't know her in her aspect of teacher - but, as I said in her Festschrift, you know the book that was got together - and I said there that it so happened that I knew Helena in many aspects, but not as a lecturer. And we were at one of these Mediaeval Scots Renaissance Literature Conferences, and I listened to Helena with great pleasure and I thought: "There you are". She was perfect, absolute mistress of her subject, no attachment to notes, she could talk on like that, she drew illustrations on the board, she ... underlined some of her points, and informed us, entertained us, pleased us. I really thought as a lecturer she was excellent, excellent speaker. And I enjoyed her every time, even if I sometimes know the subject matter, better than I did the first one. It was at that conference, and that must have been the one in Strasbourg, that one emissary from Australia - probably heard this? - invited her to, having heard her lecture, - like me he thought, here's a good lecturer, and an interesting woman - and she was invited to lecture in Australia, all expenses paid, etc. Which was really very good.
AS. Thank you. I wonder, just to finish, could we return to your husband for a minute?
G. Certainly.
AS. Did he not have an association as a student with the University in later years? as he undertook further studies.
G. Oh, yes, when he retired. By the way, he was a friend of Helena's, too. I mean, when they were students they knew each other. Yes, when he retired, - I don't quite know what prompted him - it was really partly that we had been interested, both of us, in Scottish literature, but had been too busy teaching in the ordinary way to pursue it very deeply. So he announced to me one day that Now - and it was only then possible - they were setting up the possibility of a Master's degree in Scottish literature exclusively, it hadn't existed before - he thought, now that's new, that's a new field, and I'll - what about that. He was very energetic and very well. I said: "Well, absolutely splendid, a very good idea." And he set out on his mastership; enjoyed it enormously, and what - lots of things he enjoyed, not only the interest of the subject and so on, but meeting as lecturers a great many people whom he knew as friends. I think they enjoyed each other. He had been president of the Literary Society, the University - well, it just wasn't a University one, it was always held in the University; it was open to anybody that was interested, and he was interested, and he was president for a year or two. So he knew a good many of the people concerned, in the English Faculty in particular. So he wasn't going to strange ground when he started and he was quite at home and thoroughly enjoyed himself. And what he liked, because he always did like the society of the young, was that the young men, the small, very bright group - they had to have a good Honours degree before they were accepted, you see, so they were really good, and interesting - accepted him totally, though he was in his sixties, as a member of the group. He simply became on Christian name terms with them, and went to the weekend, so-called reading schools - I always rather suspected they were more fun and games - and that aspect of it was excellent: he made friends, he was treated well by them, and he enjoyed it to the full. I wrecked it a bit for him, unfortunately, because I had a massive heart attack, and, as he didn't quite know how it was going to turn out, he had to ask them to give him a sabbatical, or extend the time, and in the circumstances, of course, they did. Then when I had recovered he picked up his studies again. He didn't entirely stop, because he was reading and so on, but he couldn't commit himself to a deadline, when he didn't quite know what was going to happen, and thought he might be more tied up than he was. But I made a good recovery and it was alright, so he picked them up again. He had a very good time doing that.
AS. How had he chosen his subject?
G. Well, they had to have something relevant, and they had to get a field that hadn't been over-ploughed, and he discovered - he began with thinking of William Thom, because he had an Inverurie connection, but didn't think there was, when he re-examined his work, enough material to stimulate him. I forget now, exactly what focussed him on Violet Jacob: thinking in terms of poetry that we liked, I suppose, and thinking in terms of a local poet. And he found that there was very little, if anything, written about her, so it was a fresh field. So he decided on Violet Jacob and set out to make his own research on that, and he enjoyed that enormously. He worked very hard at it. He really did.
AS. Did you get involved in the research? perhaps even visiting ...
G. Yes, yes, indeed. Well, it was near enough for us to go to the House of Dun - she was a Kennedy-Erskine - and the family house was near Montrose, so it was within easy visiting distance - and he went down there to speak to - well, the lady who turned out to be the last Laird of Dun, because it was the end of the line, of that particular branch, there are other Kennedys and Erskines scattered around, but more remote - and she was delighted to hear that her aunt was going to be, as it were, examined and written about, and gave him every facility. She was ... They got on extremely well, and she made suggestions of other people who might be interested one way and another, and he got on to every trail he could. He had a really thoroughly, thoroughly good time. He really enjoyed that. And then, of course, the interesting story was, that, when he had finished his thesis, he sent a copy to Mrs. Lovat, and she had shown it to a cousin, and in the course of conversation my husband had said were there any other papers around the place, in either of the houses, the sort of dower house that Mrs Lovat was living in or the original House of Dun and she said No, none that she knew of. But she remarked on this to this cousin and showed her the thesis, and she said: "Don't you remember that you gave me a portfolio at the beginning of the war?" - or something of that kind. She said: "No, I never heard of that." However, the cousin produced this and it was actually the work at which she had been employed, while she was / just before she died, which she had intended to publish, but had not finished the work. And the manuscripts had been lying around somebody's attic for quite a while. I think there had been some family commotion and removal and so on, that occasioned this, and it had passed from everybody's mind. So, as his question had started the whole thing, Mrs Lovat handed over the entire portfolio to my husband to use as he pleased, and that's how he had to classify and arrange the stories, edit them, in some cases, to make inspired guesses at finishes that weren't obviously finishing points. Did all that and then he got it published, which was very nice for him. He enjoyed doing that, very much indeed.
AS. It was a nice conclusion to his work.
G. It was. And she insisted that - the copyright was hers, of course - but, she insisted that, if he did that and took on that work and had done, that the copyright of that book was his, and that any monies that it earned was his, so she got a document to say so, which I thought was a very nice gesture. The thing that disappointed my husband, though he dedicated it to her, she didn't live to see the published book. She was already an elderly woman, of course, when he began. But she was very pleased about it. That was - this apart - that was a happy story for him.
AS. Well, we can't but thank you very, very much for sharing all these memories and experiences with us.
G. I fear I've talked rather much.
AS. All very interesting. Thank you.
End of Interview
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