25th May, 1995

Dearest Rita and Lex,

I received your letter and photos a month ago and apologise for my long delay in answering. I was away in France at our ‘fermette’ and also spent some days being horribly sick with a viral infection. I will spare you details but my energy level went down to zero and I couldn’t be bothered with life in any shape or form. I was not allowed solid food at first and kept going on liquids in small sips and was very weak indeed.

You will have heard from your friend Rona. It was fun meeting her and we spent a pleasant afternoon together. She is obviously very fond of you and a long standing friend. I gather that you, Lex, are successfully playing the Stock Exchange and making money for your next trip!

Thanks for sending me views of the Tasmanian landscape. There are plenty of mountains for you to climb and explore and your Elsie Cottage looks most attractive. I listened to a talk about a fungus which is destroying areas of woodland in Tasmania and has gained a foothold in Australia.

Jonathan, Jaki and Joseph are returning today from their month’s visit to the States. They loved living there and will probably find it difficult to settle back to routine and the smallness of England. But they have a beautiful house to come back to and Jaki was fortunate to have a large family to support her here during her illness.

I, for my part, am sending you a couple of pictures today to show you our pied-a-terre in France.

You may like to know that I was ‘found’ by an old school friend from Primary School days in Frankfurt who now lives in Sao Paulo. She happened to see a book of memories of school days under the Nazis, to which I had contributed, and wrote to the Publishers for my address. After all these years! We are now trying to catch up on our life stories and see if we can meet somewhere.

Your family news is always interesting. I hope Jay is finding an outlet for his rebellious nature and is feeling happier in his new school. Ruth’s boys have not reached this stage yet. Paul, the middle one, aged 11, has won scholarships to very good schools and has now made up his mind which to choose. None of us expected him to do so well though he is outstandingly good at English. Ruth and Leslie encourage them in every possible way but I would like to see a bit of conflict. Perhaps it is too early for that.

I will sign off now by sending you much love and good wishes for your next trips,

Lore.