Dobcross, Saddleworth.
Sunday, 11th October 1953.

Glass 30.0, steady. Fair at last. The rain came in on Wednesday at teatime and stood about the valley for three days, as if it had been asked to wait.

You will have heard about Kathleen Ferrier. I have nothing to add to what the wireless said, except that she was one of ours. The record is on the shelf where I put it back on Thursday. Some evening it will be the right evening, and I shall know.

Mother's letter came up the lane yesterday. She heard the news on the wireless and sat down at the kitchen table in her apron, and Father says she did not get up for the best part of an hour, which he has never known in his life. Then she got up and wrote out her hotpot for me, it being a wet week and I being a man on his own. It is enclosed. It wants the meat ration, a slow oven and no interference, and I am told I am capable of only two of those.

Also a cutting from this morning's paper, so that you are as well informed as the Fox & Badger will be by eight o'clock tonight.

Charlie has taken to sleeping on his back in the good chair, four feet to the ceiling, like a table carried upstairs the wrong way up. I drew him at it on Friday night, and then, since the drawing did not seem to be enough, I wrote him down as well. He did not wake for either. I take that as approval.

R.A.B.

Enclosed: Mother's card

Enclosed: a cutting

From the sketchbook

Supine

He takes the good chair decently at ten,
curled nose to tail, the way a dog should lie,
and some time after, when the fire is low,
the whole arrangement turns. I never see it.
I look up from the page and he's inverted:
four feet held up and folded at the knee
like something on a drawing board, half-done;
his ears laid out like gloves put by to dry,
his lip let go, one tooth on show, his belly
offered to the beams, the lamp, the night,
and anyone, to do their worst. Nobody
sleeps like that who has ever been afraid.
I took the pencil up and drew him slowly,
the way you draw a thing you mean to keep.

— Dobcross, 9th October 1953.

The glass this week

Mon 5th · 30.2 · first frost on the gateposts
Tue 6th · 30.0 · wind west; cloud stood still after lunch
Wed 7th · 29.6, falling · wind backing south-west; rain by teatime
Thu 8th · 29.5, falling · rain from the west
Fri 9th · 29.6 · showers; wind west
Sat 10th · 29.9, rising · bright between showers
Sun 11th · 30.0, steady · fair

The week's pages

• The Journal: Kathleen Ferrier, 8th October

• Poetry: Blow the Wind, 8th October

• Fashion: Posting Mother's Letter, 8th October

If you've a mind to write back, the afternoon post calls at rufusbramble.com/letter.