Frances

March, 2006

Frances continues to be a good e-mail correspondent.She’s kept me abreast of her travels to visit friends. Her recent news wasn’t so good:

“Twisted my ankle quite badly a fortnight ago, indoors fortunately, but foot very purple still, and I have to wear atubi-grip to keep the swelling down. It has cramped my style somewhat as I cannot drive or walk any distance at the moment. Am reading lots of trashy books and doing sudokus.”

Frances had been gung-ho to attend the reunion, but today’s e-mail was not so positive:

“Having just received the details about the reunion, my reaction is to wait for a later one as 37.50 seems too much to pay for a buffet lunch on top of train fares etc. I know they have to charge for the use of the college, but even so! Other people I was going to see also think that, so am not the only one too mean to pay out!”

September, 2005

Frances is another excellent e-mail buddy. Over the past three years I have enjoyed following her daughter Katie’s exploits at Royal Holloway, and have been so happy to get just a little news from her about Sheila. In fact, Frances and Sheila have attended a couple of Classical Society meetings together, have met in Salisbury and have chatted over lunch. The above photo (and I apologize that I can’t improve the quality) was taken in September 2003. To the right of the couch we have Frances—who appears not to have changed one bit!) holding her granddaughter Ruth. Next to Frances is her husband, John, and beside him are his son, John, and grandson, Jack, who were visiting from South Africa. In the foreground is Frances’ daughter, Nicky, and her daughters, Rebekah and Sarah. Nicky and Steve had a son this year, William, and in June Frances labelled him “a sweety.” Behind Sarah is Katie.

Frances kept me up to date with Katie’s academic work, following her career from research in Dubai to her degree and career plans. In early December, 2003, Frances, together with Nicky and the two older girls, went to visit Katie in Dubai: “Dubai was fantastic, what an experience for an old granny! The sun was shining, the sky was blue, there were some amazing buildings, and it was so good to see where Katie had been living and working. Not a place I would like to live for long, but I can see what appeals to Katie. She has met such a wide variety of people whom she never would have come across in London, and has had a really healthy outdoor life-style to go with it. She will find it very difficult to adjust to living here again, I think. She has applied for a post-grad fellowship, which will give her the opportunity to publish some papers, do some seminar teaching and workshops, go to Singapore uni for three weeks to do the same, and generally give her time to look around for further jobs.” Frances later told me Katie got the fellowship, and in June she mentioned that Katie was off to Singapore, then Melbourne, Sydney and Bankok.

Although Frances did not give me this information, Google is my friend, so you can go here to read about Katie and then find out more about her research.

I know that in the recent past Frances has taken trips to Scotland and Devon, and at one point, she was talking about coming here to visit. What about it, Frances?