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Dear Anna, I write to you as Chairman--but at the same time entirely personally between you and me if I may, so that I can get one or two worries off my chest. First, size of the committee, I cant help wondering if we havent just about got all we can usefully take unless our membership is to change and some of us ought to drop out. And we have one or two very pleasant but quiet members--K.N. for one and dear M.P. for another. Further I had understood that our new member was in fact a Barrister studying the legal side of all this (how I wonder would I have misheard? or were we misinformed?) and was not expecting (forgive me !) yet another psychiatrist. (Not a dig at the others - I think A T, Lotte etc worth their weight in gold).
Further I think clearly the YFs experiment was a washout for present purposes, although Mary Harper struck me as a wise person who could conceivably be very useful. I think David was out of his depth.
Hugh Maw. Something went wrong with our organisation here--poor Hugh (so he tells me in subsequent correspondence) had thought when he turned up that he had been invited to be ON the committee and the truth only dawned when I sip ose during lunch. Further apparently nobody told him about the times and habits of the meeting - I don't think he knew we had already met in the morning, and he apparently expected that we would be meeting through the evening. I am not even sure that he was organised for the night, although he may have been (my fault that, if I had had a word with him before going out I would have invited him to stay here).
By the way I think it we were considering new members Hugh would of course be excellent. He expresses himself most interesting and willing. But would find it difficult to spare the time and possibly the money, I gather. (Dont worry, I havent invited him! just giving you my views).
Finally I felt myself conscience stricken that we had not arrange our times of departure more premeditatedly, and would suggest that as far as possible this be done when we first meet in the morning.
I have been in touch with the Reverend Halladie Smith of the Homosexual Law Reform Society, and, guess what, he's a Pembroke man, a contemporary of mine, stirred into all this, like ourselves, by the Roger Walker affair. Wonders never cease!
love as always, and forgive my untoward outspokenness.
