Free More Than Love Letters by Rosy Thornton Page A

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    From: Margaret Hayton [[email protected]]
Sent: 18/4/05 22:49
To: Rebecca Prichard [[email protected]]
     
    Dear /&%>,
    ‘Contumely’ and ‘vilipendency’ are both 7s, though I strongly suspect illegal use of the thesaurus. I’ve never dared use ‘contumely’ myself. I suspect it of perfidy – a noun in adverb’s clothing.
    Margaret xx
    IPSWICH TOWN CRIER
    TUESDAY 19 APRIL 2005
     
    MP FALLS ON FEET
    Ipswich MP Mr Richard Slater today fell on his feet during a visit to a new annexe at Ipswich General Hospital. The new department deals with artificial limbs, and Mr Slater was slightly injured when he tripped over a pair of prosthetic feet, knocking himself out on a consulting table and spraining a finger in his fall. But he was certainly in the right place, as Dr Clive Troman was immediately on hand to administer first aid. ‘Normally I deal with amputees,’ said Dr Troman, ‘specialising mainly in hemipelvectomy patients. However, I have not forgotten my basic resuscitation techniques, and was able to employ them to good effect upon Mr Slater.’
    Mr Slater commented: ‘As I was coming round I heard Dr Troman saying that the forefinger was broken and would have to come off. It was a relief to discover that he was talking about a prosthetic hand which I had knocked to the floor, rather than my own!’
    The Hollies
East Markhurst
     
    19 April 2005
    Dear Margaret,
    I feel very modern with my mobile telephone. You’ll have me ‘texting’ next – writing half the words in code like the youngsters do. I’ve seen them doing it on EastEnders. Thank you very much, my dear – you always were a thoughtful girl. Do you remember when you were little, about four I think, and your torch batteries kept running down, and Mum found out you were leaving it on in the toy box every night in case your dolls were afraid of the dark? And I was thinking last night about our golden wedding, up at the village hall, and how Grandad couldn’t remember who anyone was, and got upset. You took him in the little side kitchen and made him a cup of tea and managed to calm him down, and he told me later he’d really enjoyed his day. It’s funny how, even when his Alzheimer’s was getting bad, he always seemed to remember you, love. Because, you know, sometimes he couldn’t even remember who I was, and all he seemed able to recall was things from when he was a boy. That used to make me cry more than anything – married to me fifty years, and he would look at me as if I were a stranger and tell me that he wanted to go home.
    I am sorry to hear about your friend, the one who wants to harm herself, and I’m sure that you do help her, love, even if you only sit with her sometimes when she’s feeling low. And you needn’t worry, I do know about child abuse. We never talked about it in my day, of course, but your generation didn’t invent it, believe me. And I watch a lot of daytime television these days, remember. I know more about all sorts of things, sex included, than I ever did when your grandad was alive! I’m sorry she might have to go into hospital. But I don’t think she needs to think of it as a ‘defeat’ as you call it. When I was a girl they didn’t call it the psychiatric hospital, they called it the mental asylum – a safe place for people who couldn’t manage in the outside world. Maybe that’s what your friend needs at the moment, a little bit of asylum.
    Mrs Ashby at church was asking after you the other day, and she wanted to know whether you are ‘courting’. Such a sweet old-fashioned expression, I thought – I haven’t heard it since I was a girl. It’s what my old mum would have said. Anyway, I told her I was much too polite ever to ask you! I know you haven’t mentioned anyone ‘special’ since that nice boy in college, Mark wasn’t it, the one who came to the vicarage for Christmas with us all one year? At one time it seemed like you never came to visit without him. He