Item 12 - Letter from George Mallory to Ruth Turner, 24 May 1914

Letter to Ruth Turner, written from Charterhouse School [Ruth was in Ireland with her family]

He had spent a very lazy morning talking with Lytton [Lytton Strachey, a friend of Mallory’s who was staying with him at Charterhouse], reading poetry, particularly The Menage of the March Wind by William Morris. He was visited by Alan Goodfellow who had been ill and stayed to talk during Chapel [he had climbed with Mallory in the Lakes the previous year]. Breakfast and lunch were trying as Lytton didn't like boys. He was very shy because he talked in a falsetto voice. In this sort of company he would say very little and yet look very striking. He was a man you couldn't ignore.

Ruth’s life didn't sound all joy and he hoped the fishermen appreciated how good she was [Ruth and her sisters Marjorie and Mildred spent much of the time rowing the men in the party including their Uncles Lawrence and Hawes out onto the Lochs to fish]. She had a dangerously unselfish disposition but she wouldn't spend her life doing little jobs for him.

Time was a rude limitation on their existence and they would have to find more of it by being more organised. It was only a week and a half until they would see each other.

Postscript - asks if they can make a new vocabulary of love words.