Sunday 29th June 1913
Arthur goes to Mass, an exhausting machine gun practise, and still finds energy to play tennis in the summer heat; only five more days till Dollie’s return:
Arthur to Dollie
Belsize Grove, N.W.
I’ve just had rather a strenuous day – it has been blazing hot. This morning I got up at six fifteen and went to 7 Mass. I had brekker at eight, then to Wimbledon. We had the machine guns down and did a lot of hard work, mounting and dismounting them to suit the ground and keeping under cover. We were there from ten to twelve, so I didn’t get home until one, had a bath and changed into tennis kit.
This afternoon Margery Bellord came in. We played tennis hard – Edouard went up river so couldn’t come. We went on playing until 7 o’clock – then changed into a “smoker” and here we are. Supper has been put off until a quarter to eight. What have you been doing – I hate Sundays with no news from you – Thank Heaven this is the last you’ll be away. Five days from now and we’ll be together D.V. …
(The Bellords were good friends of the Agius family in Hampstead. Edmund Bellord had been a student at St Augustine’s Ramsgate with the Pater’s brother Dom Ambrose , later Archbishop, and in 1899 sent his first son Cuthbert to Downside School, possibly influencing the Pater to send his sons to Downside , starting 1900. Margery was Edmund’s 2nd daughter, born 1891, and had been to Mayfield School as the Agius girls but not at the same time).