BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 21 MAR. 1931
BRACERS 19795. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<letterhead>
Telegraph House
Harting, Petersfield.1
21.3.31

My dearest Colette

Thank you very much for your letter; I like to know all that you tell me. — We have decided to close the school2 at the end of June. If my brother had left Telegraph House3 to me, we should have gone on, but as it is we cannot. I am overwhelmed with work: school, book, my brother’s atheist funeral.4

I wish I could see you some time during May or June. After that it will be impossible till next year. There is much I should like to write but I have too much to do. Love, as always.

B.

• 1

  [document] Document 200801.

• 2

  close the school Beacon Hill School was not closed in June 1931. Although BR left the school in 1932, his wife Dora kept it open until 1943 in various locations. See Deborah Gorham, “Dora and Bertrand Russell and Beacon Hill School”, Russell 25, no. 1 (Summer 2005): 39–76.

• 3

  Telegraph House His brother Frank’s house where the school was located. BR was renting it. He would not become the owner of the house until Amy Otter, who had inherited it from Frank, died in 1934. It was located near Petersfield, Hants.

• 4

  my brother’s atheist funeral Frank had left instructions that he did not want a religious ceremony. His remains had been cremated in Marseilles on 6 March. A secular ceremony took place on the South Downs on 30 March. Lord Snell spoke and then Frank’s ashes were scattered by Snell, BR and the gardener, all using a silver trowel. BR’s children then laid sprigs of evergreen (newspaper clippings in scrapbook, RA).