BR TO ELIZABETH CRAWSHAY-WILLIAMS, 2 AUG. 1950
BRACERS 56060. ALS. McMaster. B&R Hh2020.01
Edited by A.G. Bone. Reviewed by S. Turcon

Menzies Hotel,
Melbourne.1
2.8.50

Dearest Elizabeth2

I enclose two pictures3 which need some explanation. A newspaper here said I looked like a “sophisticated koala”.4 I had never heard of a koala, but was told it is a tiny bear to be seen in the Zoo. So I went to examine my prototype, and found it a charming little beast which lives in trees. Here it is.

I have become very grand. I associate with Governors, Chancellors, High Commissioners and such. It will be a come-down when I get home. But I am desperately homesick. I hope it will be possible to buy Penralltgoch.5 Even if there is no war now, there will be one soon. I wonder whether John and Susan still want to live apart.6 I am sorry they feel that way, and I think it may pass.

I am desperately busy here, but on the whole I think it is worth while.

It was delightful getting a letter from you some time back. I hope all goes well with you. Love to you both.

Yrs ever
B.R.

• 1

  [document] The letter was edited from the signed original written in BR’s hand on the recto and verso of a single leaf that was folded twice.

• 2

  [recipient] Born into a military family, Elizabeth Crawshay-Williams (née Powell, d. 1977) was no less of a friend to BR than her philosopher husband (see BRACERS 56058, n. 2), whom she married in 1932. They were a devoted couple — although Rupert had many infidelities (which Elizabeth accepted) — and ultimately died together by suicide after she was diagnosed with an incurable paralysis. They first encountered BR when he and his third wife were looking for a second home in North Wales after the Second World War. They eventually found Penralltgoch in Ffestiniog (see BRACERS 56056, n. 7) thanks to the Crawshay-Williamses, who had been living since 1942 on the nearby Portmeirion estate owned by architect Clough Williams-Ellis. Elizabeth and Rupert became even closer neighbours of BR after he and Edith Russell made Plas Penrhyn their principal residence in 1956.

• 3

  two pictures See Figs. 4a and 4b in Andrew G. Bone, “Letters and Pictures from Russell’s Australian Lecture Tour”, Bertrand Russell Society Bulletin, no. 161 (Spring 2020): 19–20. The first of these pictures was clipped from the Melbourne Age — reporting on BR’s visit to the city’s zoo the previous day (27 July 1950, p. 3). The image is the most familiar photographic record of his Australian tour (see Alan Wood, Bertrand Russell: The Passionate Sceptic [London: Allen & Unwin, 1957], facing p. 224) and Auto. 2: [facing] 48, where it appeared above a facsimile printing of BR’s holograph inscription from a Walt Whitman poem: “I think I could turn and live with animals, / they are placid and self contained.... / Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth”. The second picture is a cartoon by “WEG” (William Ellis Green) of the Melbourne Herald (28 July 1950, p. 4).

• 4

  A newspaper here … “sophisticated koala”. See “Bertrand Russell Talks on Women”, Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 8 July 1950, “Magazine Section”, p. 15; App. I.9 in Papers 26: “Sitting rather stiffly in his chair, with a table light deep-etching the lines on his face, he looked like a sophisticated koala who had just thought of a funny story.” Almost two weeks after BR’s later excursion to Melbourne Zoo (on 26 July), the London Evening Standard quoted him as saying that koalas were “very engaging little creatures” and that he was “flattered” by his resemblance to them (“The Londoner’s Diary”, 7 Aug., p. 4).

• 5

  I hope it will be possible to buy Penralltgoch. See BRACERS 50656, n. 7.

• 6

  I wonder … John and Susan still want to live apart. On 14 July (according to a postmark of receipt) BR got a slightly disconcerting airmail from his oldest son, who reported that he was “having a rest from everything — no Susan, no children, no job” (7 July, BRACERS 111179). John had not worked for some time and his children were being cared for by their nanny at 41 Queen’s Road, while he stayed with a friend in Swiss Cottage, North London. Meanwhile, his wife, Susan (née Lindsay, 1926–1990), was in Harlech, North Wales, possibly with a lover. John had asked her to look for summer accommodation for her and the children, and early in August he would spend a week with Susan at the Crawshay-Williamses (see BRACERS 56061) in an attempt to find somewhere suitable. But nothing came of these efforts, which may have been sparked by BR’s fears for his family’s safety, voiced perhaps in a missing letter to John dated 28 June and written very soon after the outbreak of the Korean War (on which his son expounded at some length in his reply).