PATRICIA RUSSELL TO BRITISH COUNCIL / MARY M. WALLINGTON, 3 NOV. 1948
BRACERS 56908. TLS(X). Public Record Office
Proofread by K. Blackwell

<letterhead>
18a Dorset House
Gloucester Place
N.W.1.
November 3 1948

Miss Mary M. Wallington
The British Council
3 Hanover St.
W.1.

Dear Madam

I am writing, with great regret, to tell you that I have persuaded my husband to ask you to release him from his engagements in Italy. He had taken on for this winter enough work to tax severely a much younger man and has begun to show signs of fatigue which, I know from experience, mean that he must cut down his commitments if he is to avoid falling ill.

As you probably know, he has been in the last month to Norway and to Berlin on lecture tours, and these are very exhausting. And before accepting your invitation to go to Italy he undertook to give the six Reith lectures for the B.B.C. which he has not yet been able to begin to prepare.

I cannot tell you that his doctor has ordered this step, as he has not yet been consulted, but I have no doubt of what his opinion would be if asked.

My husband is extremely sorry to have given you all the trouble of organizing his engagements for nothing. He is so energetic and so keen on doing what he can towards good international relations that it is hard for him to realise in advance that he is not so young as he used to be.

Yours truly,
<signed> Patricia Russell.

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