Breakfast with Gow this morning, always a somewhat amusing performance. Eight of us went: myself, Hobson, Graham, Miles, Tomlinson, Sturgess, Gilmour and Pemberton. I sat next to Mrs Gow on her right and Hobson (to a small extent) and myself (to a large extent) ‘kept the cackle going’, to quote Gow’s immortal phrase about me many years ago, thanks to suffragettes and other topics. Gow was less funny than usual [he] only contradicted Mrs Gow flatly once and what was more remarkable was quite affable to me asking me about my scheme for painting up Heads of Houses and talking quite nicely. I made him laugh by quoting the entry in the Captain’s books about tickets also being sent to the ‘bell-ringers, Minor Canons and Vergers’!! This was a propos of the Dean having shifted the Minor Canons down from the Stalls in the Sacrarium to lower seats, which I suspect has caused fearful sickness. Gow remarked that those stalls ‘were most luxurious and well-padded’. Mrs Gow asked if you sat on the big cushion or put it at your back. ‘Both’ said Gow!…
My dear fat policeman who I saw out tells me he retires on Friday after 25 years and ‘Suffragettes will affect him no more’. I shall miss his portly figure as he and one other always salute me as I pass and the retiring one is my beau ideal of a ‘fat and good-natured Bobby’.
This evening I attended a Committee Meeting of the Mission. The Head of a House is always on the Committee and one other from the House (I nominated Hobson). Sir Alfred Turner couldn’t come so as he is retiring Judge Wheeler, K.C., was elected Chairman: an extraordinary little person who I hear incidentally never pays his subscription and they have put him in the chair in the hope that now he will! He made a little speech expressing his pleasure and said he had always kept as much as possible in connection with the School. Gow announced that the Dean and he had arranged for a collection at Commem for the Mission and that he wanted 12 OWW to take round the bag. ‘there mustn’t be any mistake about it though because I shall be coming down from the Pulpit and the Dean will be going up and I can’t go falling over their legs!’.