This morning Barrington-Ward formally asked me to join those who are going to the Deanery. He went to see the Dean last night and talked over with him and he proposes to lecture to us on the early history of the Abbey, the pre-reformation period, which Stanley hardly touches and which nobody knows anything about. He told Barrington-Ward with high glee that the scholars performed before the Abbot in 1413. I don’t quite know who else are going but I imagine only a very few, ‘we few, we happy few!’ The Dean wants a little time to get his notes into order.
I had lunch in the Dining Room for the first time with Ray, Aunt Mary and Kathleen Turner. We then went to the Albert Hall to a Ballad Concert of which some parts were good, like Plunket Greene and Squire’s playing on the ‘cello and some parts were bad: an infant pianist whose idea of music seemed to be to play P. P. P. P., F. F. F. F., P. P. P., F. F. F. in solid chunks no expression in it, and some appalling shrieking females who dragged the high-notes like drawing a tooth without gas and consequent screams and smirks of delight on their faces! However, on the whole I enjoyed it.