Three Typed Letters Signed, one Autograph Poem Signed, and Two Typed Letters signed by his Private Secretary.

Author: 
Wavell Wakefield
Publication details: 
All five Typed Letters on House of Commons notepaper, 1961-2; the poem April 1962.
£120.00
SKU: 2527

Politician and rugby player (DNB). The five letters all one page, 16mo, and each with two staple holes and in good condition. The autograph poem is on a printed bifoliate menu for the Cricket Society Spring Dinner (6 April 1962), 16mo, slightly discoloured. The letters relate to various Cricket Society Dinners. He agrees to attend the 1961 Spring Dinner at the Lords Tavern, but his private secretary P. Barling declines on his behalf an invitation to the autumn dinner as he is out of the country recovering from an operation. In the third letter he accepts an invitation to the 1962 Spring Dinner at the Royal Horticultural New Hall and the fourth letter is from Barling on the same subject. In the fifth letter he explains that he has had to undergo an operation and cannot attend the dinner after all. The poem on the menu reads 'To think that many years ago | We danced together with gusto | in gay Paree when we were young | enjoying life with dance & song, | You still are young in looks & heart | Just as you were in your life's start.' An unremarkable printed poem by G. D. Martineau called 'The Crown' on the reverse of the second leaf of the menu has received eleven emendations in pen, possibly not by Wakefield. These have given it a rather gay feel, e.g. 'Sohos lights', 'strange delights' and 'it was no sin'.