Letter from Andrew Alexander Pettigrew to Countess Walburga Ehrengarde Helena Paget, 30th January 1921

Copy of my reply to Lady Phyllis Windsor Clive's letter of 24/1/17.

Roath Park
Cardiff
30 Jan., 1921.

Lady Paget,
My Lady,

It is now 4 years since I received a letter from Lady Phyllis informing me that you contemplated writing a little memoir of Lord Windsor (Mr Other) & Mr. Archer, & asking me to jot down some of my recollections of incidents connected with either of them & send them on to your Ladyship.

At the time Lady Phyllis wrote to me, January 1917, the question of food supplies had just become of critical importance to the Country, &

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we had started our local campaign to promote increased vegetable cultivation. This kept me so busily engaged, day & night, that I had no leisure at the time to do as Lady Phyllis asked me. Since then, I have allowed time to slip by, until this evening I have been re-reading Lady Phyllis's letter, & I feel that I would like to write down some of my recollections for your perusal, though they are perhaps now too late for the purpose in view.

I may say at the outset that my relations with Mr Other were never quite the same as those with Mr Ivor & Mr Archer. The two younger gentlemen were frequently, in the early days, entrusted to my care in their rambles, in boating on the lake, in shopping expeditions to Redditch & Birmingham, & - in Mr Archer's case - upon his return to Wixenford. The effect was that

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when they outgrew this, there was nevertheless still left a degree of intimacy with them, that I could never venture to assume with Mr Other, who was already the 'young gentleman' at Eton, when I went to Hewell in 1900.

A.A. Pettigrew's first meeting with masters Ivor & Archer, September 1900; H.A. Pettigrew & A.A.P. at the kitchen garden; distant shouts: 'Pettigrew! Pettigrew!'; A.A.P. goes out to the gate; Master Archer coming along the lane, half running, 20 paces ahead of master Ivor; Master Archer, seized with shyness at sight of A.A.P., drops behind master Ivor; Master Ivor enquires for H.A.P., who appears; Master Archer remains then, & during the rest of the holidays, very shy of A.A.P.

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At A.A.P's house, Xmas week, 1900; ground outside deep in snow; Miss Phyllis, Miss Nancy Paget, Mr Other & Master Archer arrive and spend afternoon with A.A.P.; sitting in a half-circle around the fire; Master Archer still shy, & keeps at a distance from A.A.P.; conversation & fun; Master Archer comes closer to A.A.P, & at length climbs on to his knees; Mr Other greatly amused: 'At last, Pettigrew, Master Archer has satisfied himself that there is nothing particularly alarming about you!'.

September, 1901; Master Ivor, Master Archer, H.A.P. & A.A.P. on the Hewell cricket ground; H.A.P. due to leave for St Fagans within an hour; A.A.P. insistent that H.A.P should return with him immediately to the kitchen garden to talk business; Masters Ivor & Archer equally insistent that H.A.P should

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remain with them; both much irritated with A.A.P.; A.A.P. seeing Mr Ralph Paget approaching, observes: 'Here's your Uncle Ralph coming'; Master Ivor seizes the opportunity for revenge: ' Mr Ralph Paget to you, if you please, Pettigrew!'.

Xmas Eve, 1901; A.A.P. at the Kitchen garden; distant shouts: 'Pettigrew! Pettigrew!' A.A.P. goes out to the gate; Master Archer coming along the lane, half running, 20 paces ahead of Master Ivor; Master Archer carrying a parcel; 'I have brought you a Christmas present, Pettigrew, & mother told me to tell you that it is not from her only, but from all of us'; a barometer, the sight of which always recalls this incident to A.A.P.

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September 1903, 6:30am, outside A.A.P.'s house; Mr Other & Master Archer arrive on horseback, by appointment, for a ride; Master Ivor a party to the appointment, but had decided to remain in bed; A.A.P. mounted on the garden horse, but is no horseman; Mr Other (regarding A.A.P's mount) enquires: 'How does she go?'; A.A.P. explains that she has a nasty way of shying at nothing in particular; Mr Other complains that his mount is too painfully quiet; suggests an exchange; A.A.P., unsuspicious, agrees: A.A.P's new mount immediately takes matters into its own hands; full gallop away, A.A.P. powerless to control; at break-neck speed along lane, through park gates, down drive, never stopping until stable yard is reached; Star's alarm at sight of A.A.P on Mr Other's horse; his alarm increased at sight of anxiety on A.A.P.'s face; Mr Other & Master Archer

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arrive in great glee; resumption of own horses; pleasant ride round the country; glasses of new milk at Brockhill farmhouse; through Redditch, Foxlydiate, Webheath, Bentley, & so back to Hewell; Mr Other goes in, but Master Archer decides upon a final gallop through the park; after a time Master Archer dismounts; but his Arab becomes restive; Master Archer remounts but horse bolts & is out of sight behind the Laurel covert before he has regained his stirrups; A.A.P. follows on & is alarmed at the distant sight of Master Archer stretched out on the ground under the arm of a tree, horse nowhere in sight; fright no. 2 for A.A.P.; A.A.P. reaches Master Archer, who jumps up laughing; arrival of riderless Arab at stables sends Star racing along the drive; fright No. 2 for Star.

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My favourite photograph of Mr. Archer is one that was taken by Dilks on the Hewell cricket ground, September 1907, on the occasion of a match with Mr W.K. Roberts's Parsons' XI, when Lord Plymouth, Mr Ivor & Mr Archer played for Hewell. I was particularly anxious to obtain photographs of all three in cricketing costume for my Hewell Cricket album, & Dilks had come armed for the purpose with his camera. An opportunity was taken during the interval. His Lordship & Mr Ivor were photographed first, but when Mr Archer's turn came, he persisted for a time in assuming quite impossible & ridiculous attitudes, much to Dilk's perplexity, which amused Mr Archer & the people watching the proceedings from behind Dilks. At last Mr Archer settled down to a correct pose, & was snapped; but the fun

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was still in his face, as the photograph shows, together with just that suggestion of shyness that I always associate with Mr Archer.

One book that I have, a Xmas gift from Mr Archer, recalls to me that Robert Louis Stevenson was his favourite novelist. I am particularly reminded of the Christmas holidays 1909; how amazed he was that I was so ignorant of Stevenson's works, - 'a Scotsman too!'; how, on his return to the house, he sent me up the loan of some of Stevenson's novels; how next morning; sitting at my fireside, he read aloud to me passages from 'Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde'; his remark that Scott would have taken two pages to describe what Stevenson described in two lines; & so the Xmas gift. Another book, the last Xmas gift I had from Mr. Archer, 1913, -

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Vinogradoff's 'Growth of the manor', - reminds me that he could also enter into my interests, which at the time happened to be manorial history.

Mr Archer's last return to Hewell, March, 1914; an afternoon at A.A.P's house; Mr Archer in easy chair by fire, Toby on his knee, A.A.P. sitting opposite; Mr Archer talks of his Army work; illustrates strategy with a rough pencil sketch of Franco-German frontier, marking in the chief towns; chat about history, & particularly Tardebigge history, regarding which A.A.P. had recently given a lecture at the Village Hall; Mr Archer takes up a book he had lent A.A.P., - Trevelyan's 'England Under the Stuarts', - & writes over his name (already on the flyleaf): 'A.A.Pettigrew from'; a talk about general

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village matters, cricket club prospects, Village Hall etc.; tea; a game of bezique; inspection of the new bowling green then under construction in the Pleck; walk together down to the house, parting at the forecourt gates.

Such are a few incidents that are recalled to my memory as I write this evening; but, after all, they illustrate only a to a very small degree my grateful recollections of the intimate & - if I may say so, - affectionate relations that existed between, not only Mr Other & Mr Archer, but also Lady Phyllis & Mr Ivor & myself.

I have all Mr Other's & Mr Archer's letters to my brother & myself, from 1898 onwards. I need not comment on these, but would like to send

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them for your Ladyship to read.

I am, My Lady,
Yours respectfully,
A.A. Pettigrew

(Doc Ref: 2008.031)