HOUGH (Charlotte, 1924-2008, Author of over 30 Illustrated Children’s Books)

Fine long Typed Letter Signed in her very emphatic style, to her friend Josephine PULLEIN-THOMPSON (1924-2014, Writer known for her Pony Books, Leading member of International PEN) thanking her for her “LOVELY letters! V sorry about your house; one wants an ORDERED return to one’s own home, but think how lovely it’s just about to be!! And the curtain rail working! I’ve been battling with my books and going QUITE MAD carrying my step-ladder first to the east and then to the west with an M or a sudden Y which mean that the WHOLE LOT have to be moved yet again. But that is nothing! Though I still insist... with that awful desk in the middle of it all covered in unopened brown envelopes and requests for me to look up papers... it’s pretty bad! On the bright side the cottage path is no more!!!!! Thanks to you!!!! and it all looks lovely!!!! I’m So sorry about the virus, what a rotten thing to happen to YOU. It seems a tiresome dragging sort of thing that’s going about. Have just returned from Hay-on-Wye with Janet, who had a terrible time... rather a bad hotel where she kicked her heels while I wrestled with the telephone finding the only starter-motor in Worcester, and a garage with a ramp, and a man prepared to do it on Saturday so long as poor BRYONY (who had the car) could get them all together by 10.30am! She did it by dumping her 2 children on the lady next door in return for LOOKING AFTER HER TWO CHILDREN ALL DAY FOR THE NEXT THREE WEEKS! We got to HoW just in time to hear a young man reading his novel about grinding corpses so hard into the mud that they became indistinguishable from it... Janet fantastic in all this! As we drew up outside her house on the second for Noel Coward she leapt out of the car, key at the ready, took no notice of Mike chasing her cat.. with fearful shrieks, sat me down in front of TV with That Drink and dashed over to shop opposite for frozen fish and chips!...”, 2 sides folio, 1a Ivor Street, London, 6th June

In 1985, at age 60, Hough was convicted of attempted murder, for assisting the suicide of a friend, Annetta Harding, aged 85 years, who was depressed, blind, deaf, and in chronic pain from arthritis. Hough was sentenced to nine months imprisonment, and served six months at Holloway Prison and Sutton Park prison. Her daughter recalled that, afterwards, "She was always saying, 'When I was in prison' and bringing dinner parties to a shuddering halt."

Item Date:  1991

Stock No:  43002      £75

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