Canada, and Chester, did not provide the hoped-for respite. Their first winter, living in a caravan in the car park of the local drive-in cinema, was gruelling. Frederick and Matthew, then aged 21 and 18, had to find employment to keep the family going. Jigg’s attempts to find work were largely unsuccessful: approaches to the Canadian Broadcasting Corportation (CBC) had yielded the opportunity to audition as a news presenter, but the audition did not lead to any work. In this enforced idleness he started work on an autobiography, Confessions of an American Boy, but this was never completed. Looking back to the publication of his novel, The Muscovites, in 1942, he considered returning to fiction, but in the end there was no finished manuscript. With Jack’s support he applied, ultimately successfuly, for Canadian citizenship.
* * * * *
To Creighton Scott
The Benjamin Franklin Hotel
August 7, 1963
My Very Dear Jigg,
Your two letters arrived, I opened the long one first, – and what a tale it unfolds! Don’t worry. Shall burn it, – but keep curriculum vitae.
From what I read in the long envelope I decided not to open the other, smaller one. Because you still had not received the news of Evelyn’s death, and whatever you wrote in the smaller envelope would be on the presumption she still lived, – and would be painful for me to read.
I just at present don’t know how to exist, and of course contemplate suicide. But I am supposed to be going, next Saturday Aug 10 to stay in NJ with Gladys Grant for at least a few days.
Oh, I do sympathise, Jigg, with your unbelievable predicament, – to [illeg] from Evelyn so largely contributed. Men are nasty things, – I never realised how nasty—and what you tell me is appalling.
Do not “admire” me. I am a man packed with frailties. At present I am nothing at all. The sheer ache in my heart is almost unbearable.
Love to you all,
Jack
* * * * *
As Jack had taken leave of absence from his “school job” and was not being paid, he had virtually no money. Gladys stepped into the breach and paid the expenses for a basic funeral, made more expensive as the cemetery for Manhattan was in New Jersey (very near Newark airport), and the cost of travel to the cemetery was added to the bill. This funeral did not include a headstone, and thus Evelyn’s grave was marked with a numbered plaque..
Jigg had long been affactionate toward Jack and after Evelyn’s death he invited Jack to come and join the family in Canada. It is not clear how carefully he had thought this out, but Jack grasped at this lifeline and much of his energy was centred on plans for this visit.
* * * * *
To Creighton Scott
August 15, 1963
Dear Jigg,
Thanks for invitation. Dearly appreciated and will write more. I am too mentally sick to reply properly, and may have to be hospitalized. The real pain of E’s death is just beginning to soak in. I cannot, still, realise it at all. We were so close.
I would be an honoured guest or grandfather.
Honestly, Jigg, I don’t see myself going on without her. We were so one of each-other, so close. I am just on the verge, really imminent—by now of cutting my wrists or jumping under a train.
It might just preserve my sanity if I saw you, – My ultimate objective, so far as I can have any, – is England.
I am sick, and would much rather be dead. I thank Gladys, and HATE May Mayers, – But, you know, and Paula will know, nothing matters but Evelyn. How can I ever get over it? I can’t. It is a wound, from which I can never, never recover, – I am cut—a dead man [remainder of letter missing]
* * * * *
To Otto Theis and Louise Morgan
Scotch Plains, New Jersey
August 21, 1963
Dear Otto and Louise:
Ever since Evelyn gave me your address last winter I have intended to write. You are so often in my thoughts but I am the world’s worst correspondent.
Then last winter I took a trip to the West Indies. Delightful while it lasted (Jamaica, Haiti!, Puerto Rico) but it ended with a broken arm. Bad break plus age and lack of calcium made it very slow and it just came out of cast last week. Still practically useless (right arm, of course) which has made it very difficult to help Jack. I know you would like to hear what I can tell of him and Evelyn.
I saw Evelyn just before I went on trip. She looked very very badly, suffering from heart and, I believe, a small stroke. She has great difficulty getting her words out and had to keep appealing to Jack. It was pityful. But I was shocked to hear she had cancer and had to go to hospital for x ray treatment. Jack was quite hopeful at first but I realized what she would have to go through at best.
I did manage to get in to the hospital at once, thank God. She was glad to see me and seemed more relaxed and less worried. Her speech was clearer but her color. . . But Jack looked and seemed much worse. He sees poorly and stumbles.
I did not intend to inflict these details on you, just started. I’d tear letter to you and begin over but might never finish.
Next thing I heard she was back in hotel with Jack who tried to keep hopeful. Then the hotel called up to say she had died and begged me to come in. I was shocked and realized things must be very bad. Fortunately I could get in to the city almost at once.
Evelyn had died quietly in her sleep which was wonderful for her but an ever greater shock for Jack. And he had absolutely no one to turn to. Everyone was on vacation, even their doctor. They wouldn’t let Evelyn’s body be taken to a funeral parlor until a police surgeon signed the death certificate.
By the time I arrived Jack was in fearful condition between shock and drink. He fell once in the room yet kept going out for more whiskey which the young policemen in charge kept confiscating. But somehow it did help him to talk. But he could make no decisions and I had to go with him to funeral parlor and make arrangements. (Of course he had eaten nothing all this time.)
The hotel was very helpful. They got him another room and one for me as I could not leave. We actually had breakfast the next day.
Jack is still in a terrible physical and emotional state as you know from his letters. Jig fears suicide but I feel the great danger has passed. He seems actually to be taking some interest in making pans and wants to see friends. We brought him out here for a week, but he would stay only two days. I try to keep in touch by letter and phone and hope to get in again next week.
I don’t know what will happen. Personally I feel he would be happier in England. He has never really adapted himself here and a complete change would be good. He might even start to write again. Also there he might drink in moderation. Now he needs it, but I don’t know how his physical state stands so much. I fear accident (very poor eyesight, too) or possible mental breakdown.
Forgive my pouring all this out on you! I guess I need to share it with someone. Also you should be prepared in case he does go to England.
He has taken some steps in legal matters. Jig wants him with him, but I’m a little dubious.
Very best love to you both
Gladys
PS On Aug 22. I just talked to Jack on the phone. His whole voice and outlook sounded much better. I plan to see him Monday.
* * * * *
To Creighton and Paula Scott
August 29, 1963
Dear Jig and Paula:
I should have answered yesterday but I’m weak-minded and hate to cause disappointment or worse. Please forgive me!
Before your letter, Jack had called up and told me to destroy the letters from May. I’m sorry as I realize what importance you attach to them. I think Jack wanted to wipe the whole thing out of his mind.
He seems a shade better. The early mornings are his worst time. But he is taking some action and making some plans. Before he decides about his visit to you, which he wants to make, he will see Walter Frank about legal matters, etc. He is even planning to try to go to work again after Labor Day. If he can do this, it will help his morale and his finances. My main worry now is his actual physical state.
I will see him next week and probably bring him out here for a few more days.
My thoughts and my heart are with you all. God bless you!
Gladys
* * * * *
To Creighton Scott
September 7, 1963
Dear Jigg,
I do so hope you make it OK on Canadian Broadcasting. Keep me informed.
I went down to Gladys’s on Wednesday intending to spend 4, or at least 3, nights, but felt so poorly I had to return here after 2 nights in order to catch the Dr Cohen on Friday evening. He gave me something which he hopes will work well enough to enable me to try school on Monday 9th. At present I feel not at all well, – indeed worse than, say, 3 weeks ago. The numbness, I suppose, is wearing off, and I’m beginning to feel the full impact. But I’ll do my best to hang on day to day till the utter misery, I hope, passes.
Yes, step by step, to England. (Visit you first, of course.)
This is only an inadequate note. I do so hope the Broadcasting comes off, – your account of the audition sounded hopeful.
Cannot write properly. Too sick. Hope to hang on somehow and feel better. Still hope to go to school Monday 9th. But I am only now starting to feel the worst reality of it.
Love to all
Jack
* * * * *
To Creighton Scott
November 4th, 1963
Dear Jigg,
Where are you? Haven’t heard from you for some time.
And with me it is just touch and go. I would welcome any form of euthanasia, but still hate the messiness of just throwing myself under a subway train. For the last week weeping fits etc. have put school out of question. I don’t know what to do.
For preservation of my own sanity I ought to come to you right away, – yet if I don’t that all must be lost.
I feel I cannot live without Evelyn. I don’t know what to do.
Love to all,
Jack
* * * * *
During these weeks Jack had been struggling with his grief. The school had been patient and helpful by letting him keep a job but their patience was wearing thin and at the beginning of November they finally let him go. The letter dismissing him said, in part, “I feel at the moment that you are not really making a sincere effort to help yourself. At the moment you are only feeling sorry for yourself.” Without the distraction (and income) of this job, Jack’s survival was predicated on drink and the prospect of visiting Jigg and his family in Canada. Meanwhile, Dr Cohen was trying to arrange free-of-charge psychiatric care for Jack
* * * * *.
To Creighton Scott
November 7, 1963
My Very Dear Jigg,
My last letter, of yesterday, – was far too self-engrossed, – but I had just received my congé from the school, and was very worried.
I do hope your ‘phone has been re-connected. It is most deplorable, just at this particular time, that it should have been cut off.
I cannot tell you how much your companionship (even if at present just by mail) means to me.
As to E’s death, I strive for resignation but it hasn’t arrived yet. Some people seem to thint that, on the cashing of one’s first Social Security cheque, aetat 65, – one happily and automatically loses the capacity of “missing” one another, – but it ain’t so.
Love to all,
Jack
* * * * *
To Creighton and Paula Scott
November 9, 1963
Dear Jig and Paula
This won’t be a real letter. I’ve been away with a very ill friend and got back to find your letter and one from Jack. I called him tonight and he was in a very bad state. I could scarcely hear him.
But I have no idea what any of us can do. One reason I put off answering your good letter was that I felt discouraged. The last few days Jack spent here were pretty terrible. I feel so sorry for him yet it is hard to do anything for someone so sorry for himself. This sounds bitter, but it is true. Also he is looking so hard for someone to lean on and he has to face things himself, as you know. At first it seemed wonderful for him to be with you for a while, but now I feel very strongly that it would add immeasurably to your problems and would not help him. If not yourselves, you must consider your children first. As for Jack’s threats of suicide, I am afraid I think them more a bid (or threat) for pity. Perhaps it is a case of wolf, wolf and he really will someday.
Jack has so many fine qualities and I really love him. It is heart breaking to see him disintegrate like this. I would not write so frankly to anyone else (esp not to the Mayers or Louise Theis. I think Louise is naïve and not really aware of her subconscious jealousy, perhaps even hate.) I do hope and pray Jack comes through. But no one can do it for him. Write if you want, but don’t spend your needed money on telephone or telegrams. Above all don’t take him in. God forgive me! But it wouldn’t help.
If I hear anything further I’ll write again. Also I want to answer your good letters with personal news. I’m beginning to drive a little which is a relief. My wrist and fingers are still quite stiff, but the doctor said it is up to me to use them as much as possible. This reason for poor typing I’ve used both hands.
This has been a hard letter to write and I’m still tired from my trip, so it is poorly expressed. But I know you’ll understand.
Also and above all it brings deepest love to you all.
God bless you
Glads
- * * * * *
To Creighton and Paula Scott
November 12, 1963
Dear Jigg and Paula,
I am scribbling this on Monday evening, – and shall await any mail from you tomorrow, to add more.
I am really bothered about Jigg’s heart condition. People live with it for years and years, but it needs watching.
For the time being, as I told you in my last, things aren’t too good with me, because I have been laid-off from my school job, and cannot be sure when I shall be in a position to recapture it. I have now arranged for regular evening-clinic psychiatric treatment, – and, if that doesn’t work, I suppose it means a further spell in hospital.
I still cannot get acclimatised to E’s being no longer here, and the pain is sometimes almost unbearable. it is worse, now, than the three months ago, because, then, emotionally speaking, her dying like that, so suddenly, seemed just another of her antics and vagaries, and it is only now, with no voice from the grave, that I begin to realise the appalling, incredible fact, that from now on I am without her, whether I live in Tahiti, Timbuctoo or Moona-Poona.
I hate this maddening little room in this accursed hotel, from which her corpse was carried out, – yet it would be impossible, now, to move.
Oh no: no sense of “disloyalty” would deter me from welcoming any anodyne, but so far only whiskey has presented itself and I remain too much in love with E to have the urge and enterprise to go out and try to get involved with anybody else. At present, people-in-general, places and events hold no interest for me without her. And it is really better for me, temporarily, not to try to “mull over” or project myself imaginatively into too far a future, because, at the moment, any Evelyn-less future is hardly contemplatable. I have no “hobbies”, and has never looked forward to anything done without her.
Tuesday morning. This account of myself, I fear, must worry you, but in the long run it is better not to disguise the facts. The morning hours, from waking around five till I allow myself my first whiskey, around 11.30 (yes, I still have just enough guts to wait till then) are plain misery and suicidally-inclined. After the whiskey it is measurably better through the rest of the day.
My Dr Cohen tells me it will get better. The situation, he says, might change just overnight, – and I might wake up one day feeling quite different. But as yet the pain of loss goes on and I feel like someone under a curse. People (well-meaningly) keep telling me that it is well she was spared a “long and distressing illness”, – which is true up to a point, – but am I to thank God for giving her cancer in the first place?
Please believe I do long to see you all. the trouble now is just that I cannot, yet, get clear of the damned business, – am jobless, and love-sick for a corpse. This, I realise, is “morbidity” to the nth, which John Metcalfe could always be relied on to provide.
But in all seriousness, I must, somehow, climb out of this extreme unhappiness, and start to live again.
The nuisance is that, after 38 years of deep attachment, I cannot, in a remaining span of 10 or even 20 years hope to do much more than just patch over such long and vivid memories. But again, I intend to weather this, somehow.
Much, much love to you all,
Jack
There is so much in the story you never, I think, knew. Some day, I’ll tell you.
All those 44 evenings that I visited her in hospital, taking the long subway trek after school to 168th Street, I pulled and prayed for her with all my might, imploring whatever God might be that the radio-treatment might work a miracle. But the miracle didn’t happen (they don’t, you know) and God wasn’t even a quarter chummy. So now, the whole thing cannot but wear the aspect of a great Defeat. I mean, I had tried so desperately to pull her through.
This isn’t, Jigg and Paula, meant to be at all a “tragic”, exaggerated or “self pitying” letter. It is merely as close an approximation as I can reach to the present position about myself and Evelyn.
Let us get there!
Again, love
Jack
* * * * *
To Creighton Scott
November 15, 1963
Dear Jigg,
Yours of the 10th received, and I can indeed sympathise with its underlying desperation,–though it could not fail to depress me.
There remain several gross misconceptions of which, for honesty’s sake, I must disabuse you. I did not wish to go into them again, by writing instead of talking, – but your letter almost forces me to.
(A) In some previous letter of yours you asked—why did E and I ever leave England? Simply, and almost entirely, to bring Evelyn, geographically anyhow, closer to you-all, – and make her think she you see you again. “Mad as a hatter” she was already beginning to be, – but that was what she thought.
(B) Since then, in USA, – so far from “not caring a shot”, she worried about you incessantly. She was quite capable, for a while, of mailing and registering her own (regrettable) letters, and I still granted her the privilege of being a free person, where you were concerned. This has proved bad policy,–but it was ethics, to me, at the time. She once (I think when you were still at Carmel) tried to send you a trifling check, which Paula returned torn up. Her main engrossment was just you and family. We did not know of your going through and Senatorial Investigations, – etc, – All we had was a laconic report of your testimony, – which sounded mighty good. We did not know (because we had no information) that your job had thereby been lost, – nor did we have the least inkling of your subsequent difficulties, – though E Scott consciously surmised and suspected them. Her anxiety about, and preoccupation with, your probable difficulties was evident, – and would have hastened her end, anyhow, apart from the recent lung business.
I am an extremely (still) rational person, – and see your side of the whole matter, believe me, as clearly as I do hers. I have realised, for many years, that she was “wrecking my life”, – but it is an entirely fanciful attitude on your part to “admire” me for “sticking to” her. I clung to her, rather than “stuck by” because I loved her, – as I now am. She was largely my mother as well as my wife.
We had no faintest delusion that you were “affluent” when you left Carmel and went to wherever—you did—go. (We found out later it was Vermont—didn’t know where, since we hadn’t the information), – but suspected you were in dire straits of some kind. All this continued preying on her mind.
You cannot tell me more than I know perfectly well already about the difficulties for you, of getting a job in England. All that has faded into the cloud-cuckoo land where, in my heart, I always knew it really belonged. Though I still do hope you get to France.
I am, alas, not getting any better. I am worse each day, so far.
Evelyn and I made a sort of little suicide pact between us. She said, that if I died, she would wait 3 or so months, and then quit this mortal scene – -but I made an inward vow that I would wait one whole year after her death, and then see how I felt. Yet this morning, before I took a sip of whiskey, one almost unbearable. I have a length of clothes-line with which to hang myself if matters don’t mend. I eat nothing, – and save money. I bought a sandwich 3 days ago, and it still suffices me in the frig.
By special concession I went oculist (another $10) Sat morning, – and he said that, barring another operation, and cataract lenses—etc etc, nothing more could be done. He exuded polite surprise that I was hoping to work at all.
I am half-blind, and that’s that, – and I don’t see myself ever getting the school job back. In my present mental state it wd be laughable to try to hold it anyhow.
The “psychiatry” is nonsense. The psychiatrist’s advice, of course, is to fit myself out with some new girl-friend, – but what would be the good of that? If she were just placed in my lap, – I suppose I would automatically fiddle with her, – and end up in the usual way, – and to what good?
It all boils down, more and more, to an irreparable, un-mendable loss. After 38 years of intimacy, can I be reasonably expected to recover in 1 year, or 2 years, or 5? It would be ridiculous to suppose so.
Please forgive this honestly desperate letter.
I wish to meet you all, as soon as possible,–wherever it may be,
Much, much love,
Jack
By living, E Scott make me, on the whole, miserable for 38 years, and now, by dying, has made me more so. Oh God, I wish we could talk!
* * * * *
To Creighton Scott
December 16, 1963
Dear Old Jigg,
This is merely a sort of continuation of yesterday’s letter, and requires no separate, individual answer. I do pray that things are somehow looking-up for you all. You have my deepest concern and sympathy.
As for myself, I am as per yesterday. I am not getting any “better”, and indeed, feel lots worse than 3 months and more ago. It’s no good pretending otherwise. Even if circumstances were more propitious for our meeting you would find me impossible, – I am fit company for neither man nor beast. I pray to have however that you may get at least to France or somewhere.
The experience of “hunger” has been strange to me for 6 months, – since her worst illness was known. I have, today, eaten ½ of ½ of last Friday’s sandwich, – and this is all I could stomach. That will be under 14 cents per day for food, for 4 days.
Forgive me for letting down my hair in this fashion, – but I have to have some sort of communication with someone., and, in communicating, not just tell polite untruths.
Do not, for Christ’s sake, ever “admire” me for “sticking by” E Scott. It was completely the other way round. During the last 9 NY years I did, certainly, keep her going economically, – but she supplied much more than I did, morally. Nuttier and nuttier though she grew, she still gave me a communion and companionship which (to me at the moment anyhow) appears unduplicatable. One should not “admire” a bean-stalk for leaning against, and twining round, its pole. She was, to large extent, my mother as well as my wife, and she was the pole, and I the bean-plant. She gave me a sense of domesticity and security as background for everything, – and now that has gone galley-west.
“Art and Letters” are no longer anything to me, as I told you. I shit on them. Toys and Opium. The “innate ghastliness” of life has, not in any deliberate malevolence (as she imagined) of fate, but in a sheer indifference.
As I told you, I fixed-up a special, concessionary, appointment with the oculist last Saturday morning, – and, – apart from further operation, possible “contact lenses” etc, nothing much, it seems, can be done. He seemed surprised that I was still working, or hoping to. My old job in Study Hall, from which I’ve been definitely laid-off, didn’t require much vision. But any resumption of a job in that school would mean teaching, – and Algebra would be my subject. It would be out. I can still write, as you see, “motorly”, though with tiny exponents such as “Zx+y-3”, but couldn’t read them.
The “psychiatry”, as I told you, is, I fear, no good. What I have lost is a home of some sort, – a settled background to everything. I want domesticity.
I simply do not see how I can carry-on. As I said, I shall continue till Aug 3rd, 1964, and then make up my mind. I simply cannot express to anyone, what the crazy E Scott meant to me.
A purely selfish letter, and try to forgive it. I am not “indulging” grief. I am simply realising, more and more, that I can’t live without her, – any more than poor old Sir Harry Lauder could without his wife.
May the Lord’s blessings be upon you all. If, by some magic, I became a very different person, you might bear with me, – and find me tolerable.
Love, and loads of it, to all,
Jack
* * * * *
To Jack Metcalfe
December 25, 1963
Dear Jack,
All of us have thought the question over very worriedly, and the result is that there will be no combined household consisting of yours and ours. You have become a rubber stamp of E Scott—to be expected, I suppose, after 40 years of servility to her manias.
I have explained to you in other letters what she herself said her motives were where I and mine were concerned. The same old pattern that she set recurs in your letters to us. Although you knew of the disasters which have overtaken us, largely thanks to her egotism and your spinelessness, the discovery that we really were at the end of our rope and as poor as we said was such a shock to your system you had to throw up your job right away so as to make things worse. This made it our fault that you were miserable for reasons we could not prevent. That’s the kind of thing that made me hate my mother. Again, when it became necessary to explain to you that—since we were at financial rock bottom, and for other reasons you knew as well as we do—we were not free agents in the sense that Rockefeller is, this news (which you had heard years ago) so crushed your spirit that you couldn’t read our letters anymore, and went blind or nearly so. You are not too stupid to understand this: I am not the spineless, gutless, mindless, nugatory foetus dangling at the end of an umbilical cord; that E Scott devoted 30 years to trying to make me be. What will crush you even more than the other things you already know is that I don’t intend to become such a creature to please you. Neither do my wife nor my children.
The domesticity you want would consist of our devoting our full time to gushings of phoney commiseration while you crooned over your spiritual leprosy. I’ve read it in the lines and between the lines of your letters. That ¼ of a stale sandwich in four days, that kissing the gapping lips of the dead, all that crud about hurling yourself under subway trains except that it would be so messy, is bullshit.
Bullshit is bullshit, and what you want is someone to scratch your mange, not a family.
My patience has come to an end. I’m sorry it had to be this way. We started out trying to be kindly to a man in distress, and now find ourselves spiritually to blame for all the hazards of life that beset him as they do others.
I also have a spark of pride. My mother played me for a fool from the time I was a baby. You’re trying to play all of us for suckers. It won’t wash.
We’re at the end of our rope and you’re at the end of yours. I haven’t the faintest idea how either of us can extricate ourselves. One thing I know is that you can’t recruit seven people to pet your sores, as my father used to say.
There will be no point in answering this because the answer won’t be read or acknowledged. This is goodbye, with very deep regrets that will under no circumstances change any of our minds.
Your stepson,
* * * * *
To Creighton and Paula Scott
January 4, 1963
Dear Jig + Paula:
Thanks for your letters. I always enjoy hearing from you. I don’t blame you but did think your letter to Jack was a little too strong especially at this time. After so many years it can only be expected that he should bear the ES imprint. I saw him yesterday, and feel that for the first time he is trying to be a man again. Plans his job back, admits enough money if he stops drinking, etc. I hope he succeeds but no one, least of all myself or you, can help him.
I, too, can’t bear his pathologic self pity and agree wholeheartedly that you and he should not be together. (At first it seemed a possible solution, but how wrong I was!) I hope you can put him + the ES image out of your life + thoughts. There is no tie on earth to bind you. I won’t write about him again unless to answer your questions. (I don’t expect to see him again for some time.)
We are both well but the weather—and driving—are both terrible. Our driveway is such a sheet of ice I scarcely venture down it for the mail. But today the sun is out + will, I hope, melt the ice.
I’ve been trying hard to make time to write again—but the “mechanics of living”. I know you + Paula will understand.
Much much love to you both + to the kids. I
God bless you
Glads
PS Perhaps as you say your letter had to be strongly worded to get through to him.
* * * * *
Jigg’s and Jack’s stories do not end well. In desperation, Jigg thought he could capitalise on the fact he was born in Brazil to claim Brazilian nationality, but discovered that merely being born in Brazil did not confer citizenship: it was necessary that the birth be registered at a Brazilian Public Registry. Around this time he broke his shoulder and spent weeks in an awkward shoulder cast which significantly limited his daily activities. He also suffered a psychotic episode which led to him being sectioned and held in the local mental hospital. After discharge he suffered a series of mild coronaries, culminating in the summer of 1965 in the severe heart attack which killed him.
Jack was eventually hospitalised with a severe grief reaction and spent some months in a state hospital on Long Island. Since Evelyn’s death he has been planning to return to England and had made plans to live in London with his friend of many years, John Gawsworth. The hospital were reluctant to discharge Jack to make this journey unless Gawsworth agreed to sign an undertaking to be responsible for his welfare, and Jack was able to return to England in early 1965. He found a room in a local hotel and one evening he and friends met at a local public house where they had a convivial evening. It was an icy night and on returning to his hotel, Jack slipped on the front steps, hit his head and collapsed. He was taken to hospital, where he never recovered consciousness and was buried in Mill Hill Cemetery in north London.
* * * * *
A Life in Letters 