by Barbara Pym
Barbara
31 October. In the Churchill hoping for relief from my fluid. Conversation in the bed opposite:
‘There’s some nice music tonight.’
‘I’m not a great lover of music’
‘No – it just passes the time.’
‘That’s right.’
21 November. Churchill. Ward 7. A cold, raw typical November day, but we got here and I’ve just eaten a kind of supper – vegetable soup, baked beans and sausage. After the removal of four pints of fluid. The curious mixed or unisex ward is surely Donne’s
Difference of sex no more we know
Than our guardian angels do.
December 1979. Christmas card to Philip Larkin
WITH BEST WISHES FOR CHRISTMAS AND
THE NEW YEAR
(Still struggling on – perhaps a little better!) Another visit to hospital (brief) on 2nd Jan.
Barbara
She died on 11 January 1980
Copyright
First published in 1984 by Macmillan
This edition published 2013 by Bello
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ISBN 978-1-4472-6540-5 EPUB
ISBN 978-1-4472-6539-9 POD
Barbara Pym’s text and The Early Life © Hilary Walton, 1984
Preface and all editorial matter © Hazel Holt, 1984
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