The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street by Helene Hanff Page A

delicacy here; people serve it as a compliment to their guests the way they serve filet mignon or lobster at home.
    Got back here about ten and have had the Lounge to myself for an hour but my luck just ran out. A woman just came in looking for somebody to talk to. She says Be sureand see the Temple, locate Middle Temple Lane and you’ll see two large white doors leading into the Temple, the Inner Temple and Middle Temple Hall, and the porter will show you the room where Dickens wrote Great Expectations. Doesn’t seem the time to tell her I found Great Expectations very boring, it’s the sort of conversation-stopping sequitur you learn is really non sequitur.
    She says the Knights Templar were buried under the floor of the church and that’s why it’s called the Temple. She says the church was destroyed during the war and after the war all the Knights’ bones were dug up and they’re now in a common grave under the floor of the rebuilt church. It’s a good thing I want to see all this, because if I didn’t plan to I’d have to keep out of the Lounge, I gather she spends all her evenings in here.
    Two women just came in—early thirties, very neat, they may be schoolteachers; they’re from Toronto—and it seems the Temple woman sent them somewhere on a day’s outing and they are now telling her How Right She Was. Greenwich-by-boat. Maritime Museum.
    Temple woman says This will interest me because I’m an American, she says there are Pilgrim artifacts at Greenwich, the Pilgrims took ship from there. Always thought it was Plymouth. Didn’t say so. I’m controlling an insane impulse to turn to the three of them and say chattily:
    â€œDid you know that when the Pilgrim Fathers caught a Pilgrim having a love affair with a cow, they not only hanged the Pilgrim, they also hanged the cow?”
    One of the teachers wants to know Am I the writer? They’ve heard such a lot about me at the desk. If they shouldbe able to get a copy of my book tomorrow would I be kind enough to autograph it for them? Soitinly. Told a woman the other night she was passing up a chance to own the only unautographed copy in existence, she just looked at me baffled, nobody understands me.

Friday, July 9  
Russell Square
    A man came by at 10 A.M. to interview me for Radio London and I dragged him and his tape recorder over here, I’m not sitting in a dark hotel lobby on a sunny summer morning.
    He told me a play was done here last season about Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton and a script was sent to Buckingham Palace. It came back to the producers office with a note:

    The Duke of Edinburgh thinks you’ve treated Lady Hamilton very shabbily. The Queen reserves judgment.

    Everybody over here has a Philip anecdote for you, they’re proud of the fact that he’s so unstuffy. It’s appealing how people regard the Royal Family as relatives, it’s a kind of Cousin-Elizabeth-and-her-husband-and-the-children attitude. So everybody feels free to criticize them, what else are relatives for? Elizabeth, Philip and Prince Charles all very popular. Feelings mixed about Princess Anne; most people I’ve met are defensive about her. You ask an Englishman:
    â€œWhat’s Princess Anne like?” and the Englishman says:
    â€œWell, you must remember she’s still very young, she’s new to all this, after all she’s only twenty, you can’t expect—”
    And all you said was: “What’s she like?”
    But they’re very impressed by her horsemanship, theytell you with great pride: “She’s good enough to ride for England!”
    Feelings also mixed (this surprised me) about the Queen Mother. One woman told me:
    â€œHer public image is a masterpiece of press agentry. I once stood next to her at Harrods and caught her eye, and she has the coldest eyes I ever looked into.”
    Have to go back to the hotel to meet Nikki’s