COMBE FLOREY
'Apologies it was: Revisited Madam…'
Under the subject of 'Evelyn Waugh et al', this was the entire content of an email from a William Fricker one day in April 2025. It puzzled me. Revisited? Madam?
Then, before turning in, I saw an earlier email from my new correspondent in Junk. All became clear. What a gem of a story that I can see myself using if I begin a Combe Florey section to my site, as I suspect I will now have to.
William's first email to me reads as follows:
Hello Duncan,
I was at school with Septimus, first at St Joseph’s Taunton, then at All Hallows, Cranmore Hall. I believe Bron went there, too. I don’t think Auberon would have approved of Stonyhurst - dark, freezing, cold showers and rugby day and night. Septimus had his tonsils removed the same time as my sister Julia and they shared a room in Musgrave Hospital. Evelyn witnessed my First Holy Communion in St George’s Taunton and according to my Mother sat in a back pew scowling...not unusual.
I tell an apocryphal story related to me by my Father, a Protestant. He went to collect Julia from Septimus’s 6/7th Birthday Party held at Combe Florey. Evelyn was standing by the front door pushing out the children to waiting parents. A woman of no determinate beauty caroused up to EW and shrilled “Oh Mr Waugh I did so enjoy Brideshead Regained.” Pulling his tie as if wishing to strangle the woman he bellowed “Revisited, Revisited Woman - now please leave."
Keep up the good work,
William Fricker
Publisher of UK Travel Guides
www.goldeneyeguides.co.uk
I intend to get started the good work right now. First essay: Ronald Knox
