Entertaining Melba

Friday, November 2nd., Cadogan Square, London.

My nephew Richard seems never to settle to anything. I don't know why. Of course there have been all the problems with his father and the sorry 'adoption' business which I should never have agreed to. Still those are all well in the past and he is mature enough to get on with life. At least in my opinion. At his age I was making my way in London, and had had none of the support he has received. Perhaps that is part of the problem - the more 'help' some people get, the more dependent they become. Have we made him dependent? Possibly.

Anyway, at the moment he is at Port Sunlight (what a name for a place!) working as some sort of chemical engineer. Quite what that involves I have no idea. He is discontented, allegedly because of the environment and the people he is working with but mainly, I think, because he aspires to a life of luxury (like yours truly!) and is impatient to get it. I have told him that he must, whilst he remains at P.S., work as if he intends to spend the rest of his life there. I doubt if he will.

Dame Nellie Melba

I have had a good month of writing - 26,000 words of "Raingo" besides a lot of correcting of MS and typescript etc. The only thing is that I feel more and more often that I am writing by rote rather than with the true creative flame burning as it used. It is professional and well done but not up to my work of two decades ago. Probably unrealistic to expect anything else. It is generally true that artists (and scientists) produce their best work when they are young and unconstrained by experience. Do I have another first rate novel in me? I don't know. Perhaps my big 'hotel' project if I ever bring it to fruition.

I was to have dined with Knoblock last night but instead accepted an invitation from a journalist name  Beverley Nichols who was entertaining Melba. We had a great time with Melba. She is 64 and as lively as ever. She has sold her house in Mansfield Street and we called in to see it all dismantled. It's a lovely house. She left for Paris at 9 a.m. today. They say that she is by far the richest of all the retired opera stars. I can believe it.