17/4/1959 Cyril writes a letter to explain



Friday 17th April, 1959

My dear Marianne,

I hope you will forgive the liberty I am taking in writing this short letter to you......but I feel I ought to reassure you about certain things, for I am quite certain you must be wondering not a little just recently.

Will you believe me when I say that I am not making improper advances to you, nor shall I ever do so. I wish only to have the privilege of knowing you and I hope I shall never give you the slightest cause to think ill of me. I cannot conceal (nor would I want to) my admiration for you and I will always, I know, have feelings about you which cannot in the nature of circumstances be expressed. In this connection, please believe me when I tell you I am quite happy at home....and that I do not (nor ever have done) go around seeking out beautiful young people!

I owe you a deep debt of gratitude for enriching my life to an extent which I never thought possible and I hope anything I have said will not prejudice that relationship.

I asked you if I might write to you, for the sole purpose of discussing in private things which I know to be of mutual interest, but I respect your judgment on the matter....although I could not resist a little leg-pull!

What a serious letter! But I hope it will clear the air......and take away any concern you may have in accepting the little Skira's.

Yours most sincerely (how inadequate!)
Cyril Nash


I can't find any reference of where the word 'Skira' comes from. Google just assumes I've mistyped Shakira - how rude...

Mr Nash's letter seems honest and heartfelt, while acknowledging that Marianne was probably fairly overwhelmed by his attention via poetry. His statement that he had a happy home life seems likely to have been reassuring.

Laurence Worms, who took ownership of the business in the early 1970s when Hugh Jones and Cyril Nash retired, has told me in correspondence by email that Mr Nash was a private man with regard to his home life, but that he knew Cyril was married, to Eileen, and some genealogical research has added that he had a daughter and son, both around the same age as Marianne at the time - early 20s. Laurence shared the below:

Both he and Hugh had been in insurance before 1946 (although dabbling in buying and selling books in their spare time for some years before that). In mid life they took rather a bold decision, both married and with children, to give up their safe and pensionable careers, to open the shop, and take up the chancy business of second-hand bookselling, thinking that in the immediate post-war it was now or never.

I’m not sure that Eileen Nash ever entirely forgave him.  That was Hugh’s theory, anyway. 

I wonder how the letter was received - whether it put Marianne's mind at rest regarding her feeling able to visit the shop for her primary and sole purpose of buying antiquarian books to add to her collection.

She definitely continued to visit, and Cyril definitely continued to write poems for her...