DEREK

1p., 4to. He thanks Stanford for sending 'the carbon' of his 'warm review' of Litvinoff's novel ('A Death out of Season'). He missed the article and the note Stanford wrote 'about my autobiographical sequence' in the Scotsman, but is now iinterested to see from the review that Stanford is 'nursing the idea of a 'Forties memoir. Amazingly, few of us have written about the decade. I shall be getting around to it one day also, I hope.

All items clear and complete, on aged paper. Letters totaling: 4to, 1 p; landscape 8vo, 5 pp. The two cards carry long messages, written in red ink in Grubb's close, neat hand; one is standard size, the other 27 x 13.5 cm. Five envelopes are stapled to their letters. Grubb ('one of the last survivors of the famous 1960s Hampstead coterie of writers, actors and critics') writes entertainingly in an emphatic, energetic manner marvellously evocative of the 1970s London literary scene.

On a leaf of blue paper (roughly 11 x 14 cm), removed from an autograph album. Good: lightly aged and spotted. Reads 'With best wishes The Hedley Ward Trio | Jack Mckechnie | Derek Franklin | Bob Carter'. Docketed, presumably by the recipient, with the members' instruments. Hedley Ward was one of the foremost British bandleaders of the 30s, 40s and 50s, and his Trio featured in many radio and television broadcasts, and are still to be heard on archive programmes.