The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, Digital Edition > My Day
My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt

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London, England—To continue my Edinburgh visit! Thursday we drove up to the Castle where an old friend, Lieutenant-General Sir Andrew Thorne, recieved us, and Mr. J. Wilson Patterson showed us the points of interest. I fell in love with the little St. Margaret's Chapel which all the Margarets of Scotland keep provided with flowers, week by week. We spent a little while in the very beautiful War Memorial, but of course, theings of greatest interest are at present carefully put away.

We stopped at St. Giles Cathedral where the Dean took us about. Then we went to tea with the Lord Provost and his wife and met about two hundred of the leading citizens of Edinburgh in the Council Chambers. The Lord Provost made a charming speech of welcome and for the second time, the song: "Will Ye No Come Back Again" was sung.

At about six o'clock we reached the American Red Cross Club and spent an hour. Here I saw two friends I had almost given up hope of meeting, Lieutenatn McIlwraith and Third Officer Doris Goodwin of the "Wrens". I wen through the building which is very well adapted to its purposes. Finally we dined with Lord and Lady Rosebery and I enjoyed very much meeting the interesting people he had gathered together.

We got off on the evening train for London and arrived exactly on time. As we found our car in the early morning darkness, Mr. Dorsey Fisher of the American Embassy, who with Mr. Chalmers Roberts of the Office of War Information, has been with us on the whole trip, remarked on how fortunate we were, to have planned everything for a week ahead and carried everything out on schedule time! This really is an achievement where we had to fly to Ireland and back to Scotland, but in both of those countries we had such beautiful weather we could hardly believe the tales we were told a London fog when our skies looked clear and blue.

I felt almost as much at home coming back to Ambassador Winant's flat as I would feel in New York City in our own little apartment. We spent the morning getting tidied up and catching up on mail and packages which had arrived during our absence.

At noon an old friend of my school days came to see me and then my aunt, Mrs. David Gray and her husband had luncheon with us. It is wonderful to have them in London for a few days and this part of my stay is taking on a much more leisurely and personal complexion, since the really planned schedules are nearly all accomplished. There still remain certain phases of development, particularly on labor questions which are of deep interest to me and which I do not feel as yet, I know very much about.

Friday afternoon I went to report on all I had seen to her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth and had the pleasure of having tea again with the whole Royal family. His Majesty, the King had returned from seeing not only his own aviation groups, but also some of ours. I envied him the opportunity of talking to those boys and hearing about some of the work they have been doing of late.

E.R.


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

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  • London (England, United Kingdom) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, November 16, 1942

Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962
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Digital edition created by The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project The George Washington University 312 Academic Building 2100 Foxhall Road, NW Washington, DC 20007

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Digital edition published 2008, 2017 by
The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project

Available under licence from the Estate of Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.

Published with permission from the Estate of Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.

MEP edition publlished on June 30, 2008.

TEI-P5 edition published on April 28, 2017.

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Transcription created from a photocopy of a draft version of a My Day column instance archived at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library. My Day column draft dated November 15, 1942, FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY
TMsd, 15 November 1942, AERP, FDRL