PAYBACK

In 1948, the English-Speaking Union of the United States granted me a scholarship to Christ’s Hospital, a school for poor children, founded in 1552 by Edward VI, son of Henry VIII. Recently (in 1900), it moved to Horsham, Sussex.  The year I spent there was one of the most memorable periods in my life.  I was exposed to, and gloried in, English history and culture. I formed friendships that lasted a lifetime. 

  I also developed disciplines that stood me in good stead when I later attended Princeton University and Harvard Law School and, yes, even when I was drafted into the Army, which sent me to Newfoundland for a year.  (At Christ’s Hospital, I had learned how to march - and how to write meaningfully, a skill that the commanding officer of the Army Newfoundland Quartermaster office did not possess.  I wrote his reports for him, and he kept me from being “sent North” to lonely radar installations.) 

So it was natural, fitting, and proper for me to become a lifelong, active, member of the English-Speaking Union.  I was President of the Kentucky Branch for a couple of years.  My enthusiasm for the E.S.U. rubbed off onto my wife, Sylvia, who became more active than I was.  She was President for several years and, for a while, she operated out of a small E.S.U. office in the Frazier History Museum in Louisville.  (The E.S.U. was instrumental in the opening of the museum.  Owsley Frazier, the Louisville philanthropist who founded the museum, determined that he wanted to display a “British” theme when he opened his institution, so he brought in many English artifacts and arranged for a Yeoman of the Guard (Beefeater) to cut the opening ribbon.) 

Sylvia and my participation in E.S.U. matters became international in scope - literally.  She and I went to Mexico City, where I was born and where my brother, John, lives; we helped to establish an E.S.U. Branch there.  We recruited a couple of our British friends (Dennis Silk, whom I first met at Christ’s Hospital and Colin Wilcocksen, whom we met when we went to Summer School in Cambridge, UK) to come to the United States and tour the U.S. as Evelyn Wrench speakers.  

Sylvia and I welcome the leadership of our current Branch President, Kate Nitzken.  She has strengthened our resolve to continue to be active and productive members of the ESU and we know she has a similar effect on other Branch Members.