"Motored to Edinburgh in beastly cold weather, but this morning after church, an amusing little neo-Gothic structure, there was a Canaletto sky over the castle....
Vowed to make the best of everything, even though inconveniently located remote from Gloucestershire and SW1, SW3, SW7 and W1. Decided would even try to make the best of James Lees-Milne's latest volume of diaries, Caves of Ice, which records some of his activities and emotional responses as Adviser on Historic Buildings to the National Trust in 1946 and 1947.
Glanced through the book before lunch. Elegant, pale architectural jacket (Cotehele House, Cornwall) and endpapers (Cotehele House and Nostell Priory, Yorkshire). Frontispiece portrait of the author looking up balefully from the pen in his hand and the sheaf of papers on his desk. His expression suggests that he does not like writing, resents working in an office and really isn't at all pleased when someone intrudes to photograph him in such un-chic drudgery."
Extract from Book review (in Daily Telegraph?) by Patrick Skene Catling 1983
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