Geoffrey and I met at The Social Survey, where I worked for a year until the Conservatives won the 1950 election and cut its budget. I returned to the States but often revisited London and Cambridge where my daughter Claire lived with her mother.

            It was not easy, alone in a rented room, to keep a little girl dry, warm, and entertained after school. I will always be grateful to Geoffrey for his kindness during these visits. Charmian and Claire were about the same age. On weekends and holidays, Geoffrey would drive to Cambridge or we would meet at St. Albans or another station and the girls played while we talked.

            We had a number of common acquaintances who had worked at Mass Observation, the Social Survey, or other research agencies. As the years became decades, one or another dropped away, but Geoffrey remained steadfast. The bicycles, rations, drab clothes, and chilly rooms were replaced by cars, decent food and clothes, and warm homes. There was always something or someone to discuss.  Even-tempered and good humored, I do not recall Geoffrey ever being angry or irritable, or, if he was, I mistook it for wry humor. He could recognize a weakness or folly without condemning the person.

            We got on easily. We both felt that too much is demanded of people in government (British or American); that they are ordinary people, no better and no worse than others. Sometimes they do foolish things–who doesn’t? But to condemn them too harshly is, ultimately, to condemn ourselves.

We are all in the same boat together–until, one by one, we slip off.

            Geoffrey had a strong stock of charity. Of “faith, hope, charity,” Paul said, “…the greatest…is charity.” Unhappily, in the last years, his body was not very charitable to him. Perhaps it is a kind of kindness that he has gone. England will not be the same for me without him.