Ever thine, Claude Morley

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Suffolk Natural

History,

Vol. 35

"EVER THINE, CLAUDE MORLEY" A. ASTON In April 1942, John Renouf and I saw ovcr a dozen spccimens of the Large Tortoiseshcll butterfly in the rides of Northfield Wood, Onehousc, and I wrote to the East Anglian Daily Times reporting our observations, since a correspondent had thrown doubt on another earlicr sighting. Almost at once, the Honorary Secretary of the Suffolk Naturalists' Society, no less, wrote inviting me to become a member and expressing surprise that he had not heard of me before. My parents answered Claude's letter and explained that I was only eleven, but Claude set that aside as irrelevant and wrote on the Ist. of June 1942 to inform me that, on the same day, I had been duly elected a member. He hoped that we would meet at post-war excursions and ended with the old-world courtesy of "my dear Sir". He did not forget to ask for the annual subscription!

So began a most unusual and exhilarating correspondence. It was war-time and Claude punctiliously re-used envelopes, as was expected by the authorities, with the result that my schoolmasters must have been puzzled by the august names (legibly) deleted on some of my mail. They were possibly equally amazed when, by 1944, he had taken to typing posteards, evidently on an antique machine, and signing off "Ever thine, Claude Morley". I am not sure what the prefects would have made of "C. Yellows" or of his complaint that subscriptions were "slow Coming in, consequent upon heavy taxalion. We have only JUST enough in hand to pay for Transaetions!" Ii now seems to me a miraele that he was ablc to manage in those years but such were his energy and enthusiasm that he did.

He was tireless in recruiting members and kept them cheerful afterwards, with, for examplc: "Best of luck in all your 1944 huntings! Why not take up our NEGLECTED Flies (Diptera)? M O S T interesting." One result of this suggestion was my assembling boxes upon boxes of unknown insects, which Claude kindly undertook to name and returned eventually with: "Boxes done and ready for you whenever you like. Thine CM." My cycle-rides from Stowmarket to Monks' Soham were adventures back in time, as if I were visiting Fabre in a lost landscape. His house was completely hidden from the road and only a small opening into a high clipped hedge of elm and sloe permitted entry across a narrow rickely wooden bridge.

Underneath, there was a kind of weedy ditch, known to Claude as "The Moat".

The garden was overgrown except for mown paths and the house covered with ivy that had remained untrimmed for forty years. No wonder it was a paradise for insects! Claude was always splendidly cheerful, in his Urbane way inviting me into "The Museum", a large built-on sort of conservatory that housed an amazing array of cabinets holding collections of molluscs, birds' skins, geological speeimens and, of course, insects. Handing ovcr my boxes of meticulously labelled flies, beetles, wasps, etc., he would dive into cabinets, showing me his moths from what he called his "moth-years", when he was out and about Ipswich with Ted Platten.

Claude had his own bug-hunting language, often consisting of abbreviations, and it would take some time for me to fathom that "Icks" were ichneumons, for example.

Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 35

(1999)

"EVER THINE, CLAUDE MORLEY"

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Afler a while, he would suggest that I might likc to wander in the gardcn and I was left to my own devices, penetrating "The Paddock" or inspecting the tennis court where they had played such "famous matches, quite recently".

Claude's eollections of moths still in Ipswich Museum, occasionally lacked a species and the waiting space would be filled with a small label: "NOT GOT". This much amused David Chipperfield and myself, I remember, particularly when we were out seeking some "NOT G O T ' of our own. As Claude had worked at the British Museum, Natural History, he had acquired the habit of retaining for himself "NOT GOT" specimens sent in for naming.

Many stories circulated about Claude. I especially liked the remark he made to an angry keeper who was trying to reprimand him for trespassing, "But we are Suffolk Naturalists: we trespass EVERYWHERE!" I can see him saying this even now, the assured tilt of his straw hat, his whiskers bristling and that glint in his eye over the pince-nez supported by cords. He was spirited, sometimes furious, often learned - and humorous quite a bit of the time. I passed him a lunch-time lettuce-leaf complete with aphid at a Barton Mills pub meeting. "Thank you, I know that little beggar!" he shouted and then an aside, "Good thing about Aston, he takes all Orders."

Mrs. Morley, was the driver on all Claude's excursions, some of which were lengthy, but on my visits to Monks' Soham I rarely spoke to her. A postcard says, "1 took 1000 specimens (botany, insects, mollusca, &c) in March 1931 over the Medit. area, Coming home via Switz., motoring." After Claude had died, I was asked by our Society to list some of his Diptera and I soon became aware of the diverse localities to which he must have been chauffeused on family outings. He warmly appreciated his wife's support and "sympathy for my hobby".

It is not always possible after a lapse of many years to pinpoint exact dates and times for memories that are nonetheless poignant. On one occasion, possibly 14th. August 1950, David Chipperfield had driven Claude and myself back to Monks' Soham for supper, after a Society excursion. Claude's cook had served the main course and was on her way back to the village, when I noticed I had no fork with which to eat my stew. Claude was in fĂźll anecdotal flow and his hearing was not all that good. I said to David, sotto voce, "After you with the fork please." All went well and I had returned the fork to David when Claude, pausing in mid-anecdote, said to me, "You haven't got a fork." I said, "No. I wasn't issued with one." Or words to that effect. "Well," he said, "how did you eat your supper?" I said that I had borrowed Chipperfield's. I am not certain that he ever believed me.

At our last meeting (6th October 1951), I remember lunching with him, David Chipperfield and George Thurlow under a huge tree in Henham Park. He wrote "At noon two rare Insects had been netted by MM. Aston and Thurlow.'

It was "a day of perpetual sunshine and balmy zephyrs", to again quote Mr. Morley. And it still seems so.

A. Aston, Wake's Cottage, Seiborne, Hampshire GU34 3JH Members might like to read Morley's obituary wich appeared in TSNS 7: lxxvn and are reminded that a photograph of Morley and of Monks' Soham House appeared in Francis Simpson's 'Memories of the Suffolk Naturalists' Society', TSNS 26: 1-4.

Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 35

(1999)