gb0551ms-33-128

Transcription

[Page 128]
[continued from page 127]

Early Iron Age folk - Traces I obtained but
they let practically to nothing . However
we found a hearth resembling that which
I found in the dwelling in No. IVc [?] at
Jarlshof . at the upper level and in the
peat-ash which lay beside it we found a
few unimportant relics. Three times I
nearly gave up the quest as I did not
consider that results justified the
expenditure . However, three days before
the day fixed for our cessation we found
a remarkable construction – a low four
sided building with a cist on the top
covered by two rectangular slabs and
presenting sundry curious features.
What it is I have not yet ascertained
It is either tomb, altar, or shrine but
I am awaiting a discussion with
Prof [Professor] Stuart Piggot, before making up
my mind. We returned to Edinburgh
in the same way as we went up at the
beginning of Septr. so as to enjoy some of
the entertainments of the Edinburgh Festival

10th January 1951
I am sadly remiss in writing
up my journal , especially blameworthy in such a
time as this when war rages in Korea, Malaya etc and
we live in the dread of outbreak by Russia. The
necessary expenditure in military measures to
put the country in a state of defence and to
make preparation for a titanic war with the
soviet state if it should come, is going to make
such a drain on our resources that we shall
be inevitably driven to a lower standard of
living than we even now subsist on. The
prospect of the world at war is so terrible that
it may never materialize. Now to a
more ?pleasant topic which I think should
be related. In 1937 my friend Mrs
de Pree, subsequently killed when an aero:
;plane doing a practice flight, struck her
House, Beechgrove nr [near] Haddington, exploded,
wrecking a considerable part of the house
and killing my friend, her grandchild,
its nurse, and a visitor, gave me a
seedling of mecanopsis grandis (nepal
var [nepalensis varietas]) which with others she had received from
the Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh

28 Jany 1952
How remiss I have been in writing this up.
Much of last year I spent as an invalid
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