OLD TURF FRIENDS.
An announcement in the morning papers of the death of Mr. Richard C. Naylor of Kelmarsh, Northamptonshire, at the age of eighty-six, carried me back to the far-off days when, tempted by the hospitality and kind friendship of Lord Falmouth, I became a regular visitor of Newmarket Heath—an habitué during the splendid dictatorship of Admiral Rous!
I would like to mention the names of some of the celebrities of the Turf of those days, many of them my frequent companions, and no less my real and sincere friends. Time, however, fails. But in looking through the piles of letters with which the kindness of my friends has favoured me from time to time, I come across many a relic of the past that recalls the pleasantest associations. Even a telegram, most prosaic of correspondence, which I meet with at this moment, is a little poem in its way, and brings back scenes and circumstances over which memory loves to linger.
It is nothing in itself, but let any one who has loved country life and enjoyed its sports and its many friendships consider what forgotten pleasures may be brought to mind by this telegram.
Telegram.
DORCHESTER, November 2, '97.
Handed in at QUORN at 9.10 a.m.
Received here at 11.1 a.m.
To SIR H. HAWKINS, The Judges' House, Dorchester.
Just returned from Badminton to find the most charming present from you, which I shall always regard with the greatest value, and think you are too kind, in giving me such a present. Am writing.—LONSDALE.