Of an intensely romantic nature, she had a deep love of history and a great facility for writing. Her stories and anecdotes of the past are vivid and fluent – though they can't quite be relied upon for accuracy.
She never expected monogamy from herself or the racehorse trainer, and indeed they parted in the end and she lived in a caravan on his farm until her mother's death left her enough money to buy a cottage. Her last years were spent contentedly at Omega Barns Retirement Home where the many dogs and horses made her very happy until her death at the age of 100, outliving her contemporaries in spite of smoking heavily for some 80 years.
During the Second World War, Katharine began a love affair with the publisher Michael Joseph (1897-1958) and at some point, writing in the third person, she wrote an account of their time together. The photocopy which I found among her papers is apparently still unfinished and the whereabouts of the original are unknown, but all the same the draft story has such charm and is so redolent of its time that I thought it deserved a place here.
Katharine, who was my great-aunt, on her death left Michael Joseph's letters to a novelist friend. "Many letters are lost. Some fell to bits with being carried about," she wrote. She wanted her friend to use the letters in some way and for the story to be known, but the copyright in the letters remains with Michael Joseph's family until 70 years after his death and that time has not yet come. In the meantime, and in case the letters are never made public, here is Kay's story.
The Story of the Letters: Kay and Michael
A few days before Xmas 1943, Kay's Siamese cat died. She had nursed it day and night and went down, exhausted, with influenza.On Xmas day, in bed with a temperature, she unwrapped a Xmas parcel which revealed a book Charles by Michael Joseph [1]. The sight of it was unbearable. Seizing a pen & with temperature soaring, she wrote in her grief and rage to Michael Joseph. "I did not know whether to read your book or throw it unread into a furnace."
They found themselves falling in love by letter and before they ever met were writing ardent love letters. The war came to an end and with it the terrible fact emerged that they could meet and so bring about either the destruction of something rare and sweet or its fulfilment.
He was living in Richard Llewellyn's[3] flat in Upper Brook St when in London. His secretary managed to find the impossible, a room in a London hotel nearby. (No guests allowed to stay for more than 3 days, such was the scarcity of accommodation among the bombed houses.)
All the way to King's Cross at every stop Kay's impulse was to leap from the train and go back. She had deliberately described herself as less attractive than most men had found her. She was to be wearing a slate blue suit and to be carrying a rawhide suitcase.
In fact she had bought some clothing coupons and was wearing a tawny Donegal suit and carrying a brown suitcase.
They were to meet "at the bookstall" at King's Cross.
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Michael Joseph by Howard Coster, 1938, NPG x1943 |
They went to Upper Brook St for lunch, then to her hotel where she changed and bathed. From there they dined at the Café Anglais and that night she never returned to her hotel to sleep. She managed to get her room booked for a further 3 days although she used it only for changing and resting in.
They wrote to each other until they met again and after they had met for the last time, before his last marriage, up to the day of his death.
They met in all for 15 days out of their lives. "You always call it fifteen nights," he said.
They decided that marriage was not for them even when both were free. Kay thought herself "unmarriageable" without maternal instinct, especially for step children, and loathed the housewife role. He needed all these things in a wife – but not a mistress. He was incapable of fidelity. So, on the whole, was she. He had a feminine, cruel streak, in spite of war service and a fondness for sport including amateur boxing, and considerable toughness of character and appearance. She had a masculine streak with not a vestige of maternal instinct or domesticity. They met on both levels.
Soon after he wrote a tender and loving letter telling her he was to marry.
She was seriously glad for his sake, glad too that their love affair had never tailed off into indifference, glad for a clean break. She told him so, and parted.
A fortnight after his marriage he wrote, to her staggered surprise, and said that the honeymoon had been much less boring than he'd feared and he looked forward to happiness. They went on writing but never met again.
Kay woke up one morning dreaming happily, half asleep, of the absurd meeting at King's Cross, which she had not thought of for years. Still smiling, and with eyes, half closed, she leaned out of bed and switched on the BBC news. A voice announced "the sudden death of Michael Joseph". His last letter still unanswered.
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Kay Hill at harvest time c1950s |