19
February 2012
A personal pilgrimage to Penn to meet with some
who still remembered the Le Rossignols.
Time passes. Listen … Time passes.
‘First voice’, from Dylan Thomas’ ‘Under Milkwood’, 1954.
19.1 To Penn
Ralph Chirnside
1 described Robert as a ‘kindly man, with a simple uncomplicated philosophy of life …’. Unsurprisingly then, and with seemingly scant
regard for his own historical importance, Robert left little of himself behind,
and without close family able to account intimately for the man, a trip to
Penn was in order to speak to the very few people who still remembered
Robert and Emily before these memories too were lost. Having spent most of
the previous four years researching Robert’s background and early academic
work, the time was right for this change of direction. A further motivation for
the visit was the receipt of a copy of Robert’s Will which recorded a gift of
£200 to the Council of Penn Parish Church.
2 I was soon able to reach Mr.
Miles Green—Clerk of the Council at the time and a significant local historian—and through him I learnt of the existence of Penn Mead Flatlets.
Subsequently I was able to speak to Mr. Christopher White, former
Chairman of the Penn-Pennsylvania Fellowship, together with a family friend
of his, both of whom remembered Robert when they were much younger.
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
D. Sheppard, Robert Le Rossignol, Springer Biographies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29714-5_19
501
February 2012
A personal pilgrimage to Penn to meet with some
who still remembered the Le Rossignols.
Time passes. Listen … Time passes.
‘First voice’, from Dylan Thomas’ ‘Under Milkwood’, 1954.
19.1 To Penn
Ralph Chirnside
1 described Robert as a ‘kindly man, with a simple uncomplicated philosophy of life …’. Unsurprisingly then, and with seemingly scant
regard for his own historical importance, Robert left little of himself behind,
and without close family able to account intimately for the man, a trip to
Penn was in order to speak to the very few people who still remembered
Robert and Emily before these memories too were lost. Having spent most of
the previous four years researching Robert’s background and early academic
work, the time was right for this change of direction. A further motivation for
the visit was the receipt of a copy of Robert’s Will which recorded a gift of
£200 to the Council of Penn Parish Church.
2 I was soon able to reach Mr.
Miles Green—Clerk of the Council at the time and a significant local historian—and through him I learnt of the existence of Penn Mead Flatlets.
Subsequently I was able to speak to Mr. Christopher White, former
Chairman of the Penn-Pennsylvania Fellowship, together with a family friend
of his, both of whom remembered Robert when they were much younger.
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
D. Sheppard, Robert Le Rossignol, Springer Biographies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29714-5_19
501