Dearest Fergie,

Here is my little list for your acquaintance who is going to the States. If you think it's worthwhile adding the Concerto volume in the Bach-Gesellschaft and the Oboe-Concerto volume in the Handel-Gesellschaft, would you do so. I've no idea whether the position for things like that is even worse over there than here. There's just a hope for the others.

'Dies’ will be at the Maida Vale Studios 21.12.43. The B.B.C. is going to let me know if it is going to be in a reasonably large studio, in which case I'll go. But if it's in a cramped room, then there's no fun and it's better to listen-in at home. Ursula wants to go too. By the way, she tells me that ‘Job’ [ballet by V.W.] is on the 22nd, so I hope to go with her. We must get Arnold to see it, too.

Isn't it odd, Elizabeth Rivers, who lodges with Myra's sister, is an old friend of ours. So tired.Love, G.

The complete Finzi-Ferguson correspondence, which dated from 10 April 1928, comes to an end on 20 0ctober 1944. From then on, save for one or two letters of little narrative significance, only Howard Ferguson's side of the story was to be preserved. The reason, he believed, was simple. He had not discussed the matter of his homosexuality with either Joy or Gerald. There was no need to. His friendship with Finzi had sprung from a meeting of like minds - fed by their devotion to music and literature, and their determination to prove themselves as composers. The matter of sexual inclination did not arise when they first met, and as time went on and their friendship deepened Ferguson saw no point in challenging it with news that was, so far as he was concerned, completely irrelevant. Their affection for each other operated on an entirely different plane.

At some point, however, it seems that Finzi became aware of physical intimacies between Ferguson and one of his friends. Disconcerted, he expressed his misgivings. Ferguson, doubtless feeling embarrassed, took umbrage and, for reasons which in later years he could neither explain nor justify, decided not to keep his friend's letters, even though they continued to write to each other in much the same affectionate terms as before.