Sept 1988
Dear Brian,
I xxx think you'll be surprised
but I hope you won't mind to get a public
letter from me, After all our long friendship has
been xxxxxx largely epistolatary, for
xxx geographical reasons I suppose, but
also xxx owing to my distaste for travel.
Anyway that we don't meet more often xxxxxx
personally is my fault, not yours: xxx but
curiously enough I've recently come to the conclusion
that close friends - as you and I are xxxxxxx
- should measure out their meetings because that way
ensures that friendship never goes stale. How's
that for special pleading on ratiocination on my part?
Friendship is important to you, as it is to me, and
now that you've reached sixty I've calculated that we
have enjoyed at least thirty years of it. Extraordinary,
isn't it, how quickly it has passed and
