Admiralty Library, Naval Historical Branch

August 3, 2009

Admiralty Library
Naval Historical Branch – Number 24 Store
Main Road
Her Majesty’s Naval Base
Portsmouth, England PO1 3LU

Sirs,

The movie, “The Private Lives of Henry the Eighth” with Charles Laughton playing the Defender of the Faith, opens with him tearing a chicken [cooked] apart. He looks about his Court and sneers, “Manners are dead”.

On February 23, 2009 I sent you a book “Heroic Record of the British Navy” that I rescued from the dustman’s bin in Texas.

I got your address from Buckingham Palace. I wrote to the Queen concerning the proper disposition of said book. Copies of this correspondence are enclosed.

It is now more than 5 months since I sent you the book. There exists the possibility that my Post Office or your Post Office bollixed the matter. It is possible that they did not.

If you got the book please let me know even at this late date.

I am sending a copy of this to the Queen. I understand her father saw action at Jutland, that her husband was a deck officer in World War 2, and that her son earned his pay at the Falklands. That qualifies her as Navy daughter, a Navy wife, and a Navy mother. I thought she should know.


Kevin Smith