The broadcast repeat of A Very Great Man Indeed on Christmas Eve, followed by last month's radio tribute to Mary O'Farrell, aroused once again the unbridled enthusiasm of the Hilda Tablet fans. They will be gratified to learn that, after The Private Life this week, the remaining five programmes of the saga will be repeated at quarterly intervals.
Henry Reed has recalled how an unexpected letter from Mary O'Farrell prompted him, for his own amusement, into an elongation of the scene of Herbert Reeve's first confrontation with the composeress in A Very Great Man Indeed.
The force of Hilda's personality compelled him to devote an entire programme to her decision that Reeve should abandon his work on the life of Richard Shewin and concentrate all his energies on a biography of herself, for which (she thought) twelve volumes would suffice—it was enough for Gibbon, it was enough for Proust. In this Reeve would have the cardinal advantage of her own continual advice and co-operation.
Douglas Cleverdon
