Two Friends

What a beautiful dedication! Of course I had to know more and I dove down the rabbit hole to see what I could find!

Charles Langbridge Morgan (22^nd January 1894 – 6^th February 1958) was a British playwright and novelist.

Hilary Aidan Saint Geoge Saunders CBE MC ( 14^th January 1898 – 16^th December 1951) was a writer and pamphleteer.  He produced one novel.

They both had connections to England and Wales:  Hilary serving in the Welsh Guards during the First World War. Charles had English and Welsh parentage and during the First World War served in the Royal Navy.

From the inscription, in The River Line, A Play, by Charles Morgan, we know that they met at Oxford after the War. Charles took his degree at Brasenose College, Hilary at Balliol College.   Clearly they both had a love of Shakespeare and we can deduce that they (probably) performed on stage as under-graduates.

Both went on to have distinguished careers as writers and novelists.   Charles claimed that the main themes of his work were, “Art, Love, and Death”, and the relation between them.  Hilary, on the other hand, was most famously known for his books and pamphlets in World War II and as the biographer of Robert Baden-Powell. (the Scout Movement).

The inscription records over 30 years of friendship and the hope to re-unite in the afterlife.   

I hope these two ghosts have managed that!