Item ALL/11/243 - Letter from F.A. Wickhart to Herbert Allingham

From: 7 Highbury Quadrant, London N5. Signed.
'Thank you for yours of Saturday to which I reply at once in case I can be of any assistance to you in getting the upper hand of your unreasonable landlord [Col. Tabor]. When you first told me you were leaving this month I concluded that your term ended on the 19th and if you did not then move you would be landed with another's year rent or tenenacy. As it is, there is no obligation on your part to give up possession until Christmas. Your landlord should be delighted to have the rent to Christmas and possession of the place, as it gives him an opportunity of re-letting before Christmas and taking the extra rent. [...] Without being able to study the terms of the Agreement it is difficul to advise as to your legal position.
[...] As things are, you should also be a bit dictatorial...
If there is any fruit or other useful growing things that will be money-saving at Thorpe Bay, you could strip the trees ets. and take the lot with you. [...]
I think that if you tell him to do what he blinking well likes, he will gladly take your £20 and the keys and be satisfied.
Now with regard to the Society, I rang up Evans on the telephone last Wednesday to ask him if he was now ready to settle, and he said a transfer form would require to be signed. [...]
With regard to compensation for anything I have done for you as suggested in your wife's last letter, we are all members of the 'old School' when anything one could do for a friend was not payable in filthy lucre or what might be obtained for it, but was considered an obligation of the friendship and was amply compensated for in the knowledge that one could help the other. The debt will be cleared when you get the Society cheque. When you get to Thorpe Bay and I pay you a flying visit, if there happens to be half-a-dozen apples left from the store I suggest you take with you, I will put them in my pocket. If not, then we'll have a cigarette together.
I can quite understand the wrench it must be, and the pathos of having to go through old letters etc. and destroy them. But be careful not to burn those which may be wanted later. Two or three large boxes might hold the lot, and be put on the “wan” with your other goods. No doubt a cupboard at Thorpe Bay would store them until you get time to wade through them. It was the keeping of old letters that won me the Bradley action. There may be some among your papers that may preserve your rights in some direction so go through them carefully before you commit them to the flames. Possibly this will come too late to save many, but MSS I should certainly preserve. R.I.P. to those that have gone.’

Attached: 'Notes - I have turned up 'Who's Who' but find no trace of a Colonel Tabor.' [Continues to detail those named in the volume and ends] 'The above might be useful in negotiating with his lorship'. [sic]