26 October 1967

Prof. and Mrs. Linus Pauling

8454 El Paseo Grande

La Jolla, California 92037

U.S.A.

Dear Parents:

Thank you very much for your letters which I am pleased to receive. I was very disappointed that you did not come to Europe. I wanted very much to see you and to get some advice. I will have to proceed without the advice.

Thank you also very much for the money. I should like to organize my affairs at my advanced age not to have to ask you for money but I think after I have paid the standing costs of the house and paid Julia enough to live on (including her income and the rent from the flat) I will not really have enough to live on.

I am planning to move into a College flat in Nevern Square about Christmas time. What I really want is a College flat in Hornton Street in Kensington but there is none available and by moving into Nevern Square I have first refusal on a Hornton Street flat. Horton Street is about five minutes from Thomas’s school, about ten from Sara's and about fifteen from Lansdowne Road (walking.) I lived there for five weeks during the summer. They are unfurnished so I shall have to get the essentials.

You must not get a combined fridge and freezer in the States. You can get these things here, not so advanced and sometimes not as cheaply but the bother of shipping and import duty and everything makes it out of the question. I will get these things as they become essential or I think they will make a real difference to my ability to cope. I may ring up the Scientific Attaché and see if I can get some second-hand American stuff from people who are leaving. The point about a freezer is I do not have to go shopping so often and that of a washer and dryer is that I do not have to slog out to the bloody launderette and sit around for hours while the stuff washes and in particular dries which takes a long time. I hate it.

My diffractometer will come soon. The rest of the system works well and the control programs are almost completely ready. I am very anxious for the diffractometer to come and for the system to run. I want to use it. It is very exciting after these many years.

I went to Birkbeck on Friday and at tea Alan Mackay (a senior lecturer and a very bright intellectual dilettante) just asked me if I was going to be their next professor. I said I did not know. It is both a pleasant and frightening thought. I do not know what Bernal would say about it. I guess I shall have a try but I do not think I will get it. It is the only chair of crystallography in the country.

Thank you for the invitation to come home for Christmas. I still do not know. I know it would be terribly pleasant and give me a boost but I would rather be feeling in top form and enjoy the trip to the utmost rather than use it to get me from a low state up to a reasonable state. I am not sure what Julia plans to do with the children except she said she thought it was her turn not to have to make Christmas dinner.

I guess I shall go ahead and let Julia and the children live in Lansdowne Road. I feel I am abandoning the children. [...]

Thank you for everything. I am pleased I have you as my parents.

Much Love,

Peter