Anderson: 125x204mm. Single sheet. Handwritten letter to Noel Coward, on Anderson's Sally Bean's House, Northrepps headed paper. It reads: 'Dear Mr Coward, | How beautiful you were in the air | last night! It was a joy to your life-long (?) - | like meeting you, I should think. | Please may I put you into a biography I am | writing, commissioned by Hodder & Stoughton, | about my father Dr. Rosslyn Bruce, who had doves | flying out of his vestment pockets and fox cubs in his | church pouch? Ascending to your signature in my | parents visitors book you stayed with them when | you were 16 with Nigel Playfair & Betty Chester | (who refers affectionally in a letter to The Wretched boy ) | in Birmingham while all playing in what? I don t know. | According to family here say you delighted my | father by your wit, charm & precocity | dig for Victory in the garden and (?) the | cook. Does any of this & specifically my | father ring a bell? [His sister, Kathleen, was m. to Scott of The Antarctic (girlfriend of Nigel's)]. | There's another story in the family, which, after | hearing you talk about early acting days, I | don t believe as you re much too young. It was:- | that you attended my father s school for | stage children in The Vestry of St. Anne s, Soho. | It was Joyce Grenfell, whom, I saw a few days ago, who | said I must write to you to ask whether I may | write about your teenagery and if you would prefer - | send you this referent in typescript but after the T. V. | programme last night, I shouldn t think anyone | who has held your work in high esteem for a life-time, as I | have could help it! | Yours very sincerely, | Very Anderson née Bruce'. Coward: 207x147mm. Single sheet. A very short response, typed with his signature in black ink, is headed on Les Avants sur Montreux paper, and is dated 27th December 1969: 'Dear Miss Anderson, | Thank you so much for your | very kind letter and your good wishes. Yes, of course all you say rings a bell, and I | shall be touched and pleased if you recount | it in your biography of your father. | A Happy New Year and all | my good wishes, | Yours sincerely, | Noel Coward'. An interesting insight into a short conversation between Verily Anderson (1915-2010) and Noel Coward, which invests itself in Anderson s writing of a biography of her father, The Last of the Eccentrics: A Life of Rosslyn Bruce (1972).