Writers’ handwriting this week. Is this something that will have vanished in fifty or a hundred years? Here is a letter from EM Forster to Leonard Woolf: his handwriting is perfectly legible, therefore courteous and unselfish – like the man himself..

Nuff said.

This banner was simple but effective. And was equalled by ‘Pulling Out Never Works’.

‘Last Saturday, parts of middle Britain to which the Daily Mail does not speak took to the streets against Brexit … Fanatics are often the last to see that their dreams have turned to nightmares. But the British public, who are not fanatics, get it. So, belatedly, does a Mail that drove so hard to the cliff edge. The message has yet to reach many Tories. But they risk being swept aside if it doesn’t. The hard Brexiters are on the run’ (the Guardian today here). It would be marvellous to  be able to believe this. But for the last few weeks our optimism barometer has gone right down and has yet to falter upwards.

This was the start of the March though of course 700,000 of us never saw it – as we waited patiently in Park Lane and then ambled along Piccadilly. It was the best possible atmosphere – good-humoured and friendly and uncomplaining. For all those Dad’s Army types out there – the people voting Leave because the War was our finest hour – this is how the vast majority actually were in the War, cf. Few Eggs and No Oranges, Good Evening, Mrs Craven, A House in the Country and all our other Second World War books, here.

The March was exhilarating. It will feature in novels by the descendants of Margaret Drabble or Ian McEwan or Anne Tyler or Meg Wolitzer (or indeed the author of  the wonderful Small Island, Andrea Levy). This week on the Post – our favourite posters. Naturally, we carried ‘Women Writers for Europe’.

Those Persephone readers who very kindly read the Letter will know that we had a particularly magical visit to the Luxembourg Gardens last month and now have Luxembourg engraved on our heart. This is Luxembourg Gardens Autumn 1951 by Cosmo Clark (1897-1967).