Malcolm Cook has sent me a new e-mail where he has done some more digging about the mysterious letter recipient ‘Gladder’. Malcolm’s deeper research has made him “wonder whether ‘Gladder’ is actually Charles Gladstone rather than Albert.”

Malcolm continues, “Stanley Garton mentions four oarsmen in his letter: Donald Crum, Lewis Clive and [Lord] Forrester of Christ Church and Maurice Waterhouse of Balliol. It could be just a coincidence, but all four of them went to Eton. Hence all four would have been coached by Charles Gladstone. If Stanley Garton was writing to Charles Gladstone, what would be more natural than to talk about oarsmen who Charles had been coaching at school only a year or two earlier? But I don’t suppose we shall ever know for sure whether ‘Gladder’ was Albert or Charles.”

It is such a pity that I do not have the entire letter – a signature of the letter writer would really have solve this mystery!