Ffeil NLW MS 23717B. - Notebook

Notebook of Berta Ruck, May 1933-May 1934, containing journal entries, including impressions of stays in Vienna, July, September 1933 (ff. 9 verso-10, 71-75, 84 verso-85), and the Tyrol, July-September 1933 (ff. 11-71), and brief notes for fiction. Some forty-nine mainly personal and family letters, cards and telegrams, press cuttings of articles by her, photographs, theatre programmes and other ephemera have been pasted in or are loose in the volume.
The correspondents include Marda Vanne, [June] 1933 (f. 8), Oliver Onions, February-August 1933 (ff. 38 verso, 91, 132, 136 recto-verso), Margaret Storm Jameson, 17 May 1933 (f. 88), A. M. Low, May-November 1933 (ff. 89, 92, 97 verso, 134 verso, 137 verso), James Agate, 25 January 1934 (f. 118), Louis Marlow, 20 March 1934 (f. 119 verso), and Ménie Muriel FitzGerald, April 1934 (ff. 123 verso-124). Her Tyrol journal includes a detailed account of location filming for the Basil Dean directed films The Constant Nymph (1933) (ff. 19 verso-51) and Autumn Crocus (1934) (ff. 52-71), her son Arthur being part of the film crew. Photographs in the volume include Ruck (ff. 36, 42 verso, 56), the actress Victoria Hopper (ff. 40 verso, 56) and other film crew (ff. 32-42 verso), on location, and Alys Meirion (f. 100). There are pen and pencil sketches by Ruck on ff. 21 verso, 75, 96 recto-verso, 114, 127 verso, 128 verso. On f. 91 is Oliver Onions' description, 26 February 1923 [recte 1933], of the funeral of Robin Anwyl, Llugwy.