Doing good

I recently bought a copy of ‘Essays on Shakespeare and other Elizabethans’ by Tucker Brooke (1948 Yale University Press) and got immediately distracted by a different story. The publication of the book had been supported by the Oliver Baty Cunningham Memorial Publication Fund. – the 24th book to be published with its support.

I was greatly moved by the story the dedication panel told. It led me to reflect on how good can be done and can continue to be done. It also led me onto a second book – Bartlett’s ‘Mr William Shakespeare’ – which details the early editions of Shakespeare’s works.

This turns out to be another book where the publication had also been supported by the Baty Cunningham Memorial Fund but much closer in time to the death of Oliver Baty Cunningham in 1923.

After the First World War Oliver Baty Cunningham’s mother visited Thiaucourt where she donated money for the reconstruction of the town. Subsequently the church bells in Thiaucourt were replaced in his memory.