This letter, written 13 months before Trevor-Roper's death, was addressed to the retired ambassador "Nicko" Henderson. In his youth Trevor-Roper had shown little interest in politics until the Munich Agreement between Hitler and Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in September 1938 jolted him.

To Sir Nicholas Henderson , 21 December 2001                                                                                               

The Old Rectory, Didcot

Dear Nicko

Many thanks for sending me that tape of Chamberlain's Birmingham speech of March 17, 1939. I listened to it fascinated and appalled. I meant to come to the dinner of the Other Club on Wednesday and return it to you directly, but I have not been well and could not face the journey; so I will send it back when the Christmas mail no longer congests the Post. 

I was fascinated to hear again the voice of poor old Chamberlain: strong and resolute in his own conviction; but appalled by the implications.

Still in our ashes live our wonted fires. At the time, in my callow youth, I was deeply shocked by Chamberlain and Appeasement. Afterwards I came to agree that he had little alternative. The pass had been sold; if we had fought then, we would probably have been defeated; we had no Spitfires. But even so, Chamberlain's pretence that Munich was a diplomatic victory, that it had secured "peace in our time" — when he should have said that it was a defeat, the inescapable result of wasted years whose damage must now be repaired-seemed to me shocking. And now I heard that self-assured, self-satisfied voice still insisting that the surrender at Munich was right and would have preserved peace if only Hitler had not-surprise, surprise — afterwards turned out to be such a cad. So here I am, back again in the mood of 1938. I have been reading — that is, James, my step-son, has been reading to me — Alexander Cadogan's diaries.  How I relished Cadogan's explosion on meeting Chamberlain and Halifax on their return from Munich: "Good God! The PM has been hypnotised by Hitler and Halifax has been hypnotised by the PM!"  Our generation will never escape from the 1930s. 

yours ever

Hugh

Edited extracts from "One Hundred Letters from Hugh Trevor-Roper", edited by Richard Davenport-Hines and Adam Sisman, to be published by Oxford University Press on January 23, £25.