the well-known haunting of Borley Rectory. Another indication of his lifelong interest in the supernatural is his longstanding membership of The Ghost Club. He remarked in a letter to Mike Ashley, "What impact such things have had on me, and the sources of my inspiration, are simply too much for a letter. If you wish to pursue such topics, I shall be pleased to have a talk." Unfortunately that talk never took place, but Ashley points out that Aickman's early life, including some supernatural episodes, will be found detailed in his autobiography, The Attempted Rescue (Gollancz, 1966). He originally helped with some clerical work in his father's architectural office. In the opening lines of The Attempted Rescue, Aickman described his father as "the oddest man I have ever known". Of Aickman's character, Elizabeth Jane Howard said in a 2011 interview at the Tartarus Press blog, that he "hated children" and of his childhood that "He told me about his childhood but I think he exaggerated that. I went to the house in Stanmore where he was brought up, and his mother did go and leave him, and that probably had a much worse effect than he realised on him. He was reading by the time he was four and he went to very good schools. Highgate was a very good school. I think it probably was a fairly lonely childhood. … He could be very prickly and difficult, or he could be very charming. He certainly had the gift of the gab." Aickman was married to literary agent and children's book author Edith Ray Gregorson (1914–1983) (known as 'Ray') from 1941 to 1957. She authored Lemuel (illustrated by Peter Scott, husband of Elizabeth Jane Howard, with whom Aickman had an affair) and Timothy Tramcar. He had been responsible for the general direction of the very successful Market Harborough Festival of Boats and Yachts, attended by more than 50,000 visitors. This was topped in 1962 when he directed the Waterborne concert with fireworks at the City of London Festival, with an audience of 100,000. With a keen interest in the theatre, ballet, and music, Aickman also served as a chairman of the London Opera Society (1954–69) and was active in the London Opera Club, the Ballet Minerva, and the Mikron Theatre Company (a company which performs via touring the canal waterways of Britain). In the mid-1970s, Aickman lived in a flat