Corsham, Wilts
My Darling,
I must apologise for not writing before, but quite a lot has happened in the last few days.
As you will see from above, we have moved in the Bath direction, and are now doing guards at an Aerodrome in this vicinity.
The place is really undescribable. We are now in wretched little huts, which are stone cold. The mud is feet thick. Prepare for it, there is no water! That's quite literal. All the water in the cookhouse (I don't know where it comes from) has to be boiled before use. I haven't washed or shaved for three days. It's criminal to say the least.
There is no village or shops within 3 miles, Bath being about 5 miles away. The NAAFI here sells only Beer & Cigarettes, no chocolate or cakes. We do 24 hrs on guard (ie no sleep) & then 24 hrs off. Well, when I got off my guard, I got no dinner and in what should have been my 24 hrs I had to supervise trench digging in pouring rain! What a life!
Darling, it's now Thursday and I'm sitting outside the Guard hut out in the wilds, in front of a log fire. I came on this morning at 9 and end at 9 on Friday morning, (24 hrs). It's a marvellous day, frost early but now in glorious sunshine.
I was very pleased to hear about your new job*. I hope you'll like it and get on very well there, but remember eyes off the boys in the display.
Darling, it seems such ages since I've seen you. We're supposed to be on this job for a month, which means I'm afraid no leave for that long. The South Staffs, whom we relieved when we came here hadn't had any leave for over nine months. It's a bad case but that's the Army all over now.
Incidentally, Eric has had a shocking letter from Jean. Apparently she has been ogling someone else in his absence and has the nerve to ask Eric for permission to go out with him as she is lonely! What a woman!
Please Cho Darling, don't ever run out on me now, as you're the only thing that makes this wretched life worthwhile.
Eric is in the hell of the stew and hints at suicide & desertion etc. I don't blame him, I'm only too sure I would.
Lets talk of more pleasant things. It seems now that this show won't last so very long. Wouldn't it be marvellous if it would end in a few months? It would seem too good to be true. But as Dumas says we can only wait & hope.
Well, Darling, I must close now as I perceive the Orderly Officer on the horizon.
Your adoring & ever devoted
Dicker
Dieu te garde***
P.S. Address is:-
‘A’ Company (‘A’ not ‘L’)
70th Dorsets
CORSHAM
Wilts
*Chotie: “I was working at Beales in the Window Display Department (after F W Collins). Colleagues Enid Cooper, later to become very big in the fashion world, Arty (the artist) and two others – I cannot recall their names. Miss Boyle, the manageress, was a dragon (she had sued her boyfriend for breach of promise.) At night we had to do firewatch duty. Later on Beales was mostly destroyed by a bomb.”
From ‘Grandma’s Story’ written for Chotie’s grandchildren.
** “Until the day when God shall deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is summed up in these two words,--'Wait and hope'.” Quotation from ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ by Alexandre Dumas.
***'God keep you'
Dick was based in Corsham, Wiltshire,
until January 1941.
© Chotie Darling, 2010
16th December 1940 – first RAF ‘reprisal raid’ for the Blitz on a German town (Mannheim).
18th December 1940 – Hitler confirms plans for ‘Operation Barbarossa’, German invasion of the Soviet Union.
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