Which Christmas? - Tuesday 22nd December

PPS.  Good book “Tambour Terrace” Eleanor Dunbar Hall

As before

Tuesday

My Darling,

                                    Sorry I haven’t been able to reply to your last before now, but I’ve been away on a scheme for the last few days.  This culminated in a route march which finished me off – I was wearing new boots, so today finds me on the sick list.  There’s a run on this afternoon and being excused running for five days I’m able to write to my Chotie.

                    Thanks for the letter and cake.  You must thank Margaret for me – when next you see her. 

                    I had a letter or rather a note from our mutual friend Lightfoot*, last week.  Apparently he’s in Colchester (Essex).

            Brinner has also moved to Essex – rather in the wilds, I gather.  I’ve despatched a letter to Diller – shake her I expect – as I’m not sending any cards.

            Let me know as soon as you see anything in the cheese-dish line – I hardly remember what they look like. 

            Hope your medical** went off all right.  Let me have the dope as soon as possible. Also the Dance.

            Went to a whist drive last week.  No luck of course.  I should have been well in, but went down 12-1 which finished everything.  Really stupid girl for a partner…Ginger.

                        Look like the Fighting French in our berets.  Remember that photo you had of cadets?

                        No news of course.  Devilish dull here – though we don’t get much time anyhow.

                        (With Doug’s letter came a Pkstone Cong***. Magazine.  Know who sent it?  Sure I don’t)

                        Roll on Christmas … (Incidentally which Christmas is the war going to end by now?)

                        Must close here.

                                        All my love Darling

                                                                        Dicker

PS.  Will send you something if I should ever see anything.

*Doug Lightfoot

**On 17^th December 1942 Chotie was enrolled into the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) at Southampton.

*** Parkstone Congregational Church (now Parkstone United Reformed Church), opposite Chotie’s home on the corner of Chapel Road and Commercial Road, Parkstone, Poole Dorset. Chotie met Dick at the church Youth Club when she was fourteen.  Her family left the house in the 1960s and it was knocked down and replaced with a tyre shop.

© Chotie Darling

 

On 24^th December the Canadian Reconnaissance regiment also arrived as guests of 43^rd Recce over Christmas, leaving on the 27^th. On Christmas Day there was an Officers v. Sergeants Soccer Match. (From the War Diary of the 43^rd Reconnaissance Regiment held by the Archive and Reference Library, the Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset.)

24th December 1942 - Darlan, now the French leader in North Africa, is assassinated by the French monarchist Fernand Bonnier. (From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012)

 

Eric Postles was still training with 61^st Recce in Northern Ireland:

 "At Christmas the troop paid into a kitty and we had a meal at Black’s Café in Portrush.”   (Extracts from ‘My War Years’ by John Eric Postles ISO used by kind permission of the author.)