ROYAL MILITARY COLLEGE
CAMBERLEY, SURREY
My Darling Chotie,
It seems ages since I heard from you and as I expect it’s the same with you – here goes.
As you will see from above I’m now at Sandhurst, which is quite a place.
I’ve been so busy the last few days, what with passing out (in more ways than one) at Blackdown and getting settled here, I haven’t had a moment to myself.
I was very disappointed with your inability to make Pagham, but realise what the hell of a journey Bristol is. But why didn’t you send a wire or something? Then I could have come down. Brinner and Diller were home as you probably know. We could have got really stewed – actually we did, but that’s another story. However, we must try again soon. I shall be able to get a week-end here and there, though I expect to be up to my eyes in work. I’ve been very lucky here in getting a room with Chunky* and Brian (my mates …. ) and an excellent servant who knows all the tricks of the trade – and then some.
(Don’t smile at this paper. It’s all they’ve got here, and needless to say they robbed me … Never again). I had a letter from Eric last week! No kidding. He “didn’t want our correspondence to collapse” or some rot or other. The rat. Doesn’t appear over happy, but then he never does.
Is Rosemary** still with you? Lucky Rosemary…. However, all good things come to an end – we’ll be kicked out of this Army before long – I hope.
I haven’t seen a flick for nearly a month, which cuts out that topic of conversation.
We’re allowed to wear civvies in the evenings here, also dine in them, but as I’m couponless it doesn’t really interest me.
So much for Sandhurst. I expect you know all about Bristol by now - all the pubs anyhow.
Diller and I found quite a good one in Chichester. It’s so old it doesn’t have a licence. It’s got some ancient charter from James I or some other bloke which dates back before shame even.
You’re lucky in having some relatives in the neighbourhood – I’ve never been near anyone.
Nothing new at home. Mother’s been offered Gentians (that little Tea Rooms by the Kings Beach) for £100 and is toying with the idea. Mike*** presents the only snag. I’m all for it as we would be able to get buckshee teas on leave. She always has these vague obsessions as well you know. She also wants to make out a thousand in our names (Diller, Bryn & myself) to avoid death duties should she be killed by a stray bomb…. Crazy’s right.
It must be over five months since I saw you last. Have you changed at all Darling? Don’t tell me you’re any slimmer ‘cos I’d never believe anything but my own eyes. I’ve had so many 771’s in the last few days I reckon it would be easier to turn nudist and have done with it. The old British public would raise horrified eyebrows, though you, I should imagine would remain entirely unruffled. (We’ve got a wonderful old oak outside our window. I have to keep stopping to gaze in rapt appreciation …. Must be the artist in me crying out like a voice in the wilderness against some aesthetic repression ….)
Brinner bought another Gigli**** when he was home. I won’t comment on it, as he and Solomon are the only two men in this poor world I would never attempt to criticize.
Have you read ‘Clochemerle’***** yet? Don’t ask for it in a bookshop as they would only give you a pretty old fashioned look anyway.
I spent a day up in town on my way back to Blackdown. Piccadilly was, as usual, full of the usual who keep stopping you which is all very embarrassing, especially for an innocent little boy like myself, in London Town to see the bright lights. I told one of them that she should be paying me, if only she knew me, which annoyed her not a little. I didn’t tell her I existed for Chotie alone.
Well Darling I must close here. Hope to see you soon. I’ll advise you when I can get a weekend.
All my love, Precious
Dicker
5731671 Officer Cadet Williams R.K.
77 Tp. ‘B’ Sqdn.
100 (Sandhurst) O.C.T.U. R.A.C.
Royal Military College
Camberley
Surrey.
*see letter of 18th April 1943.
**Rosemary was Chotie’s young cousin I think
***Mike was the family dog
*** Beniamino Gigli was an Italian tenor singer and Solomon was possibly the pianist Solomon Cutner. See letter of 7th February.
****see letter of 11th April.
© Chotie Darling
“The eighteenth and nineteenth century British army was never that concerned about training its officers believing that character was the important thing and that the officer being a gentleman already knew how to use weapons and ride a horse. What was important was character.
During World War II the UK was faced with the major problem of having to train many thousands of lower middle class and working class, young men as officers. These young men had the military skills, they were veterans of campaigns in the desert and the jungle. They knew about war but they weren’t gentlemen as defined by the existing Army hierarchy.
The British Army developed a course based to a large part on the competencies related to being a gentleman. They realised of course that attitude and character are almost impossible to assess in terms of competencies so they had to identify the competencies that a gentleman would require and that could be assessed within a Competency Based Training Assessment (CBTA) model.
The competencies identified involved such things as accent, the way one walks, what one reads, and most important, how one eats.” (From the blog LowCloudCover.)
23rd May 1942 - Beales, the Department store where Chotie worked through 1942, is bombed and burnt out in Bournemouth's worst bombing raid.
24th May 1943 – German ‘U’ boats are withdrawn from the North Atlantic effectively ending the battle of the Atlantic with an Allied victory. The campaign had come close to starving Britain into submission. Now America could build up forces in Britain ready for the invasion of Europe.
27th May 1943 – The first meeting of the Conseil de la Résistance, led by Jean Moulin (de Gaulle’s appointed head of the French Resistance) succeeds in linking up the networks in northern France.
29th May 1943 – in the Aleutian Islands, part of the Alaska territory between the North Pacific and the Bering Sea, the occupation of Attu Island by the Japanese ends with a banzai charge (a form of honourable suicide), killing over 2,300 Japanese with only 28 taken prisoner. taken prisoner. The Japanese withdrew from Kiska on 28th July 1943 but this was only discovered on 15th August when a large Allied invasion force landed on the island. (From Chronology of World War II and Wikipedia.)
29th May 1943 – major RAF bombing raid on Wuppertal in Germany’s industrial Ruhr area creates a firestorm for the first time causing mass destruction and killing 3,400 people.
30th May 1943 – General de Gaulle lands in Algiers and is welcomed by Giraud, the French Vichy leader and now the Commander-in-Chief of French forces in North Africa. Suspicions remained between the former Vichy Army (the ‘moustachis’) of 230,000 troops and the 15,000 Free French (or ‘hadjis’) of the French Armée Afrique. (From ‘The Second World War’ by Antony Beevor, published by Weidenfield and Nicolson 2012)
1st June 1943 – the British Actor Leslie Howard is killed when his plane is shot down returning from Portugal. The Luftwaffe may have been targeting the actor for his work supporting the Allies in Spain and Portugal or thought that Churchill on the plane. (P.S. Name-dropping! My father, Commander Victor Stephens, was also scheduled to fly with Howard but he had been drinking too heavily with him the night before, having just joined the Admiralty, and missed the plane. He was left with Leslie Howard’s tie as a sad memento. Dad made no mention of Howard's death or being in Portugal in his diaries but he presumably knew Howard through Laurence Olivier, whose wife Vivien Leigh was Howard's co-star in 'Gone with the Wind'. In the Fleet Air-Arm Dad was stationed with Olivier and his friend Ralph Richardson, who he later shared a flat with in London.)
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