Same Address
Saturday
Chotie,
Many thanks for letter – expect by now you’re in Yorks* enjoying yourself as usual … I’m sending this to your original address and hope it will be forwarded. Never having been (or ever wanted to go) to Yorkshire I can’t offer any comment but it will make a change at any rate.
Glad to hear your cold is better – you’d better get those woollies on.
Aren’t you getting highbrow? Chopin and Greig! Unhappily I don’t get any time to hear these delightful people – or even read about them, & I presume even less time after I’m commissioned. For Chopin you couldn’t do better than Leff Pouishnoff – who plays “Frick’s” stuff better than he ever played it himself and considerably better than Soloman or Cortot**!
Talking about weddings I have to attend one on Nov 1st at Pagham. It's Tony Smith’s of Church Farm which I expect you remember well. I’ve managed to avoid all previous weddings like the plague but this one’s definitely got me. We pass out on the same day – he’s a cadet here. Any suggestion for a wedding present? Awful isn’t it. And poor pal entangled …Ces pauvres jeunes gens***….
Last I heard of Diller she was going on a wireless course to the Isle of Man! and six months at that. Also thinks she’ll lose her leave but welcomes any change.
Mary I believe is applying for transfer to Bournemouth. Incidentally I get my leave on the 30th inst, but have this wedding to go to on the 1st Nov. Can you manage anything? Let me know won’t you?
Must close here for lunch – will write again on the weekend,
love
Dicker
*Chotie seems to be in Yorkshire now (she was staying in Whitby), perhaps on training. There was a Ack-Ack gun site at Whitby on Saltwick Bay - the ATS had to climb the famous 199 steps in full battledress to get to the East Cliff from their lodgings in town. (From Jane Ritchie and Elizabeth Trattles stories in 'Girls in Khaki' by Barbara Green, The History Press 2012 and Joyce Stott's account on the People's War website). Nan, Chotie's best friend in the ATS, came from Yorkshire so it's also possible she was on holiday with her. (See also Chotie goes to Bristol.)
Nan from Yorkshire
**See previous letter for Leff Pouishnoff. Solomon Cutner was a British pianist known professionally as ‘Solomon’. Alfred Cortot was a Franco-Swiss pianist renowned for his interpretations of Chopin and Schumann. Cortot supported the German occupation in France.
***French for “These poor young people”.
© Chotie Darling
10th October 1943 – Franco, the Spanish dictator orders the Blue Division to return home. These were some 18,000 Spanish volunteers fighting with Germany against communism on the eastern front. Most returned but about 3,000 stayed to fight with Germany as the Blue Legion. (From WW2-net Timelines and Wikipedia.)
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