“St Margarets”
Pagham
Friday
Chotie Darling,
I’m sitting in front of the fire at home, writing this on nine days leave! I’d just come back from a five days exercise, when I was told I’d been given a new troop (I only had the previous troop as a temporary measure) and that they were all going on leave the following morning so I’d better go with them.
I spent the first day in London and I’m going up again for a few days tomorrow – so that I can get this business of ‘seeing the relatives’ over for once and all.
Had quite a good time on the exercise, as I was not actively engaged – only umpiring, and on a motor bike,which gave me plenty of scope in getting about. Had half an hour or so in Herne bay and saw Monica and baby. She’s been under the doctor for treatment of some sort as she’s getting so fat. The baby looks all right to me, but then I’m no judge of that sort of thing. Her elder brother has just got married in Scotland so the whole family’s married now. Didn’t see anyone else I knew as I had so little time there, though most of them are away anyhow.
Spent one evening in Canterbury and had a little crawl by myself visiting the ‘Falstaff’, ‘Fleur-de-lis’ ‘Country’, ‘Shakespeare’ and ‘Three Carpenters’ , the five best known there.
Spent one night on a AA Site and slept on a sofa in the Recreation Hut. I don’t know whether it was mixed or not – if it was I was taking the helluva chance….these A/A women**….
Hope to see a couple of lunch-time concerts at the National Gallery – only missed one this week by a few minutes. Have heard a couple of Beethoven Symphonies this week which isn’t too bad.
It must seem ages since I wrote you last. Unfortunately I went on exercise with only about an hour’s notice which wasn’t even time to get a motorcycle or riding kit. I borrowed breeches for this show and wore them the whole five days. Either they were cut for a very thin bloke or they’d shrunk or something but they cut my legs to ribbons. Murder!
How are you these days? – cold I expect…If it were not for the fact that I’m sitting in front of a fire I should probably have written half a page – or less.
(Interlude for hot chocolate and cake….)
↑
Space to denote passage of time.
Do you remember the Green Child’s head on the mantelpiece – the one Diller got in Belgium? Dad’s latest trick is to put a cigarette in its mouth. Looks horrible!
Incidentally I’ll send you some shekels for Xmas – it’s no use me trying to get anything – so that you can do some shopping or a show or something in Bristol. I’ve had to give up coupons for the other ranks’ kit I’ve kept – 18 for 2 pairs of boots! etc so at the moment I don’t know how much I’m worth. I will send some eventually.
I’m enclosing a book which I’ve been trying to get for the past year or more. Tell me what you think of it.
I’d better close here.
All my love, Darling
Dicker
* 'The Falstaff' and 'The Shakespeare' are still open, ‘the Country’ was probably 'The County Hotel' and is now the Abode Hotel , the ‘Three Carpenters was probably the 'Three Compasses' and is now the the Lady Luck and and the 'Fleur de Lis' is closed.
** Chotie was an AA (Anti-Aircraft) woman in the ATS - they were also known as Ack-Ack Girls.) The situation of the Ack-Ack Girls, often posted alongside men in mixed batteries, and some initial disciplinary issues, led to a loose reputation that may have been ill-founded (although some male officers might have taken advantage of their command). American troops stationed in the UK referred to them as Co-ed Gun Girls.
© Chotie Darling
15th December 1943 – the first war crimes trial against Nazi defendants took place in Kharkov (Kharkiv) in the Ukraine. 15,000 bodies had been found in the nearby ravine of Drobytsky Yar following a massacre of Kharkov’s Jewish population two years earlier. The Soviet military tribunal found the three Germans and one Soviet collaborator guilty and they were quickly executed.
The Allies finally recognise Tito’s Communist Popular Liberation Committee, which had led resistance to the Nazis in Yugoslavia since 1942, as the future Yugoslavian government.
The Battle of Arewe begins the Allies Campaign on New Britain, an island to the north-east of New Guinea. This diverted Japanese troops from a major Allied landing on the SW tip of the island on 26th December. Rabaul, at the eastern tip of the New Britain, was Japan’s main military and naval base in the South Pacific and MacArthur’s campaign aimed to surround and disable the Japanese forces there.
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