61st Recce Regt RAC
BWE 7
July 9th ‘44
Letter No 1!
Chotie Darling,
Many thanks for your numerous letters – I just received those written 2nd & 5th inst.
This idea of numbering letters is all right, so long as you remember the last number. Needless to say I’ve forgotten it so I’ll start again with you and call this No 1.
I’m lying on my mat in an orchard writing this – we seem to have alternate rain & sun here and the ground’s still very damp.
I managed to get my feet under the table in a farm near my last location. Geoff and I went down in the morning and were invited round for a drink the same evening. To our surprise we found four girls there – all refugees, three from the immediate vicinity and one from Paris.
To help things out we took a bottle of whisky with us, but it wasn’t really necessary as they had plenty of Calvados – a real weed-killer. They call it apple-brandy though you can’t drink more than an egg-cup full at one time. It’s deadly.
We had a very pleasant evening – though Geoff knows no French whatsoever. They wanted us to stay for supper, but as we have plenty to eat of our own we tactfully declined.*
We moved from that area the following morning. Since then, we’ve had little luck, though I did manage to buy a pig which we roasted for supper last night.
I wish the weather would buck up a bit – it’s really miserable now, after a wonderful start early this morning. One thing we invariably get here which never fails to brighten me up are the glorious sunsets – they never seem to fail. Turner would have loved them. They’re even better than the Herne Bay sunsets he loved to paint.
I’ve seen two calves born in the last three days – lovely little things who stand and shiver and look so surprised whilst their mothers lick them all over. One was very small, but managed to stand up after several unsuccessful efforts, after twenty minutes or so.
Chotie Darling, you’re getting very crude – I’ll have to take you in hand when I get back….
It’s not much good Eric writing me as I never could read his writing anyhow. Tell Eve to write...(I’ll start something...)
Must close here, my Darling
All my love
Dicker.
© Chotie Darling
*'Instructions for British Servicemen in France 1944', the Foreign Office pamphlet (written by Herbert David Ziman) and published by the Bodleian Library in 2005, includes "FOOD - The virtual starvation of France by the Germans will, as you have seen, make it impossible for us to 'live on the country' in any sense during the first months...Don't, even if food is offered to you, eat the French out of house and home. If you do, someone may starve."
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