‘D’ Company, 70th Dorsets
Southampton, Hants.
My Darling little Chotie,
Many thanks for the letter, Darling, which I’ve just received.
It’s now Friday afternoon and I’m on guard. I went on at seven o’clock yesterday and come off at seven this evening. Unfortunately I haven’t been paid yet and probably won’t get paid until tomorrow. What abject misery!
Saturday morning.
Well, Darling I’m off guard and waiting to go on morning parade. We keep getting sirens here, about six a day. There’s always one about 6-30, (reveille)!
There are rumours about of going back to Southbourne. I only hope they’re true. In any case it won’t be for another fortnight or so. I’m pretty fed up with this place. The bombs rain down every night. I don’t mind bombs but I can’t tolerate shelters. Spending hours in shelters in the early hours of the morning is enough to make anyone fed up.
Saturday Afternoon
I’ve just come from a meeting of the Corporals’ Club. It’s not too bad as we get papers etc. in the Corporals’ Room.
Well Darling, I’m afraid there’s nothing else to tell you, except I think of you all the while and dream of that wonderful time which is bound to come after the end of the war when we can really start to live.
I’d hoped & prayed that I could have got home this weekend but, as Corporal Holloway is still at Southbourne, I’m on guard again on Sunday.
Bye bye for now Darling,
Your ever loving,
Dicker
© Chotie Darling
21st March 1941 – the 'Glamour Puffer’, which brought young Poole women to work at the Royal Navy’s Cordite factory at Holton Heath, was bombed but everyone survived. (From ‘Poole and World War II’ written by Derek Beamish, Harold Bennett and John Hillier and published by Poole Historical Trust in 1980.)
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