On 7th October 1941 Dick had a medical, prior to his transfer,
which found him in A.1. condition.
Copy of Record
SERVICE AND CASUALTY FORM
Medical (b) Category A1 Date 7-10-41
Intelligence Section, HQ Company, 70th Dorsets
Branksome, Hants.
Tuesday
My Darling Chotie,
Just a few lines to let you know that all is well, and that I still love you, EVERYTHING.
I'm now feeling much better and though still on the sick list, hope to be OK again in a few days time.
I had a letter from Brinner (NO not Monica*, Darling...) who appears to be enjoying himself.
I do little or nothing all day with Eric, which gets pretty boring after a while. He had a parcel today and is, consequently, feeling quite cheerful, and sends his love (brotherly).
I was medically examined this morning re transferring, and was categorised A1. - not that it makes any difference. I'm afraid there's no news, of course, as nothing seems to happen.
Monica, as I hear from Diller, who still corresponds, has now found her true love (etc), and may now cease to cause me sleepless nights. It's about time she had a change of front and policy. That's the only snag of going back to Herne Bay**. But at any rate we hope she's married by then and in safe hands.
This pen’s horrible to write with. Needless to say, it’s Eric's! He has everything on the thin side.
I've managed to find Cocknowle*** on a large-scale map - so I now know whereabouts it lies.
As regards next Sunday, I'll borrow a bike from Somewhere in England and be around sometime about 3 pm to 5-30. At any rate, I'll write again before then.
Well, Darling I must close here as it's time for tea, and I must rush to post this.
I managed to get a Dorset Brooch, which will do, I hope, until I get into a Genuine Regiment when I'll send you another.
Bye, bye Darling
All my love
Dicker
Xxxxxxxx
* Dick’s former girlfriend
** Dick’s family were planning to move back to Herne Bay from Poole. They ended up at Pagham in Sussex.
*** where Chotie was living in the Land Army
From ‘Chotie’s Story’:
“I left Beales to become a Land Army girl, age seventeen, after a tiff at home. A lovely farm at Church Knowle in the Purbecks. Miss Geaves, the farm owner, let me live in her beautiful cottage under Creech, the highest point in the Purbecks. Walking across fields in early morning, the mist fell in between the hills like small lakes, quite awesome. Also awesome was my cycle ride from Corfe Castle station to Church Knowle, on a moonlit and part cloudy evening. How ghostly Corfe Castle looked.
The Land Army was not for me. After too much rich food I suffered a bilious attack and hours of mangold pulling, milking cows and trekking across fields took its toll. Dad took great pleasure in saying I had been invalided out of the Land Army much to my annoyance. Beryl† joined at a later date and made quite a success of it.”
† Beryl was Mum’s younger sister, a 'success' in the Land Army
Reputedly my mother lasted three weeks in the Land Army before she was ‘invalided out’, always a source of much amusement in our family. Dick’s posting to a location so near to her home may have had some influence on her desire to leave the rural idyll of Purbeck.
I have an annoyingly vague memory that she told me Dick went to France before ‘D’ Day and was injured and the worry of this French trip, coupled with sickness, led to her leaving the Land Army. I wish I’d found out more but I think this was a whispered secret even then – perhaps only for dramatic effect but possibly, like the Bletchley girls, because there were things one swore never to tell.
© Chotie Darling
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