61st Rece Regt RAC BLA
Saturday October 21st
Chotie Darling,
I’m still resting, and still in the same place so I have once again ample opportunity for writing.
They’ve got a baby here now – I don’t know where it came from but it looks about six months old to me. It’s in the room where I’m writing this and it doesn’t seem to cry much. I thought babies were always crying. When this one starts I just rock the old pram and it stops.
A really wonderful day today – strong wind but beautifully sunny. Most of the trees have turned now so the countryside presents a lovely picture.
I heard Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto the day before yesterday – by dint of sitting half-frozen in my armoured car.
I see that Pouishnoff* is playing the Tchaikovsky Concerto tomorrow afternoon so I’ll have to get a grip on that.
(I’ve just had to stop to rock the baby).
The ground here is deadly with mud. I’ve got five pairs of boots out here (a wise precaution – taken in England) and I wear them in rotation. By the time I’ve got through them all the first pair are dry again….
I’m the only Officer here at present so find things rather lonely. All the rest are either at ‘Base’ or in the line. Rather deadly for me.
(I’m now rocking the pram with one hand and writing this with the other….)
For want of something to do I compiled a gigantic list of poets and their respective works from Chaucer to Brooke**. Rather staggering, the enormous number of poets we’ve had, far more than the rest of the world put together. There’s only France to rival us, and they’re few in number compared with us.
Must close here for lunch.
All my love, Darling
Dicker.
*Leff Pouishnoff, a Ukrainian Pianist and composer who lived in Britain from 1921.
**Geoffrey Chaucer was an English poet of the Thirteenth century best known for the Canterbury tales. Rupert Brooke was an English poet who died during World War 1 and is remembered for his idealistic war sonnets including ‘The Soldier’.
© Chotie Darling
Eric Postles explains how Dick had a radio to listen to music: "We moved about the 'Island' extending the hold on the eastern end, holding the line patrols and manning observation posts (O.P.s) where we took compass readings when 'V' rockets were launched so that the RAF could attack the sites. In one village we recced a warehouse full of Philips radios, packed ready for export to the Balkans. We helped ourselves to them and I got two small sets. But we had no electricity to operate them until we were in Germany where we could get the British and American forces radio network. Military Police from Divisional HQ came and ordered us out of the warehouse. We later heard they had emptied the place of sets and taken them to Divisional Headquarters." (Extract from ‘My War Years’ by John Eric Postles ISO used by kind permission of the author.)
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