Jun 021942
 

Tuesday
Aberdeen
Dearest,
I’m making a start on this in the very limited time before I dash out to school again tonight, but doubt very much if I shall be able to finish it tonight. Alright, I give you best about nitrates and superphosphates! Yes, that is dried blood to be used on the tomatoes when the fruits form and not before. If you can get it on the ground just before a shower of rain, so much the better, if not, sprinkle it in well. Make a shallow trench some distance from the stem for this purpose.

Wednesday
I was afraid I’d never get this into the post for last night’s collection, but as I have not to go back tonight I have a good chance of answering your letters. I realise only too well that I have not been writing as much as usual, but you should have had a letter from me by Tuesday. I wrote a fairly long one to arrive about Friday, a shorter note to arrive on Saturday and then another short note to arrive Monday or Tuesday. That was posted on Saturday because I had a feeling that with Sunday’s stunt I should have little chance of writing very much and in the evening Ralph wanted me to meet his girl. As for the nights when I have to go back, it’s almost impossible to get anything done for it’s 9.30 when I get home.
I am glad you have been such a brick and sent me all the medical history of the children. A full story like that has stopped me from worrying about them. I don’t like to think of them being ill and, like you, I’ve always distrusted measles for what it might leave behind. The greatest safeguard against that is good nursing and I don’t know of a better nurse than you, sweetheart. I know what an intelligent interest you take in the things the doctors say and I think that is one of the reasons Rees thinks so much of you. But, as I was going to say, all children have measles and I’m content to think ours have such a good nurse! What does worry me is that that same nurse might go and neglect herself. Promise not to do that, darling. Whatever else you do, get good meals and, so far as is humanly possible, plenty of sleep. If you can get out into the garden, do so for the fresh air will do you good. I’m glad you insisted on sleeping in the other morning. Don’t let them bully you.
I’m sorry about baby Perry. Give Dave my salaams and tell him I hope the “brood”, as he always calls them, are getting better. I think Mrs Reid wants putting away, and I can just imagine Mother and her having a real good jaw about things. Don’t forget to give my best regards to Rees when he comes. I’m relying on him to keep you fit until I come back to my old flannels for good. From the ‘B.T.’ I see he has been suggesting using Litherland’s decontamination centre for the treatment of infectious diseases – sounds a good scheme to me. This, I think, is just about all on the subject of measles, but do keep up your “bulletins”. They are the first thing I think of each day. You know how much I miss being at home during these times to lend a helping hand where possible and to amuse the children, as well as to keep them in order when they get a bit out of hand. I gather you have not done the traditional thing and put them both in the same room, although this might have its advantages when they are convalescing. Or will it?
Blancmange seems to have gone off the market here, but I have managed to get you 1lb of cornflour (plain), half a pound assorted flavours cornflour (both Brown & Polson’s), 1lb semolina (C.W.S.) and another co-op cereal called Nutrina. I’ll post them on Friday. I’m afraid I won’t be able to send them before as I’m dead broke apart from bus fares! Now, that is not a hint! You are not to send me anything more than the bare money you owe me for the kippers and for these other things which amount to 3/6. This fortnight has been fairly heavy or I should have managed nicely. I’ve had to pay out for kippers for you and a few for the Rosses (about 5/6), and 5/- for baccy, and 10/- from 36/- is rather a nasty sneak! I’m only telling you this because I said I would do so. If I do need money I’ll write you, but I expect I’ll get some for my birthday which will cover any extras I want. If I do get money, I think I’ll use it to buy a new uniform – I’ll have to buy all my own clothes now, you know – because things are slowly going dearer even in slops. When the question of my birthday is raised will you tell the family quite definitely that I cannot think of anything I really need at the moment and it would be silly of them to buy things I may never use. Even present slops prices are well below shop prices and I’m buying all I can there. I can’t write round telling people that, but they may raise the subject with you. Don’t you bother to send anything. You can give me mine in instalments when I come home! But I rather fancy you’ll be at the receiving, not the distributing end! Seriously, though, there is one thing you might look out and that is the watch I think is still in one of the small drawers in the dressing table. I’m not in a hurry for it.
Now to matters horticultural. The beans in the lid are Masterpiece and on last year’s showing I think they are much more tender than the Canadian Wonder. Had I been at home I should have sown nothing but Masterpiece this year. If you have different varieties of peas and beans for storage, it might be a good thing to note which are which in different jars and boxes and see which give the best results for quality as well as quantity. Have you thought that slugs or an insect pest might be getting your beet? I had the same experience last year. Have you dusted your onion and leek beds with soot? There is some which is well weathered by the hedge in the allotment, not far from the junction of Russell’s garden. The bottom part of the hedge may have grown over it by now. Soot is supposed to keep onion fly away. there is just the possibility that the wireworms are not to blame for the caulis. It may be cabbage fly. Put the trowel under one of the drooping plants and lift it carefully. Look closely near the roots and the stem and you will see little white maggots in the soil and in the stem itself if the fly has got at them. If you do find traces of these, throw the trowel full of soil in the bin – NOT anywhere else unless it be the fire – and then burn the plant. I think it is much more likely to be fly and you may have to look very carefully to see the grub. If you should find a wireworm near the root of one of the caulis, don’t jump to the conclusion they are the cause of the trouble. I nearly made that mistake last year. That, I think, deals with nearly all the garden pests except one – Peter. Why not tell him straight that you will stop him using that bit of garden if the other boys come through any more? Tell him you gave that piece to him and not to all the lads in the road.
So far we have not heard Arthur’s impressions of Scotia, but Wally wrote to say conditions are not as bad as they are painted, but the course there is pretty stiff. Did I tell you the course had been extended there from two to three months? I prefer to wait, really, until we hear from Arthur. I think his judgment is more likely to be sound.
I was glad to have your news of May and of Limedale in general. I suppose it will be some time now before you feel it safe to ask any of them over. I really must write to May as soon as I get a chance. I think I told you I wrote to Harold. Hope he didn’t get leave before receiving my letter.
Ralph’s girl must have been the Jonah on Aberdeen’s weather for since she went back on Monday it has been beautiful. Today is the warmest yet and it is positively stifling in our bedroom as I’m writing this. My hands are all clammy and this despite the fact that I was in the baths this morning, our swimming day having been changed to Wednesday. Ralph, by the way, seems to have “fallen” for Margaret all over again and he has been really fed up since she went back. He is counting the days to leave!
There was a big shock awaiting me when I got in for tea. Guess what it was? A letter from Durham, which must be an all-time record when you think I only wrote him on Easter Monday. His letter is crammed with news of the lads. Elgar is a captain in the Tank Corps and Maxie also has a commission. But I’ll send you his letter on later so you can read it and then store it away for me in my desk.
I have already been to sick bay twice this week about new glasses. On the first day I saw the doctor and told him I wanted glasses I could wear under a respirator. He agreed and told me to go to sick bay the next day. I did do and they calmly told me my appointment was for tomorrow! Anyway, I should have new service glasses – those with the steel rims – by next weekend.
By the time you receive this letter the children will, I hope, be well on the way to recovery although at that stage I can well imagine them being more of a handful than when they are really ill. I have already made several efforts to get small magnets but will keep on trying. I haven’t forgotten them. Give the children my love and tell them I think about them every day. Tell them, too, I hope they will soon be well enough to play out in the street and in the garden.
Oh my darling, my darling, I do love you. I want you to be near me tonight, or rather I want to be near you! I’d dearly love to be at home helping you and loving you between times and probably cursing and swearing heartily about children in general – ours in particular every time one of them shouted down! Just the way I always did. Remember? And I could love you tonight. Not MERELY sexually, but deeply and nicely – nicely, that is, in so many senses slightly different from sex but never completely divorced from it. You know what I mean! I know you do and I know also that I can feel you near me now. Almost I can feel your fingers in my hair, and what a lovely, close-to feeling that is, sweet. From this I hope that you will gather I have something of a soft spot for you in my heart! Darling, I must stop. I can’t afford the luxury of a coma tonight. But for all that I love you very dearly indeed. Look after yourself, my darling, and don’t get run down through looking after the children. Now I must go, angel. Night, night. All my love.
Your own,
Arthur X