Saturday, August 26th, 1944

Darling Joan,

Gee! What a day we had on Thursday. You see it is getting near the end of the children’s holiday and I thought that as Mummy was taking them to the Ruislip Lido I would have the afternoon off and join them. If I do not go, then they cannot go boating as Mummy cannot row. Of course they were delighted and after dinner we set off. It was lovely and sunny and rather warm when we caught the bus at a quarter past two, but when we arrived at Ruislip it had clouded over a little and when we reached the boat-house it had started to rain very slightly. We tried to get the twins to forego the boating until the weather made up its mind but they reminded us that last time we did that, it turned to heavy rain and they didn’t get their trip. So as it was a very light rain and it was really still bright and looked like as it would give over any minute, we got out in a boat and started to enjoy ourselves. Alas the rain got worse and after we had been out half an hour it was raining too hard to continue. So we started for the boat-house and by the time we reached it, it was raining really hard and had come over so black, and with thunder in the distance that we saw we had picked the wrong day and decided to turn it in and return home. Unfortunately everyone else had decided to do the same thing with the result that we had to queue for an hour in the pouring rain before we could get on a bus. When we did finally get one we were drenched to the skin. Everyone else on the bus was too, but were making the best of it. We had taken our tea with us, intending to picnic as we usually do, because you cannot get tea out these days, so we were able to have some hot tea on the bus. The other folk looked enviously at our hot tea and everyone was so wet that had we had enough we would have served it to them all. It rained really hard all the rest of the day, and even the little way we had to go from the bus garage to our house would have drenched us had it not been that we were as wet as we could be before we started. Of course we had to change everything and light a fire to try and dry our clothes, but even by the following morning some of them were still too wet to wear. The evening was too bad for anyone to go out and our WAAF⁽¹⁾ Betty, she had a needlework class to go to but had to miss it. So we played dominoes with the children until it was time for them to go to bed and then Mummy and Betty and I played cards for the rest of the evening.

I felt particularly cross about it because the following day was warm and sunny all day and we would have had a lovely time, but I couldn’t afford the extra time off, and had to work hard all day to make up my lost afternoon’s work.

We were to have gone blackberry picking this afternoon but our plans have been put out because Auntie Kitty and Uncle Bill are coming to tea. Their two boys, Keith and Peter, have been evacuated to their grandparents in Norfolk, so they will be coming alone this time, and Mummy and I aren’t sorry because they really are the two most noisy boys in the world.

Cheerio⁽²⁾, Joan darling, and next week I shall be sending you snaps that I took during my holiday at home. I. hope you are enjoying “The Naughtiest Girl is a Monitor”, the twins sit spellbound as I read them each instalment.

Love from
Daddy
xxxxxxxxxxxx