huddle round the fire till, at 6.30, we got ourselves out of our slacks and into reasonable clothes for the concert. It was an appalling concert but the airmen behind us were so amusing we laughed ourselves sick.
After the concert came a social at the NAAFI14 for airmen and airwomen which we were all enjoying when the group captain removed the snarling WAAFs at eleven o'clock. From 11.30 to one o'clock we again sat round the fire eating and talking and so ended my first Christmas Day.
Events of 1939
1 September Germany invaded Poland without a declaration of war.
3 September Britain and France declared war on Germany.
27 September Warsaw surrendered to the Nazis.
29 September National registration was carried out in the UK to supply the entire population with Identity Cards.
14 October HMS Royal Oak was sunk at port in Scapa Flow by a German U-boat; 833 men died in Britain's first heavy loss.
21 October Conscription began of men aged between twenty and twenty-three.
28 October The first German plane was shot down over Great Britain.
8 November A failed attempt to assassinate Hitler killed nine people in Munich.
30 November The Red Army marched into Finland.
1 Betty Ross, who lived with my parents as a paying guest when Shell was evacuated.
2 Bunty Goldie, now Bunty Jackman – still a close friend.
3 Joyce Davidge.
4 Non-Commissioned Officer.
5 Renee Bedell – who had been working for the British Council.
6 Mickey Johnston.
7 Motor Transport.
8 A popular comedian of the time.
9 Bunty's parents.
10 Bernie and Eric were two friends of Bunty's; they all met at the Goldies' tennis club.
11 Aircraft Woman 1st Class.
12 By this time we had heard quite a bit about the existence of concentration camps within Germany. In 1938–9 there was a stream of refugees from Germany to the UK, mostly children, few of whom ever saw their parents again.
13 Officers waiting on other ranks is still the custom in the Armed Forces on Christmas Day.
14 The Navy, Army and Air Force Institute runs shops and clubs for the Armed Forces, and then gives its profits back to the Services.
7 January 1940
Joyce and I have pulled the beds around the fire, stolen the pouffe from Peggy's bed downstairs, unpouffed it and spread it around the ground for us to loll against. On the beds are books and papers and cigarettes, on our dressing table are our eats for the evening: a loaf, butter, a Christmas cake and a tin of mushroom soup. Joyce has been lying on the floor battling for sound on our wireless, which is proving even less useful than our bloody little fire.
We had a church parade today, fortunately in the smaller and considerably warmer hangar with a very enthusiastic parson who urged us to be pieces of rock between interludes of calling us miserable sinners. I regrettably had a long-distance flirtation with the trumpet player. On my return I was then chivvied by the sergeant to (a) walk straight and (b) swing my arms. The first I find impossible, the second objectionable and concentrating on achieving both spoilt the dreams I have to make marching endurable. One of the warrant officers passed a lovely remark on our return to the orderly room: ‘Now that you've finished your God bothering.’
13 January 1940
Coming home on leave last night I bought Reader's Digest and found in it this perfect thing. It's supposed to be a song chanted by a four-year-old boy in his bath each night and his mother had managed to copy down this fragment:
He will just do nothing at all, he will just sit there in the noon-day sun
And when they speak to him he will not answer them, because he does not care to
He will stick them with spears and put them in the garbage
When they tell him to eat his dinner he will laugh at them
And he will not take his nap because he does not care to, he will go away and play with the panda
And when they come to look for him he will put spikes in their eyes and put them in the garbage
He will not go out in the fresh air or eat his vegetables or make wee wee for them and he will grow thin as a marble
He will do nothing at all, he will just sit there in the noonday sun.
I went over to Lensbury to have lunch with Barbara15 today (dear, kind, generous, delightful Shell, they paid all their staff, us serving members as well, a 10 per cent increase on their salary to cover the now increased cost of living and many weeks' back increase as well).
17 January 1940
Days go on and on and nothing important happens in them and then on a day like this it positively crams
