17th November 1941

A little better than yesterday, but blustery, grey and purple clouds coming and going across the sky. Almost all the leaves are down now, and from my window at Holly Trees the great beech by the Castle Ditch shows only a few rustling russet leaves on the ends of his fingers. The little flowering cherry on the law below me has a few leaves still left, and a wide circle of brown and yellow all round him, like feathers, reminding me of a partly plucked chicken. “Old Bob”, who used to run with the Harriers, crosses the Park leaning on his stick, bent up with rheumatism. A plane flies slowly across the sky, towards the east.

It is just a year since the great air-raid on Coventry, when the centre of the city was destroyed and 300 people killed. I well remember it, for hundreds of German bombers flew over Colchester all night long, coming and going, sailing unhindered beneath the stars, as there was no opposition at all.

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