10th May 1942: E.J. Rudsdale moves to Lawford

Up early, caught Bob, put him in the van, and went down to the station with Hampshire to meet a lady with a harp, for Hervey Benham.  He is organising a Sunday concert this afternoon, and she is one of the artistes.  The whole business was rather fantastic, as the harp, which travels in a vast case rather like a coffin, goes incognito in order to avoid railway charges.  What she consigns it as I could not discover.  The harpist was a faded, bespectacled female, very fussy, and was quite agitated when the whole “coffin” almost crashed to the ground through Bob moving forward a little.

However, we got it safely loaded, and I left her to Hampshire’s care to deliver it to the Regal and collect it again in due course.

I cycled on by Severalls and Langham to Lawford.  Langham Lane looks lovely.  It will all be destroyed if the proposed aerodrome is built there.  Had lunch at Lawford, for which I was rather late, and tea at the Belfields at Birchett’s Wood.  Penelope was there, lovely as ever, and a Pole and his wife.  The wife had only recently come out of France, but as she only spoke French and Polish I could not understand very much of her conversation.

Back to Lawford for supper, and then bed, lovely soft white bed.  Before I fell asleep I lay listening to rain falling in torrents.

E.J. Rudsdale now began lodging with Joy and Matthew Parrington at Sherbourne Mill, Lawford, near Colchester.  He had previously stayed with them for a week in March 1942 and prior to that had helped them with the harvest in August 1940.

2 comments:

Robin King said...

Yet to me as a boy, Boxted aerodrome was a magical, magnetic place: aeroplanes took off and landed there. I had to go and see it!

E J Rudsdale said...

Hello Robin - yes, I can imagine the excitement you felt at seeing the aerodrome and Rudsdale later writes about the hoards of boys watching the aeroplanes at Boxted - you would have been one of them! Rudsdale's interests in conservation, however, meant that he mourned the loss of the farmland and countryside to the aerodrome. Had he been younger, he would have probably been watching the planes with you! CP