Sunday
Cold and blustery. Cycled to Elm this afternoon. Went to tea at the “Limes”, met a young man
named Henderson, a musician. Cycled home
by the light of a cold brilliant moon.
21st April 1945
Saturday
Cold and blustery. Heard ‘planes going out early and a lot more
after breakfast.
Essex County Standard came by the second post, and
has reports of two cases of raids on bogus “clubs” to stop illicit
drinking. In one case the “stoolpigeon”
was an American army captain, who went in with two police-women. This is quite a new departure in dirty
tricks.
At lunch-time young Mrs. Jewson
called at the Swifts’, and said she was expecting to hear any moment that her
husband had been flown home from Germany .
20th April 1945
Friday
The weather still fine, hot and
summery, a wonderful spring. A little
cloud came up this afternoon.
All black-out restrictions are to be lifted next week, except for a 10
mile belt round the coast, where lights might help submarines to take a bearing
or to shell a town. (There is a rumour
going round that a sub: shelled Liverpool
recently). In “event of a raid” lights
are to be extinguished, but as gas-lamps can't be turned off, (as we know full
well here after last month’s experience) there seems little point in such an
order.
Cooler towards the evening and a
heavy shower at 7, then about 10.30 a tremendous thunderstorm for an hour and a
half. Spent the time talking to Dorothy
Brewer about my “Fox One” manuscript. She seemed to
like it and thought it had a good chance for publication.
19th April 1945
Thursday
Fine and warm. Very odd thing – an auction sale in the
Market Place of the furniture and fittings from Jackson ’s old office. Amongst them were sold several dozen
deed-boxes, with the names of old Fen families and estates painted on
them. One had belonged to the Revd.
Caliphronas of West Walton, the Greek who was a friend of Chauncey Hare Townshend,
and another had the name of Ald. Girling’s father. There is quite a lot of chatter about this,
as it was felt to be rather indecent to expose private boxes, even through
empty, to a public sale. People have of course
no idea of the way in which the firm had treated the contents of those boxes.
Spent most of the day sorting and
listing the MSS and other material which we recovered on Monday.
18th April 1945
Wednesday
Yet another fine hot day. Press hard put to find a reason for the
postponement of Churchill’s “end of the war”.
It seems (reading between the lines) that two or three factors have been
overlooked, viz:
1)
The Germans
2)
The Americans
3)
The Russians
All the papers make a great deal
about the air manoeuvres over London
last night, or rather couple of nights.
First the Americans spent several hours flying bombers over the city,
very low, then the RAF came over “in force”, dropping flares. Apparently everybody was much alarmed, and
there have been some curious references to the affairs in Parliament. This morning, between 11 and 12, about a
hundred Forts and Liberators circled at 4000 feet or so, S.W. of the town. Are these “demonstrations”? If so, whom are they directed against?
17th April 1945
Tuesday
Glorious cloudless day, very
hot. Penny came up from the Control Room and
said he had “found” one of our tables in the ARP depôt in Barton Road – the County people have made
very free with anybody’s property which they wanted.
Mrs. Munday called, and left her
scrap books for me to see. Spoke of
knowing Col. Manson of Walpole St Peter, who is said to own descendants of the
Shales.
Writing nearly all day. Little Miss Torey came in, and I showed her
the Dickens autographs, which she enjoyed.
Saw Woodgate, who emphasised the need for absolute secrecy in the matter
of the Jackson Diary and other MSS.
Regret that I mentioned the matter to Curtis Edwards, who came in this
morning and was most anxious to know where I had been all yesterday.
The six o’clock news announced
that Churchill had “postponed” his end-of-the-war statement for Thursday. No reasons given, but this morning’s papers
say that Eisenhower has made a statement that he will say when the war ceases, and nobody else. Great to-do in Parliament today because
MacIntyre, the new Scottish Nationalist member refused sponsors when he entered
the House, and the Speaker, (most enthusiastically backed by Churchill) refused
to allow him to take his seat. Without
doubt Nationalism in Scotland
and Wales
is going to be a force to reckon with.
Interesting to see results of the Caernarvon
election on Thursday week.
Wrote to Ann tonight, and
arranged to go to Inverness on 12 May. How I am to afford all this I have no idea.
Cycled to Elm in the cool of the
evening, and talked to Mrs. Coulter and her sister-in-law for an hour or
so. Ought to have worked. More air manoeuvres tonight, the sky a mass
of search-lights, with a pale watery crescent moon, and red and yellow flares
falling.
16th April 1945
Monday
Glorious hot sunny day. GMG Woodgate came very early, and asked me to
go at once with him to Friends’ junk yard.
It seems that the old firm of solicitors, Donald Jackson & Jackson,
whose office for more than a century has been in Hill Street , have suddenly been evicted
by the Town Council to provide room for the Food Office. Old Donald Jackson is over 80, and takes no
active part in the firm, so his chief clerk calmly sent the whole of the
contents of the private boxes to the waste paper merchants. Quite by chance Woodgate met him in the
street and learnt what had happened. He
then arranged with Friend that we should go round there today and see if
anything could be saved. The first thing
noticeable in the junkyard is a huge stack of iron railings, many of them 18th
century, from houses on the Brinks, which were stolen from the owners 3 or 4
years ago, and then never used.
We spent the whole day in the
wastepaper store, emptying and sorting some 40 sacks of stuff from Jackman’s
Office. What a scandal that a lawyer,
may, with impunity, destroy material of this kind – court rolls back to Edward
VI, rentals, releases, terriers, estate maps.
Most of these relate to West Walton and the Walpoles. Everything was mixed with modern letters,
bank books, old cheque-books, law journals, old newspapers, in filth and
confusion. Quite late in the afternoon I
discovered what seemed to be the best find of the day – the diary of the Revd.
Jeremiah Jackson, Master of the Grammar School, Vicar of Elm, President of the
Museum, covering the period 1812 to within a few days of his death in
1857. It is contained in 63 little
notebooks, each with a synopsis of the contents inside the cover. He refers to many public events – Peace
Celebrations of 1814 and 1815, the Coronations, the new railway, races at Peterborough . Interesting to note that he expresses the
hope that Napoleon will be tried by a military commission and shot. In 1815 he records with some surprise that
the morris-dancers have appeared at Guylin.
He writes too of his work as Grammar-School master, and the dirtiness
of the boys. This very fascinating diary
does not begin until he was 38, when he considered the best part of his life
was already over, and continues to within a few days of his death at 83 in
1857. I hastily removed all these books
to Clarkson Avenue
for careful study.
Had a bath as soon as I could,
being very filthy from this work.
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