Monday
Not quite so cold, but showers of
snow, with clear intervals. ‘Planes
going out all morning. They fly in any
weather now, night or day. Jupp was
talking about an American whom he had met from Langham. Apparently flares were dropped all round the
field during the raid early on Saturday, but no bombs were dropped, so the men
are expecting a big raid before very long.
The American pilots ran off the aerodrome when they saw the flares, as
they are very much afraid of other people’s bombs when they are on the ground
themselves.
To Birch this afternoon for
Committee meeting. Saw Joanna and her
baby, looking very pretty. The baby
laughed and smiled at me when I poked it.
Made myself unpopular with the Chairman by forgetting to bring the
Minute Book. Memory is getting very bad.
During the meeting a
recommendation was again brought up for Jones, the
tool-recorder, to have another 5/- a week.
The Chairman was dead against it because (a) he was a pacifist, (b) a
Welshman, and (c) a schoolmaster! I,
with a Welsh grandmother and hosts of schoolteachers for relations, sat and
said nothing. Eventually Jones got his 5/-.
Another matter which was
mentioned was about young M., Parish Representative at Tiptree, who has
been fined £200 in a strawberry “black-market” case. The Chairman was very anxious that he should
be dismissed from the Committee’s service, (he is of course a voluntary
worker), but some members knew more about the case than had been published, and
held the view that M. had only committed a technical offence and should not
have been fined more than £5. It is
admitted that the strawberry regulations are so framed that it is practically
impossible for any grower to avoid breaking them, however careful he may
be. Mrs. Furneaux was fined last year
for some technical offence.
Got back to Colchester at 6, and
had tea at the Regal. As I cycled out
tonight, saw a large brown owl sitting on a log in a field near Stratford. Felt very tired, and beyond writing a few
letters did nothing.
This morning we nearly set the
office on fire. A log fell off a fire in
one of the empty rooms, and burnt a hole clean through the floor-boards before
it was found. There was a lot of smoke,
but we are so used to having the place full of smoke and smell that we took
no notice.
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