31st August 1944

Thursday

At the office – Snowball told me that a lot of ‘divers’ had gone straight over Ipswich, coming in from the east – and they tell us that it is all over.  One we saw explode was on Moorhouse’s land at Braham Hall, Bromley, where I went to collect the wall-plaster.

It seems the Germans have invented some new way to send these things.  One rumour suggests that they bring them up to within a mile or two of the coast on submarines.

Felt very ill and restless.  Don't know what to do.  Wish I could get out tonight.  Even went to the station and looked up trains.  However, this afternoon the post brought me a letter from Edinburgh, from the Miss Biggams, saying come whenever I like!  How kind they are.

Just before tea Poulter ‘phoned to say Orchard had produced a plan to widen Mersea Road by destroying the Abbey Wall, and would I come along to hear the details?  Went as soon as I could.  Working in close association with people like Orchard and Collins is fraught with all the hideous uncertain danger of an air raid.  There is no possible means of knowing where they will strike next – first an old house, then a whole block of good houses, then part of the Town Wall, now the Abbey Wall – where is it to end?  Agreed with Poulter that we will do everything possible to stop this latest vandalism.  One would have thought that even Orchard would have been content to let well alone until the Germans had finished their work.

Poulter told me about the ARP rehearsal tonight, which seems to have been the usual childish nonsense.  About 10.30pm there was a short alarm.  Went into the Holly Trees Field in brilliant moonlight.  Gun flashes towards Harwich, but nothing came in this area.  ‘All-clear’ in a very few minutes.

Left at 11 pm and got into bed at midnight.