Thursday 18th March 1943.......

Hello again. I only spoke to you three days ago, on Monday. Now it's Thursday. That's March 18th, 1943.

Things have been going on much the same at our house on the Chester Road in Streetly. I'm missing my big brother.  He's been gone for weeks and weeks, now, since Dad photographed us together at the top of our garden. Nothing at all has been heard from him since. No letter, no telegram, no phone call. Nothing.

And nothing much has been happening to me, either. School is exactly the same with Miss Cook teaching us every day in our classroom at Sandwell School. It's upstairs and looks out to the front of the School, over Blackwood Road. I don't look out much, though. You are not allowed to when Miss Cook is there. And anyway, you are supposed to concentrate on your lessons.  That's what you go to school for.

Not that there is much to see anyway. There are houses on either side of us and some over the road. And it's a very short road.  It peters out just a little way up, just as though the men who built it suddenly got fed up, put their tools back in the lorry and drove off.  There's nothing there now, where it stops. Just a lot of heathland with gorse and some small trees, as far as the eye can see. Last summer we were allowed to play there one lunchtime. It was hot and dusty, we had a wonderful time and we all got absolutely filthy. I think Miss Cook realised then that she had made a mistake. So it's out of bounds now. The road is very quiet because it doesn't lead anywhere. You hardly ever see a car or a van.  Just occasionally the postman or the telegraph boy or a delivery boy with a big basket on the front of his bike. And it's rough, without any tarmac, and so anyone on a bike has to be very careful. I once saw the butcher boy's tyre blow up when he was trying to ride down Featherston Road. It was such a loud bang, just like a rifle, and I've heard one or two of those as well. It's just the same there, all rough and stony. But at least Featherston Road leads somewhere and Blackwood Road doesn't. I walk past the end of Egerton Road every day on my way to and from school.  It's rough as well and doesn't go anywhere.  I never go up it, though. No reason to.

As I say, we still haven't heard anything about Graham, my brother.  Here is another picture of him when he was last at home, weeks ago. He's 20. He always looks cheerful.  I think it must have been nice for him to be back home.  Even though it was only for two days.

I have really started to notice how much my parents are worrying about this.  Especially Mum. In our kitchen, just to the side of the gas stove, there is a coat rack, it's a jumble of outside coats and scarves. Mum, Dad and I are in the room. Mum is cooking the supper. Suddenly her feelings get the better of her and we hear her say how much she longs for news, any news. Just so that she knows he is all right. I see her bow her head and bury her face into the clothes hanging against the wall. Dad, the strong one in spite of whatever he himself is feeling, says something to console her and puts his arm around her shoulders. After a few moments she pulls herself together, wipes her eyes on her apron and turns back to the saucepans. It is the only time in the whole of the war when I have seen my mother cry. That's the moment when I start to realise that grown-ups have all sorts of feelings, just like I have.

Then, yesterday, I got home from school and everything had changed.

Mum was bright and breezy, just like she normally is. A letter had come from my brother. I expect she had telephoned my father at his office at Witton the moment it dropped through the letterbox. What it exactly says I don't know. It is Serial No. 1 from his direction. Whether it contains any coded information about where he is, I don't know either. But he is OK and that is all anyone wants to know. And I have to say that I am a bit relieved myself. Can't speak on behalf of my 15-year-old sister, Sheila (here she is, last summer, with me) who is constantly annoyed by both her brothers, the elder one we are talking about and her younger one, me. But I suspect she is pretty pleased as well.

The letter's arrival makes Dad sit down at the dining room table after supper last night. Out comes the fountain pen and the letter is written. He looks cheerful as he writes.  I think he is so relieved and anyway letter writing never seems hard work to him.  

Different for me though. I hope I'm not forced to put pen to paper as well. I hate having to do that, I don't know what to say and, worse still, someone, like a big sister, stands looking over my shoulder to make sure I am doing it tidily and writing neatly and and not making any blots. It's jolly hard work. I have a birthday in three weeks time which will mean thank-you letters to aunts and cousins - just how many letters is a six-year-old expected to write? They should be rationed.

Dad obviously feels very different about all that. As I watch him writing away - he writes ever so quickly - I don't know what he is saying to Graham and I probably wouldn't understand some of it anyway. He finishes it off, seals it up and puts it on the sideboard to be popped in the post tomorrow morning. I bet my brother will be very happy to get it. I wonder whether he will keep it and get it out from time to time, wherever he is, to read it and remind himself of his family and home. He might even keep it for ever and bring it home with him, when he comes back. It'll be a bit frayed around the edges by then.

I think this is what Dad wrote to him. But before I show you that, I need to tell you one or two things because otherwise the letter won't make any sense to you. (You can always skip this bit if you can't be bothered).

HOLIDAYS
Mum and Dad had a lot of holidays at a farm in South Devon up to 1938 when I was two.  This is me, then.

We were very lucky because we were able to go back there again, even though it's wartime. That was in August 1941, the year before last. When we were there, we met evacuees from Ladywood in Birmingham who were staying there, ever so far from home. I'll tell you about them another time. It was a long way for us to travel in wartime and anyway, you are not really supposed to travel unless it's absolutely necessary. 

So Mum and Dad later found another farm a lot closer to home, near Tintern. We had a few days there last autumn. Just like the farm in Devon, no bathroom, no electricity and, instead, chamber pots under the beds and oil lamps and candles. But lovely food and bags of it. And I had my first taste of cider. The railway journey to and from there was jolly interesting, especially the Lickey Incline. It looks as though we might be going again, in the next few weeks. Yippee! How lucky I am.

DAD's WORK
Dad's job is to make a lot of the copper and brass strip and sheet at Kynoch at Witton. He has a ton of worries. On top of that he has spent most of his spare time on Home Guard work since June 1940. He has built up the Streetly/Little Aston platoon over the last nearly three years. But in the early part of 1943, this year, only a few weeks ago, all that came to an end because most of the men had to be transferred to a heavy anti-aircraft battery, somewhere or other near to Streetly.

This is them in a photograph taken a week or two ago, before they all went their different ways.  I know all their names because Dad has written them on the back of the photograph.   They all live in Streetly and Little Aston and I know a few of them.  (I'll tell you about all that another time). Dad has now been given another Home Guard job.  They call him Battalion Weapons Training Officer. I think he has to spend more time now in Aldridge.  That's where the HQ is. He has to train everybody how to use the weapons.  That's rifles and machine guns and big guns and grenades and all sorts of things like that.

 Anyway, let's get back to Dad's letter......

​

17th March 1943 - No. 1 Dear Graham, We received your letter No. 1 today (19 days in transit) and are very glad to note you are OK up to and including 26th February. We were particularly pleased to get this even though the news is somewhat scanty. Mother has been keeping a stiff upper lip but has been worrying about you so write as frequently as possible and by the quickest possible route.​​ Your letter reminded us both of our last family holiday together in 1941 at the Farm and your disappearance on the return journey. We are going to the farm again at Easter for a few days break, all things being equal, and I believe the Wards (old friends of my parents, also Home Guard and living in Middleton Hall Road, King's Norton) are also coming down to the same area. Sheila I believe will stay next-door. I hope this holiday will set us up again – Mother is a bit below par and I'm not feeling too hale and hearty. Works about as usual – the present problems are mainly concerned with constant and far-reaching changes of programme which always is a bit of a headache for a production man.​ Home Guard about as usual but has hotted up considerably the last week. We have been given a new operational role 2/3 miles to the west and rather involved it is. The A.A. (anti-aicraft) men have all gone and are settling down in their new jobs with a fair amount of growsing. We have got a big stunt on this weekend which will be 24 hours actively on the go as far as I can see. We had a film show at Company last night and I finished up with a talk on the new job and the weekend stunt which may be a bit worse than the usual military mess-up – new weapons, new men, new ground. I am sticking with the Company and turned down last week two offers of command of other Companies, one at the works and the other at the old "C" and "F" Company area, both broken-down units and a lifetime's work to get straight again.​ (Dad goes on to talk about some of the young men in the neighbourhood, who were all probably Home Guard before their call-up and so Graham will know them).​ Geoffrey Hall goes tomorrow to the South Staffs, Dodd has been on embarkation leave. Nevitt was home for a short leave in midshipman's uniform – no other news of personalities except C*** is marked Grade 4 and so apparently will be sticking with us. M**** had medical last week and also in Grade 4.​ Put the car into Cutler's last week for that rattle in the clutch to be put right and asked him to have a look at the engine. The rattle was nothing – just a stone wedged between the torque tube and the chassis – but he overhauled the engine and I expect to get a bill shortly equal to the National Debt.​ All are okay and send their love. Chris is back at school with no ill effects after the measles. Spends most of his time annoying Sheila. Expect they will all be writing today and tomorrow. We are all thinking about you constantly.​ All the very best, old chap. Hope the Crossing is not too exciting. Your affectionate Dad.

​

Only three weeks to my birthday now.  I'll be seven.  Mum says she is getting tickets for the circus in Birmingham. And that's about all I have to tell you at the moment. 

When will I know where my brother is and what he is doing?