12 May 1940 - Stamps and Schoolboys

Harold is in the middle of the back row

56 Bond Street
Monkwearmouth
Sunderland

12.5.40

Dear Angela
Your letter arrived about three days ago, and as you can see I am at home again. - just for four days. I have completed the entrance form for my exam in July and as I am taking nine subjects I have decided to do a little work. Even when that exam is over I will still have to work as I am trying for two scholarships to Universities. I hope to get through in Art and Architecture. The work I have to do for these will not be too bad as it consists of sketches and scale drawings of houses, cathedrals etc. I will send you some photos of Durham and York Cathedrals sometime, as you won’t have any places as old as these. Well so much for work - I don’t suppose it will ever get done.
I have been doing a few pencil sketches lately and I will send you a few of some Yorkshire villages. I am having two printed in the School Mag. this term. If I remember to enclose it you will find a “snap” taken by a chap in our form. It is of a few boys in our form, we may look happy but we are not it is just “put on”. If you can’t spot me, I have put a X on the back, which, if held to the light, covers my face.
You seem to have had some fun at your Winema Initiation, I would love to have seen you in “pigtails”! Which reminds me - I don’t know the meaning of the pigtail but the blue ribbon is for something like this:-
“If your love for me is true
Return to me this ribbon blue”
as I don’t know who sent it I am not able to say.
We had a mock election at school about three years ago and we certainly had plenty of fun - the candidates giving speeches on what they would do if elected. In England they keep the Boys’ and Girls’ Schools separated and it is very rare that we have anything in co-operation, only the country schools have mixed forms.
It seems as if someone in our form thinks I can draw, I am nearly always under severe criticism from the rest. When I send you some sketches you will probably change your mind.
I had just discovered that letters under 2oz could go to America for 1½d - you probably noticed this - well now the Government have raised the postage rates so I will not reap any fruit from my newly discovered tree. I have got a correspondent in France now, he is only fourteen but his English is much better than my French. I will enclose some French stamps from his letter ― they are very common and I am sending you two of the new centenary stamps I am sending them unused as they will probably be of more value. If you want any special French stamps I will try and get them.
I must close now as dinner is calling and I was up early for a Sunday morning 8.30 am.
Yours sincerely
Harold

31 March 1940 - Wuppertal Greets You

56 Bond Street
Monkwearmouth
Sunderland

31.3.40

Dear Angela
Received your welcome letter on March 30th so it has not taken very long to reach me. As you can see I am home again, I returned on March 20th and I will be here until April 9th. After my exam in July I will be leaving school. I have had to give up the idea of going to University because of the war, I would just have one year at College when I would be “called up”. I am trying to become a draughtsman or a chemist in a big “lab”. Well, so much for that as it will come soon enough.
I am afraid I am like you as I have some exam papers to do and I have not even looked at them yet. I have done a little landscape painting in water colour and has turned out much better than I expected, I have also tried portraits in pencil but I am often told they are not much like the person copied. I am sketching Northallerton Church for the school “mag” and if it prints O.K. I will let you have one and you will be able to see what the “village” church is like (I put village in commas as the country people call it a “town”).
Tomorrow is April Fools Day and everyone plays tricks on everyone else until 12 a.m. I will have to “watch my step” tomorrow. Do you have this in the U.S.A? There seems to have been quite a number of “days” lately and I had never wondered before if other countries had them too.
I had quite an exciting day just before I came home. With two pals I went out onto the Cleveland hills and rode across them for a good time, we then went to Stockton and on the way we went down a “Steep Hill” as the sign said. It was really a little cliff and there was a watersplash at the bottom. We returned at 7.45 p.m. having rode or walked for 10 hours. I was on a borrowed cycle with a none too comfortable seat, so you will know what I felt like the next day.
I have heard quite a lot about “Gone with the Wind” but it has not come here yet. I went to see Deanna Durbin in “First Love” last week, I think she is a great singer. I am going to see “The Rains Came” this week, it has been talked about quite a deal.
I have not read many American authors except Mark Twain. In serious books I have read most of Thomas Hardy, but I still like to read a Wodehouse. Do you have Hardy’s and Wodehouse’s books in your libraries? I read more books on art than anything else, as for school books I love to put those away.
The war does not seem to be getting along very quick but I suppose they know what they are doing. The only effects we have has is the blackout and rationing. We are using margarine instead of butter now but only mam can tell the difference, it is all the same to dad and I.
I am enclosing a poster which was on one of my German letters. I noticed it when going through my pre-war correspondence and I thought that it might be a novelty to have in your stamp collection. The German means “Wuppertal (A German town) greets you - The largest town of the mountain lands”.
I may as well confess that you are lucky in being answered so soon. If it had not been raining tonight after church I would have gone for a walk along the sea front, as we usually do here. The walk is partly for fresh air and partly because most of the girls of the town go down too.
I must close now hoping you will excuse writing and spelling but I have had the radio on (any excuse is better than none for my scribble)
Yours til the paper becomes stationary
Harold

14 March 1940

14. March 1940

Dear Angela
Your letter arrived on March 8th and I was at home when it came. Please excuse me for not writing, but we have just been having the exams, and I think I have done fairly awful in everything as I did not do any “swotting”. I think my writing has become worse since the exams, that is because we have to write so much in such a short time.
It has been snowing now for two days but the sun comes out and melts it. I am fed up with the sight of snow and I think snow at Easter is going to be terrible. We are getting three weeks holiday at Easter but we are advised by the Government not to return home - out of about 400 boys evacuated about 390 are returning home - it shows what we think of the Government’s advice. I went to see my uncle the other week, he is an officer in the Army and is camping near here, we had a great time at the camp and had an “army tea”. If the war lasts I will be in the Army or Air-Force in three years time - I have very pleasant prospects haven’t I.
I managed to escape St Valentines Day this year although my pal did not. I still have a problem to work out, as a few months ago someone sent me a pig’s tail with a piece of blue ribbon on, and a short note! Does anything like this happen in America?
We have not had any football for a few months now as the fields were either under snow or water, I rather enjoy playing in mud. I bet you looked beautiful “up to the eyes” in mud after hockey.
I read a “Piedmont Highlander” which one of my pals got from his correspondent. It is much more “free and easy” than our school mag. ours is published once a term and is fairly “dry” consisting of a few works of art, literature and reports of the school societies. It also seems as if your school is much different from ours. Ours seems to be much more strict than yours even though it is considered fairly “democratic” over here. Well so much for “ours” and “yours”.
I think pencil sketching is much easier, as you can rub your mistakes out and hide them with shading. I have some sketches to do for the “Bedan”, and the “Editorial” has to be drawn. It will be published in about three days time so I have plenty to do - but why worry? I will try anything once.
I am hoping to go for a ride in the Clevelands on Saturday if the snow has gone. It is great to ride on the moors and you often find ruined abbeys with their proverbial “ghosts” who walk at midnight. We usually ride to Richmond to see the girls from our school, of course we go to see the ancient village. I will be seeing, or at least hope to see some of the girls at home at Easter.
Well I must close now, but I am hoping for the best, expecting the worst so that I won’t be disappointed - this applies to the exam results.
Yours sincerely
Harold
P.S. Please excuse the crossing out

12 February 1940

12.2.40

Dear Angela
Received your letter last week, so it has taken about three weeks to come over. If you sent your letters straight home (that is billets) I would only get them one day sooner, and as we are still hoping to get back to Sunderland you may as well send them to Sunderland. But you can do as you please.
I have turned a “crook” in the last week ----- no not quite a burglar. I will explain. As you know we have a job to get a week end leave. Well last week a pal and I wanted to go home and give mam and dad a surprise. I wrote to my uncle, who is in the army, and he sent me a letter as if dad had written it asking me to go home, ------ that got my permit. I then took a hand in the dealings, and wrote a letter as if my pals mother had been writing, I was quite “motherly” telling him not to get his feet wet or he would catch cold etc. ----- this obtained a permit for him. We then discovered that we had not enough money for the fare, so we rode the 50 miles and got home at 10 am after starting at 6.45 am. We have just returned - in the train as the snow was too deep to ride. Well that is all to say about my “forgery”, ----- it was quite exciting riding before dawn in the dark.
I suppose you will have heard by now that we have had the coldest winter for45 years. The snow thawed last week but last night a fresh fall of about one foot has arrived.
I hope that you got through your finals OK. I have some exams in about a months time but I am just going to hope for the best, it won’t be much use. Although it is a little late, I wish you many happy returns for your birthday. I don’t know whether I told you but I was sixteen on November 10th 1939.
We had “pancake Tuesday” last week, it is a day when everyone eats a kind of flat cake which is cooked in a frying pan, it is an old religious custom. Do you have a “pancake Tuesday” in America? Next Wednesday is “Valentine Day” it is a day when you send comic cards which express your feelings towards someone, no name is put on them however. Do you have Valentines in America? I will explain about the “flicks”, it is a slang term for the films, it comes from the days when they used to flicker on the screen. The other sentence which you couldn’t understand is:- if a person pays two shillings he can buy two one-shilling seats, and as he does not need two seats and he wouldn’t pay for a “boy friend” it works itself out. Do you understand now?
We are now doing America in Geography and it is a terrific size compared with England. California seems to get very little snow or rain and I think you should be thankful that you do not get our weather.
I must close now, please excuse writing as I am half asleep after a hectic week end at home and getting up in the “middle” of the night to ride 50 miles on my bicycle which is just about falling to bits.
I close now wishing you
All o’the best
Harold

20 January 1940 - South Otterington Church, North Yorkshire

20.1.40

Dear Angela
I suppose that you will also be wondering what has happened to this letter. You posted yours on December 18th and I received it on January 19th, that is yesterday. Well I suppose, it is lucky to get any letters at all because of the war. I must thank you for the Xmas card I think that it is a very good “lino cut”. I hope that you received my Xmas card in time. If possible I will send you a print of one of my sketches, it was printed in the “Bedan”, that is the school magazine.
As you can see I am still away from home. I managed to get home for16 days at Xmas and was at six parties and never in bed before 3 o’clock in the morning, so you can tell what kind of time I had. I did not feel like returning but I had to as I sit my first exam in July. I hope to sit another exam when I am 18, to go to University and be an architect. This is looking ahead however.
We are having some great fun now as we have about 6” of snow. It snows nearly every day now. Before it snowed we had 12° of frost and I had quite a lot of ice-skating, it is great fun. One day I was on the ice for 5 hours. I went and swept some of the pond this afternoon so that we could skate. Tonight I went “sledging” with the two boys in my billet, we had a great time on the banks. These sports may sound alright but as it is about 10° below freezing point it is very cold. You will laugh if I tell you what I had on to keep me warm:- two shirts, one waistcoat, one “pullover”, one sweater, two pair of trousers, two pair of stockings and football boots. I looked very “tubby”.
I was supposed to be on our under 17 cross country team to-day but the team we were running against were ill with measles. I am glad that the race was put off because of the snow. Last Monday I ran 4 miles over terrible country in 10° of frost, when I finished I was blue.
We saw three German planes the other day but there was no anti aircraft shooting. Mam and dad have seen the shells busting around the planes at home and they saw one brought down. As yet we have had no bombs and we do not want any.
We see most of the American films over here and I think that they are better than most of the English ones. Do you see any British films? My favourite film star is Loretta Young. At Northallerton we do not see the films until about three years after they have been released, as it is so small.
We are rationed now but nearly every one is taking it as a joke. I could not get any writing paper with lines on and I had a job to get envelopes. So please excuse the writing.
Well I must close now, it is still “as card as owt” or “”could as owt” which means as cold as anything.
I will leave the letter open until I manage to get a print from the printers.
I remain
Yours Sincerely
Harold
-------/-------

Sunday 21st
I did not get up until 10.30am this morning. I then went sledging on a new “run” which has a series of bumps in it. I had three crashes into the hedge and am feeling quite sore on my hip bones. I went skating again this afternoon but it began to snow and I got “home” looking like a snow man. There is now about one foot of snow and some drifts about six feet deep. It was the coldest night we have ever had last night, it was supposed to have been 24° below freezing point. The bath will not empty as the pipes are frozen and even the water taps inside were frozen There has been a cover of frost inside our bedroom windows for quite some time.
I may seem to be talking about the weather a great deal but it is the only topic of conversation over here.
I will leave letter open until tomorrow at latest. I am enclosing some Australian stamps.
Monday
Will definitely close now as I have got the first print which is enclosed.
Yours sincerely
Harold