16 May 1942

16.5.42

Dear Angela
I am surprising myself by answering your letter almost immediately, at present I am “fire watching” at college and I have taken the chance to write to you. I don’t think you will have anything like fire watching in America, I am on about once a week.
We had plenty of “your” canned fruit before the war but I don’t think I have seen any since the war started. All canned and dried fruit is rationed over here, in fact there are not many things which are not.
Mam almost fainted when she heard about you refurnishing your room, there is very little new furniture made and the prices are fairly high. Other things which are very scarce are pots, pans, kettles, cups, tea pots, etc – dad and I are always hearing about the lack of various things from mam. Next month chocolate and sweets will be rationed – I wonder if they will ever ration homework?
You must excuse me if this letter is rather dry and muddled. The reason is that I have an exam in two weeks time and I am so full of formulae and proofs that I can hardly think about everyday things. After the exam I am going to work in the Borough Engineers Office and I hope to have a rather easy time compared to college.
I cannot say much about the war as it is still changing very quickly. You will about the Augsberg and Lubeck raids by the R.A.F., well we were all very pleased when we heard that one of our pals was in both raids. It also made me think about how little I was doing just swotting at college, however the Government seem to think that we are quite alright where we are.
I hope you got my letter about Diane’s correspondent, I enclosed his address and if she has written it will be alright, if not I will tell Tommy to write after your next letter arrives (i.e. after Diane’s letter would have arrived if she had written). – I hope you can understand but I doubt it! I have also got a correspondent for Virginia, he is one of my fire watching pals on fire-watching with me now and he is about 17 years old.
The novelty of your design had a great appeal to me, I must admit I have never tried to ‘stylize’ anything in your manner. I have made landscapes of castles into designs in pen and ink and they seem to give a very eerie touch to the scene. However I must admit that your design is much better than any of mine. The exhibition in town at present is of the 1941 Royal Academy Exhibits and some of the water colours and a pencil sketch are marvellous. Do you have many art exhibitions in America?
Well I will leave the letter for a while as I seem to have “dried up” for the present.
Well I am afraid I am still hard up for news – every time I try to think I remember the amount of Maths or Physics I don’t know and in order not to prolong the agony I will close now.
I hope, as usual, that you can read the above and perhaps get some sense out of it – I shall be in a better frame of mind when I write next (after the exam).
I remain
Yours sincerely
Harold