2 November 1940

56 Bond Street
Monkwearmouth
Sunderland

2 Nov 1940

Dear Angela
You may have noticed that my writing is worse than usual, you must excuse it, as I have a black and blue finger nail and I have to hold my pen between my thumb and second finger. I hurt my finger when I was drilling some holes with an electric drill on some staging about 10 ft from the ground, my foot slipped, I slipped and then the drill slipped; the result was me hanging by one foot, with a sore finger, and my arm burnt a little by the hot drill. I have been working for over a fortnight now, and am quite used to the hours now. We make ships engines and repair them, but we do get other repair jobs in. We all stopped work last Wednesday to see a ship launched in the next yard to ours, it was a wonderful sight as I was quite close to it as it slipped down (or should I say “her” and “she”). I will give you a rough idea of my work, sometimes I help the engineers on the machines when they are doing fine work (i.e. to 1 ⁄1000”) but if it is fairly rough work on the drill or lathe I do it myself; I like to help to “mark off”, that is put the measurements and marks on the rough casting, it is very interesting and full of mathematics. I felt very important the other day when I was given a labourer to help me, this meant that I was telling a man what to do! I also felt quite proud when a ship went out of the river and I had helped to make part of her engines. Well so much for work, I think I will be sorry to leave it next year to go to University, but, I prefer to be clean.
We have had a few raids lately but not very near, I can now sleep through a whole night of gunfiring without bothering about it. Our air-raid shelter is just about completed, but it will not stop a direct hit.
I bet you have a good time in the “lab”, I used to enjoy it very much. I can remember the time I once tried to filter conc. Acid and the filter paper just disappeared. When I have time I still read on the modern discoveries about the structure of the atom, radium and isotopes etc but I liked the “messing around” in the lab better. My new subject is Engine Drawing, it is altogether new to me, my first mark was 6/10 for a half finished drawing, my others were 9/10 and 8/10 so I don’t think I am doing too bad.
I haven’t much time for sport, but I play table tennis every Saturday night, I am not very good but it is a little relaxation.
I went to see a parade this afternoon, it was for “armaments” week, there were the three forces; tanks, searchlights; and an undamaged Messerschmidt was on view.
We are hearing plenty about your election but I don’t think we quite understand its importance as we have the King and Queen as the first persons in the country. It must take a lot of thinking out to select your candidate as they both seem so promising.
The girl next door has been teaching me how to dance, but I don’t seem to have made enough progress to go to a big dance yet - I may some day as miracles still happen! I went to a Halloween Party last Wednesday (it was early as most of us had to attend evening classes) there were the usual turnips and spooks etc and I had a go at a dance or two but not with an extra lot of success.
If you have a friend who wished to correspond with someone in England here is one of my pal’s address
Mr Harry Royal
73 Newbold Avenue
Newcastle Road
Sunderland
Co. Durham

It is drawing in dark now (6.00 p.m.) and it will soon be dark at 4 p.m. I hate this as we have no lights at all and it takes hours to go a short distance. Everyone will be glad when the winter is over, I hope it will not be like last year, but war is war and we must take what comes.
I must close now, hoping you will excuse the writing and terrible style, but I have some maths to do after this and not much time to do them in.
I remain
Yours sincerely
Harold