30 July 1942 - A Load of Prattle!

30 July 1942

Dear Angela
Your letter arrived two days ago Diane’s arrived yesterday and Tommy has replied.
At present I am on a weeks holiday from work and the weather has been very kind to me, it rained every day for three weeks and when my holiday started the sun came out. I had better not say too much or it may start to rain. I am obeying the “posters” and having “a holiday at home”, I had a day at Newcastle with mam; I went to Wolsingham on my bicycle on Tuesday – it is just a nice ride, about 30 miles – through Durham with its Castle and Cathedral, then Brancepeth which has a lovely old castle in its own grounds, and then up the Wear valley to Wolsingham which is a lovely little village in the valley. I stayed there about two hours and got a very rough sketch of the village. Yesterday I spent at the sea-front and I am fairly well sunburned by now. Mam, dad and I intend to have a day at Durham tomorrow, this will mean dad and I rowing a boat on the river while mam goes to sleep – however a holiday at home would not be complete without a visit to Durham.
I think I am beginning to be searching for something to say already, because very little has happened in the last week or two –it has just been bed and work for me –there has been one or two “alerts” but no bombs dropped.
You said that you do not get many English films in America – if “Dangerous Moonlight” ever comes I advise you to see it, I admit that most English films are inferior to the American but not this one. It is the film in which the Warsaw Concerto is the theme.
You will have heard about “sweets” being rationed over here – we are allowed 2 oz a week, and as yet I have not decided whether I should have 2 oz of chocolate a week or have a half pound once a month. Another trouble is that both mam and dad like chocolate and I don’t seem to have much hope of having more than my ration.
I am afraid I will have to resort to your method and “prattle” for a half page or so in order to prevent myself from closing at the top of a page. However I don’t think it is a sin to prattle.
“Poor prattler! How thou talk’st” – so said Shakespeare via Lady Macduff in Macbeth, and as far as I can remember there was a choice piece of prattling (or p’raps “prattellation” sounds better) in the scene with L. Macduff and her son who was of course Macduffs son – but “father’d he is and yet he’s fatherless”
If you can’t understand the above I would not worry, unless you hear a “prattle” of thunder.
If you can understand the above “you’re a better man than I am Gunga Din” and you had better see a doctor.
If by any chance you can read any of the above you should see an eye specialist or become a language expert–but why worry even blind men go to see eye specialists.
And now having avoided finishing at the top of a page I will close with
Love and prattle
Harold
P.S. I am sorry I have not found more to write but I am absolutely “on the rocks” for news – hoping you don’t mind the crazy last page