23 July 1940 -Middleham Church and Northallerton Church

56 Bond Street
Monkwearmouth
Sunderland

23rd July

Dear Angela
Please excuse this late answer, but your letter arrived during my exams, and as I had left all my work until the night before I had not time to write. The “ordeal” began on the 11th July and ended on the 19th, I was very unlucky as I had to take the most exams, that was eighteen papers for eight subjects. The three art papers were fairly easy, the “object” was a polished saucepan, two plates, a table napkin and two wooden spoons in 1½ hrs; the “memory” was a drinking trough for animals which had to be drawn once, and then in a different position with a group of suitable objects; the third paper was a piece of embroidered cloth. Well so much for that. I am going to enjoy myself during the seven weeks before the results are published.
I suppose you will have seen by now that I am home again, it is great to be here for a while. I will probably have to return to Northallerton in a few weeks time. I will be able to take it easy for a year as my next exam doesn’t come until 1942. I intend to send you a school “mag” with this, or this with a mag. if I remember You will notice that it is a fairly “stiff” affair, it is censored by the masters and therefore no “skits” can be put in; my poem was rejected because it was said to be insulting to the Board of Education, but I don’t believe it! I am afraid I am not mentioned much in it, I should have been on the cross-country team photo, but I was not told when it was to be taken. My cross-country running is very poor anyway. You will probably find one or two boys who are writing to correspondents near you; you will also find one or two mistakes in my sketches, I have found plenty, but too late. You can judge the rest on its merits, N.B. III is the lowest form and U VI is the highest. If I remember I will also enclose one or two sketches, which most “critics” think and rightly too, are just moderate.(PS Don’t notice the shadows, they are just to hold the thing together).
I thought that the dress of the boys would surprise you, - that is just how we go to school - some schools enforce a cap and blazer, but ours doesn’t. It is much too cold out here to go without coats and with open necks, I only wish we could. I am afraid I have been unlucky again, my French correspondent has followed my German one, I can’t write to him because he is in enemy country now. His last letter was quite cheerful, he was certain of victory and boasted of his two brothers who were in a tank at the front.
If you haven’t realised by now I will tell you - I am still alive! (this is an official secret) in other words the bomb with my name on it hasn’t been dropped yet. During the first raid about six bombs were dropped within two miles of us, nothing happened except a few thuds and the windows rattling. We had a few visits after that but not many bombs. He was at Sunderland a while ago and put a few holes in some fields and damaged some houses on the cliff, but no-one was hurt. He dropped two, about a mile away, on Friday night, and another on Sunday night. Everyone is fairly calm and we just sit and chat in the shelters.
I was going to have agreat holiday this year but I doubt it now. I had set my mind on playing tennis by the end of it, but I will have to learn another year. All sea bathing is stopped because of barbed wire fencing, and only the smallest swimming bath is open. My trip to London is off because of all this trouble, so I will just have to laze around and get fat. I feel terrible, having nothing to do and far too much time to do it in, as a last resort I may try and find a girlfriend, but not just yet!
I suppose you will have heard all about Dunkirk and Petain, but it can’t be helped. One of my uncles was in Dunkirk and had to leave when the position became impossible. Most of the towns were full of B.E.F. men after the evacuation of France, they were given about a fortnight to recover.
Well I must close now, hoping you will excuse writing and spelling.
Yours sincerely until paper becomes stationary
Harold

11 June 1940 - Fountains Abbey

This is the first letter to be examined by the censor (but nothing of a sensitive nature was found)!

8 Springfield T.E.
Northallerton
Yorks

June 11th ‘40

Dear Angela
I received your letter this morning but I should have got it earlier but I did not write home and mam said that she would not write until I did.
Tuesday is now my only free night in the week to do any writing - no I am not out with girls the rest of the time - I am trying to “swot” (or should that be “swott”?) My exam begins on July 11th and ends on the 19th. I have been looking over some old exam papers and I appear to know nothing. Excuse the writing but it is getting dark so I will put the light on and put the “black out” up.
We have had a heat wave for about a fortnight. It brought out some German bombers and we had two raids both at night. Bombs were dropped within 2 miles of us, most of the chaps have got pieces of them, we have a large piece between all in the house. The sun also had another bad point, I was out riding for 9 hours one day and I nearly went crazy with sunstroke. Most people think that I haven’t recovered!
If I remember I will enclose a view of Fountains Abbey, it is a lovely place with marvellous grounds. My sketch wasn’t too good so I bought some photos. Perhaps I bore you with all this old fashioned “stuff”, I may seem an old fashioned sort of chap, but I don’t think I am.
I suppose you will be on vacation now - you are jolly lucky. We do not finish until after my first public “ordeal”. Don’t be surprised if I write and say that I have failed, because I expect to - my excuse is the war. I hope your report was better than mine is going to be.
Thanks for the stamps, we have a similar tuberculosis stamp but with a different design. They had an open competition for the design, I didn’t enter but one of my pals did, but no luck, the rest of the country was too good. We have not the stamps to help the crippled but we have plenty of flag-days. These flag-days are a nuisance to me, as there is one girl who always “nabs” me, I don’t even know her to speak to (I would have done if I had wanted to, but I am trying to do some work). I got a correspondent for your friend, he will probably be writing soon.
Mrs. Larder (my hostess) was away for a day about a fortnight ago and we (Mr. Larder, Fred and the two little Larders - and myself) had to cook the dinner, you can imagine what it was like. We gave speeches for about 10 minutes and complaints for 1 week and 2 days afterwards. What a dinner!
I have had one or two bathes in the river but it is not as good as the sea.
I am afraid that I must mention the war as it is the only topic of conversation out here - other than films and girls. Dad is still out of it as he is too old and was in the last war. My uncle was one of the lucky ones to get out of Dunkirk and I think he is still whole. Italy has now joined it - but why I can’t see. We have been asked to cut down various things but no one grumbles in fact I am pleased for some things if lipstick and powder are short they will have to be used in moderation, to a great advantage also. The great moment will come when masters and education are rationed. Enough on war.
I have just seen the film “A Girl must Live” with Margaret Lockwood in it, I think it is a British film, if you have not seen it and want a good laugh - it’s just the thing.
Well I must close now
Your overworked friend
Harold

P.S. Please excuse this terrible letter but my only excuse is that all this work and sun stroke must have affected one. On re-reading it certainly is horrible.

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