Evacuee Boys Read Free Page B

about the club we have formed at school. It is on Mondays and Wednesdays for seniors from 6.30 to 8 p.m. For Juniors it is on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6 to 7 p.m. There we play cards, draughts, chess. We can read, or write letters. It is supposed to be an evening activity so that we should not be too bored in the long winter nights. We have also got a library in school and I took out some ‘Tales of Tolstoy’.
    When you come next month I hope you will come on Sunday 26th November. I think you can arrange with Mrs. Shaw (I understand she hires the bus for November) that the bus should come on Johnny’s birthday.
    The violin will come useful now as we shall try to organise the school orchestra. As I am the only one here who can play the violin decently, I shall probably be asked TO GIVE LESSONS to the others. Band practices will be carried on, on Monday nights from 6–7.
    I have been on very good terms with Messrs Kelly since that last quarrel. It seems to me that to some extent it was due to bad mood on his part and besides he did not feel very well that day. However since then we have nearly forgotten. I do not understand quite what you mean by taking them more into my confidence. They already know that Daddy and Mummy have to work all night because of the club and that we have to keep the club because business is absolutely ‘pong’. I told them that the club means that we have to keep a big house, the big house that we have to pay big rent, big rates & taxes and have to keep a maid, so that we are hard up, but of course I did not say that we are full of worries with regard to creditors like Mr. Creswell, or that we have not paid the rent for so many months, that Mariska has not hade to have her wages for so many weeks, that the telephone is often shut down etc.
    This reminds me – is the telephone all right now?

    … continued in Hungarian
    I think that it would be good to write a little in Hungarian, otherwise I shall forget a lot. I think that we are rarely alone, so that we are speaking Hungarian then. I don’t mind that and I am glad if you write to me in Hungarian.
    I would very much like to see you all and to speak with you. I have thought of telephoning you but I hear that it costs 4/6 d to telephone and there is no telephone in our house, so you can’t telephone me either. Today I am writing a few more letters to those in the house. So I won’t write any more to you today.

    A million kisses from Andrew

    29 October 1939
    Dear Mum and Dad,

    Thank you very much for the money you sent us. Yesterday Andrew cycled down to Trowbridge and saw the ‘Four Feathers’. At the same time, I cycled down to Bath with some Scouts on Mr. Kelly’s bicycle. At Bath we parked the cycles and walked down to the swimming bath. We went in for sixpence. I[t] was a very nice pool, and the water was lovely and warm. I had quite a lot of fun. I was in for about a half a hour. In this time I learned (taught myself) how to dive head first, swim on my back, to swim under the water with my eyes open, and to swim on my side. I think that this was worth sixpence. When we came out we went to see the Roman Baths for sixpence it was very interesting. I saw the healing water. I[t] was steaming hot and it had to be cooled before using. I am knitting a doll’s jumper.

    Your dearly loving son,
    John

    29 October 1939 – written in Hungarian
    Dear Mummy & Daddy,

    I thought I would write a few lines today, before I close off this thick letter, though nothing particular has happened.
    The weather was so bad today, that we did not go anywhere by bike, I knitted and read all day. I shall only go out in the evening, to post the letters, as I have written to Mariska that as usual, the menu was very good on Sunday. In general we get good meals, but of course, the English food cannot be as nice as the Hungarian.
    I hope you do not worry in this is late. Don’t worry in any case if you don’t get news for a few days, if sometimes I only write