W. Macpherson, (english)
49 Lowndes Square
London S.W.1.

30th June 1941

Dear Mrs Jordan,

Hilda was out this morning when a postal official arrived with a large parcel and a scolding ! He says it is quite forbidden for us to receive cigarettes, I think it was always so before the war, because in the days when one could bring anything one liked into England ....shall we ever see them again....we were not allowed to bring cigarettes, tobacco, or spirits. I explained that I was sure none of us had any intention of breaking any law and that we had not the faintest idea that any would be sent to us so as a nice Anglo-American gesture we were allowed to keep the parcel ....it would have been beyond words sad if it had been shown to us and then snatched away from our very noses.... but warned

that such a thing must never, never happen again.

I was glad that they let us keep the parcel.

Hilda came back just as he had gone, so missed all
the agonizing moments when I feared it was going to be
taken away again !

I shall join my thanks to hers for I hope to
be tossed some bits of it, if I sit up in my best
bulldog manner and beg nicely. Hilda seems to
be surviving the present situation quite well, but
I was so glad that she went away last month for a change
to Derbyshire. Apart even from war, London is not
a place to be in, in the summer.

With all best wishes,

Trenoweth, St Keverne, Cornwall but my
safest address always c/o Hilda. in London.

27th July 1941

Dear Mrs Jordan,

Thanks so much for your letter of July 9th,
it was sent on to me by Hilda. I came down to a lovely
Cornish farm some days ago, think I am supposed to help with
the harvest all combined with holiday.

I think you will be interested to hear that
Hilda most nobly gave me some of the cigarettes, I brought
them with me and who should turn up, but an American girl
married to an Englishman, she could hardly believe her eyes
when she saw the packets and she sends you a thousand thanks
that she had a share of the plunder. She missed them very
much, she told me. She is from New York.

Bryher...no, it is not unusual over here as
a name but it is actually a surname. It is also the name
of an island. One sees it around a great deal. But only
perhaps, in this part of the country. Actually though by
descent I am mostly Yorkshire, though I was never in that
county much to live.

It is very interesting to hear of the
Scotch/being preserved at the same farm all those many
centuries.

This farm where I am now, is actually
chiefly a daffodil bulb farm, but now they are doing potatoes,
broccoli, and tomatoes for war time. We were out yesterday
watching the potatoes being ploughed up and gathered, very
interesting and we are enjoying eating some for in the cities
until a few days ago we could only get the old potatoes of last
season and sometimes even they were scarce for we had expected
the new crop earlier but the spring was so wet and cold. We
have had lovely weather here and this weekend I have enjoyed
so much getting some American news from this girl who is staying
with us for the weekend.

I am hoping to persuade Hilda to come
down in August for a while. The woods are so lovely just
in front of our windows, and we still have a few flowers though
only in the private garden, which is quite a small one.

Thanks again and I hope you will have

a pleasant summer,

All best wishes,

W. MACPHERSON (ENGLISH)
H. Aldington (Engliah).

49 Lowndes Square, London S.W.1.

1st February 1942

Dear Viola,

( I always hear you called this and I really cannot think of you as anything else...and I am Bryher please, that is what every body calls me, it is an old Cornish name, except on envelope when I have to be Macpherson in these days of passports and identity cards.)

I was delighted to get two days ago your letter of the 26th December, you write such interesting letters, one gets such a picture from them of how you are living. That small child must be a trial. I too am in favor of an occasional good scolding with a slap if necessary. I had them myself when young and I cannot see that they harmed me. I think it is much worse to nag at a child all the time. Much better to let it see that there are certain things that it cannot do.

I loved the description that your son wrote about flying. It is such fun though, I expect that after the war, he will be flying you all over the place.

I went into a store yesterday where a harassed elderly assistant was coping with half a dozen people. A woman held forth to us all on our religious views or those we should have, ending up with "Hitler is a devil." "I don't care what he is" said assisant "all I know is that he is no use to me except dead."

My pet amusement is collecting scraps in a bag for our chickens. I think it is a feat to keep chickens in mid London. Actually a friend has them and looks after them in a little yard. It was my job to get them through farmer friends, it was very hard to buy any last autumn, and to collect food. They have a ration card !

The weather has been horrible, an old porter said to me the other day "you need to be an elephant to stand this climate and then you cant put up with it."

I have been following with great interest the debates in the House of Commons. I get the full reports as the newspapers only have room for headlines and extracts. You have to subscribe yearly to get the full reports. I think most people do not realise that we had ninety per cent of the people who ought to have been in the Far East, or Parliament or the various jobs, killed or injured in the last war. I believe a lot of our muddle has been caused by our having mostly men who were medically unfit in the last war and therefore survived, and we had no young middle aged leaders come along to give a direction to our policy.

Hilda asks me to give her love. She has been working again, I do not know how she manages it under present conditions. All I seem able to manage is sheer, routine stuff. Some of her new poems will be in Life and Letters. She does the cooking too, breakfast and dinner in the evening and tea. We go round for lunch to a funny little place kept by two elderly ladies. Mostly students go there but though it is very simple, at least one knows more or less what one is eating.

I do the shopping ...a very long and tedious job and one has to carry back most of the food etc, that one uses and I am working in place of somebody called up, on Life and Letters.

I think of you whenever I smoke these days and wonder how you are and what your news is. We haven't seen Perdita for quite a while but I expect that she will be getting a weekend off soon.

With all thanks and best greetings,

Yours very sincerely,

Hilda speaking : how are you ? I wonder if you know Charleston, N.C., at all ? I have friends who want to go there after the war - have often heard about those gardens.

It would be a/heavenly change from all this. I don't suppose it would be possible to get a travel folder of that part of USA ? I don't know if they have them. Also, I don't know now if it is possible to send mags, papers etc. , as you will be having your war-censorship, and you know anything of the kind, this side, had to go direct through /p/ the shop. IF you could get a little song book, CHEAP, I would like one. I had some sing-song books that I gave to the troops, they have collecting boxes and bags for books etc. and there was a demand for song books. You know the kind - with the old things, Juanita, Massas in the cold cold Ground, and soon and

so on and so on. But do not bother with this- and DO NOT
send anything expensive. And inquire IF
it can be sent, no use wasting money and time and postage.
It is horrible cold and I have a sort of sick nostalgia
for sun and shadows. I am glad USA is doing so well, it's
time we had a little encouragement and I think USA is helping so
much, but personally since US came in, I have this terrible
heart-hunger for warmth, and and sea, and I feel that the
south coast, I mean southern states would be wonderful now,
but I don't suppose I will get over for some time, if.....I love
New Jersey so much, too. Perhaps you could tell me of some
little town or towns where onemight stay. Anyhow, just sent us
a line, we love all news and all the child stuff you write
makes me so grateful for my own small blessings, of compa- tive
privacy.

I am posting this in a hurry, Br. brought it in as she had
the extra space- don't know if I owe you a letter, but so good
to hear, I must write you.

W. MACPHERSON (ENGLISH)

20th February 1942

Dear Viola,

It was fun to get your letter of the 14th January this
morning. I am obliged by law to put the W. Macpherson, English, inside
and outside my letter, otherwise it comes back to me with an dry note
from the censors. It does look silly, doesn't it, to have it
sprinkled all over the letter. I expect though you will have the same
rules now, your side.

I wrote you of our intense gratitude for your Christmas
parcel. It arrived safely and how we are enjoying it, but letters
take a long while as a rule, even by air.

I hope your daughter will be very happy. I used to know
a lot of Czechs, was twice in Prague before the war and it was a lovely
city, one part very modern and the other extremely old yet somehow they
blended together wonderfully. All the Czechs I have known have
been very practical and very hard working and yet very gay and resourceful.
Of course I do think it is much easier to adjust if the people are of
one's own country. I loved the Swiss, I was there for twenty years and
half of my friends are Swiss, but there were always tiny points that
cropped up where we were apt to misunderstand one another. Well,
anyway I hope your daughter is as happy as possible in these times.

It is funny, the tiny differences. I didn't remember that
you did not use the word flat. Here we cant use the word apartment.
Apartment means a rather cheap or dreary kind of small hotel. There
is a little book out on the different meanings words have on both sides
the Atlantic. I have just looked up what the book says about flats
and they give the explanation that an apartment here is a single room
but I have always known it as what you call, I think, a rooming house.
I like differences though, just as I like dialect, I think it is much
richer and hate things being a flat level.

We are feeling terrifically triumphant to-day as we found
a stone hot water bottle, it will be so useful we hope, for next winter.
We had to carry it home just as it was. I said it looked like a
small bomb. Now we have soap rationed. It is all right if
one can send things to a laundry and if there are no children, but
a big problem for a large family. How is the little neighbour
getting on, the child you wrote about, is he as distracting as ever
when you want to work?

No, we cannot get American papers in London. It must
have been exciting getting all those presents from your son at Christmas
but I expect you would have been happier to have had him home with you.

W. MACPHERSON (ENGLISH)

24th March 1942

Dear Viola,

You are too kind but you really must not keep remembering
us at all the seasons of the year, Christmas, and now again Easter.
The cigarettes reached us safely the day before yesterday and I said
when I saw the parcel, that must be Viola. Thank you ever so much.
I think it is especially kind of you now when you must be anxious
about your airman son. And it must be hard that he is so far away
from you.

I was asked the way in the street the other day by an
American officer bound for the Embassy and was so delighted to feel
that just by telling him he was on the right road I was speaking to
someone from the other side. For I love America, as I expect Hilda
has told you, I get teased and scolded here because I am supposed to
have one topic only of conversation, Anglo-American co-operation. I
think there are differences between us, but that only makes it richer
and more fun.

I do not think that I have any amusing news. This
morning I looked up, as I went out to get our bread, ( deliveries
are scarce now ) and saw a man in a cocked hat and the grey cloak
of one of Marlborough's soldiers riding down the street in the midst
of motor busses. I thought for a moment I had lost my mind at last,
as friends suggest will happen ! It turned out he was part of
a warship week display, but the odd thing was that nobody seemed to
notice him. I thought it looked extremely odd. Cocked hats
and trucks and delivery vans do not seem quite to go together.

We are all terrified of what our new Budget will bring.
People can speak of nothing else. It is so difficult for elderly
people who have retired with fixed incomes.

Last week I went to an interesting meeting at the Belgian
Embassy, a memorial gathering for a Belgian writer who died as a result
of the invasion. It was interesting but sad. Two people spoke in
French, and then an English girl I know spoke for the English writers.
Hilda is busy writing and we are so glad that it is not quite so cold.
The crocus are up, yellow and purple and the white ones not quite out.
They look lovely now that the railings have been taken away. I sup-
pose though they are more likely to get trampled on.

Ever so many thanks and love from us both,

W. MACPHERSON (ENGLISH)

Hilda Aldington (English)

4th April 1942

Dear Viola,

It is always delightful hearing from you and I was so glad to get your letter of March 10th a couple of days ago. You always make us see your life - so many of my friends will write about the causes of the war. I am sure it is very noble of them but as I was just saying, I haven't a siege mentality, I loaned this long, protracted business and want to get back to my home again. So when I hear from you, it is always cheering and the sort of letter that makes us feel, well, someday there will be peace once more.

I think these times are very unsettling for the young. Most of the young I know, seem to have a good time, it is the hardest on those who went through the last war and remember all about it. But your daughter may tear off for a bit and then settle quietly.

We do not envy you your summer with two such small boys! What mischief any child, somehow, can manage to get up to! I must say personally I would take on almost any type of work in preference to having to look after infants.

I am sorry that sugar is scarce with you. We manage pretty well on our rations here - actually very well as far as we personally are concerned because Hilda does not take it in either tea or coffee, and I only take it in tea, not coffee. But it is hard on a family with small children, I imagine. I should think that the tires must be worse in America, as regards rations, for it must be so difficult to get transport, if one is out in the country. In England the distances are generally comparatively short and people can manage with cycles or even on their own legs. I usually walk everywhere I can because the busses and subway are so crowded.

You will have got, I hope, my letter thanking you for the cigarettes. But you must really stop being so kind to us. You have parcels to send to your son, now, I imagine? I am so glad that he has got on so successfully.

We are having farmyard trouble !q One of our hens started eating the eggs ! This was too much after all our scrap hunts for their food so she was killed promptly. I think it is because the run is so small but after all central London was not exactly intended for poultry farming, was it? People a bit further out with real gardens are all going in for goats. One friend rang up the other day to say that she would be late getting to us, as her goat had just started having a kid and she was not sure what to do about it. All went well, however.

I was lucky this Easter and got several presents, one was two leeks, another a duck's egg and finally a dish mop, all of great value these days!

W. MACPHERSON (ENGLISH)

49 Lowndes Square, London.S.W.1.

10th April 1942

Dear Viola,

Thank you so much for your letter of the 24th Feb and
the photograph of your son, both arrived this morning. You must
be very proud of your son, he must be very tall, isn't he, and has
such an interesting face, though the photograph is very minute.
He must be pretty experienced in flying too, with all those hours
to his credit. But with the vast distances I suppose he gets
home leave very seldom.

"The Mr Wells' young man " is a type here, not necessarily
meaning to replace religion by science, it is a given type of
ind individual like perhaps somebody you would recognise from a radio
serial or the newspapers. Wells did a great work years ago in
opening up evening classes and these classes were usually for science
but then there developed here a type of rather aggressive boy, who
took these classes and then went on to a technical school and then
to a theoretical job but who never had any practical experience. It
is a type wanting to impose their own laws both on older people with
much experience and those in any jobs, other than their own. I
suppose it is entirely English, here people generally laugh if you
mention it. About scientists depending on the state. Well,
my personal experience has been that they kept to ideals less than
any other people. I worked on a refugee committee for five years
before the war, no, more, from 1933 to beginning of 1939. Almost
every class made some protest in Germany except the scientists, they
made almost k none and gave up lots of research to go in with the
Nazi ideas. For example, almost all of modern bacteriology. The
same thing began to happen in France at the beginning of the war, and
there was a glaring example here when a certain piece of research as
to the effect of diet on children's teeth was suppressed because it
was not popular at the moment. I have yet to find a nationalised
service that works well. It sounds all right in theory but it is
usually behind all private ownership in practice. The
Swiss railways for example, were more or less owned by the State,
and it cost more to send a parcel to a town in the next canton to
mine, that it did to send a parcel across France to England ! And
it was impossible as a rule to get into the next town to a movie and
back in the afternoon, though it was only about forty minutes away.
Here, whenever control is applied, the service sinks into a bog of
red tape. Nobody cares enough to smooth out working of a thing.

I fear I am not misinformed about the the powerful group
in all countries favoring fascism because I came right up against
them for six long years. I knew absolutely we were headed for
war but people would not listen to me. They were far too clever
to call themselves fascists. I used to be quite relieved sometimes
if people said they were fascist because then one knew that they

would be relatively harmless. No, it was the people who hid
under all sorts of patriotic cover that impeded our warnings.
Particularly over Spain. I knew, for example, that there were
hardly any communists in Spain when the war broke out and that
the whole thing came about through German and Italian agents. But
they managed to spread the word in England, France, and I imagine
the States as well, that the Spaniards were Reds, and so the
Germans tried out comfortably for two years all the modern warfare
methods that let them break through in France in 1940. The
best book of all on the subject is one by the former American
Ambassador, Dodds, on his experiences in Berlin. I was in
Switzerland during most of the time he describes and know from
first hand experience that what he wrote was true. Shirer's
Berlin Diary was a good book as well, I was in Switzerland when
he writes of his stay there and what he said about Switzerland
in the book was accurate. I've just finished Leland Stowe's
No Other Road to Freedom, and that is good as well though a bit
emotional.

I went to the exhibition of modern English pictures at
the National Gallery but the only ones I liked were a few strayed
in from French artists, the French are so much better at painting
than we are, it is probably a question of light. Everything here
goes much too pastel and vague. Still, it was fun to see some
pictures again, most of the museums etc, are closed.

Perdita has had her leave postponed but we hope she will
get it next week.

Much love from Hilda and myself,

W. MACPHERSON (ENGLIBH)

25th April 1942

Dear Viola,

I was so glad when I saw your envelope at breakfast time to-day and so interested in your letter. I do hope that your son gets posted to the station he wants and that all goes well with him. It is a great thing, at any rate, that he enjoys his work. It must be a very interesting job.

Yes, lots of funny things happen here in war time. I hope you'll think my latest effort funny. I saw that they had animal hair for sale at the Zoo, and so I have applied for some! A friend of mine has a spinning wheel but whether she will be able to spin this hair we don't know till we try. We have to wash and disinfect it first! Everybody is shrieking with laughter but if we get nice winter woollies for ourselves I think we shall be the ones to laugh last. I am rather afraid however that we shall not be able to spin it but it will be fun to try.

They were terribly pompous when I applied.

I never saw anything this side about EZZA Pound except a short note in a Sunday paper. I suppose there were more but I get little leisure for reading, apart from my work.

I did not try to get in touch with my American friend, dear Sylvia Beach, through the Red Cross, because I thought it might only add to the danger of her position. I thought that she was one of the bravest people I knew because she chose to stay on in Paris when she could have left in 1940, to see if she could help people there. Having an American passport, it was still possible for her in 1940 to help but I fear that she must be now in great danger.

We have made plenty of blunders but if there is one service of ours that has done magnificent work, it was our intelligence service. The trouble was not with them, but with the use that the politicians made of their information. Lots of people in England realised the danger from 1933 onwards but it takes so much to move the ordinary democratic machine, one feels quite helpless. But our intelligence people did a magnificent job.

Our chickens have been behaving fairly well. It is a marvel to me that we have any eggs, here in central London, from them. People in the country are keeping goats but that is quite impossible unless you have a meadow. It must be awful, I think for you, having such difficulty over using your tires, because you have such long distances to travel.

With love and greetings,

3rd July 1942

Dear Viola,

It is extraordinarily kind and thoughtful of you to send me those cigarettes and that amusing shopping bag, it is so useful and I am using it every day. Thank you ever so much. We have to carry practically everything home now, they deliver milk, but otherwise we have to cart everything ourselves, unless it is very heavy. So you see your bag is most useful.

I hope you are still getting plenty of news from your son. I often think of you all when I see American soldiers here. I do not think I have much news, to-day I was at our former office watching the furniture come back. Our office was one of the first casualties of this war but now it is repaired and we have been able to move back this week, it is a great help, as till now we have been split up, some here, some in the country, and it caused so much extra trouble. Seeing the things come back made one wish more than ever that the war would end.

A friend came up from the country and brought us some lovely flowers from her garden. A lot of daphniums, all shades of blue, roses and honeysuckle. We see few flowers these days, as the commercial places are all growing food.

I miss museums so much, I used to like to drop into them just for a half hour, but they have just opened an exhibition of British art, in aid of Russia. I haven't had a chance though, to get across and see it yet. We have lots of Russian posters up, it looks strange in the Russian writing.

I sent you a little booklet done by a friend of mine, Miss Sitwell, on English Women. It is only a booklet but I thought she had done it rather well. I liked particularly the introduction.

Our great topic of conversation at the moment is whether if we have to go anywhere, we shall ever arrive ! Trains and busses are packed. I imagine they have taken a lot off. I walk everywhere that I possibly can for one is squashed far flatter than a sardine if one tries to get a bus or the subway. But the office is over half an hour away if one wants to walk. So it is not always possible. All private motoring - there was hardly any left - stopped this week.

I do think you are kind to us,

With love and much gratitude,

29th July 1942

Dear Viola,

Now isn't it sad, one letter that I wrote you has just come back to me dated March 24th together with an enclosure from Hilda ! I got the number wrong by some mischance on the envelope. I think it was the time that my typewriter was slipping, I had it mended I remember in early April. I am so sorry that the letters failed to get to you. And now as well that glorious parcel arrived to-day with those lovely puddings, they taste so differently from the standardised things we get here, thank you ever so much. And as well I have your letter of May 26th.

News? Well, I haven't much. I have volunteered to go and help my friends get in the harvest so I'm off to-morrow night. It was very difficult to arrange but I have got an elderly lady who used to work for us but retired ages ago, to come and sit in the office for the three weeks that I'll be away and I can take some work with me. I hope things will go all right anyhow. Perdità is getting her summer leave to-morrow and so we shall start off together. Hilda is going away too for a couple of weeks near London, but it is best to write here for we have someone very careful who will forward letters and we shall be back here again very soon.

There were two alarms last night, seemed funny after being free for so long. There were rows of people sitting on chairs solemnly to-day fishing in the Serpentine. I laughed and laughed. It is part of the " holidays at home " programme I suppose.

Sylvia Beach. She had a very famous bookshop in Paris where all the Americans went, who were studying at the Sorbonne, she arranged for lectures and meetings and introductions for them and helped the French who wanted to read American books. Her father was at the American church in Paris years ago, then moved to Princeton but he is very elderly and retired long ago. Sylvia was the type of person who was the highest type of citizen...very gay but always so anxious to help and explain and with a tremendous feeling of responsibility. I have been so worried about her. She would not leave Paris because she said she might be able to help. Paris depended so much, I thought, I knew it well, on the circle you were in. I liked the French Protestants enormously but they were quite different from the southern, more Latin types.

Well, I'll write you from my harvesting and meantime thanks ever so much, you are kind to us. I do hope that you have good news from your son and that he will get leave.

Love and all greetings,

Many thanks for the
folder, I have been
showing it round 49 Lowndes Square, London S.W.1.
when telling friends 18th October 1942.
about States.

W. MAGHERSON (ENGLISH)

Dear Viola,

I was so glad to get your letter of July 24th just
after I got back to London from the farm. I fear I have neglected
my letters a lot lately but I have been so very busy, we have
practically no staff left, and it is very difficult I find, sitting
in the office, trying to review books and attend to small errand
boys just out of school who come round for an odd copy of the magazine
and have usually mixed up or lost their order forms.

Also it is getting increasingly difficult to get about. I
walk to the office if I possibly can for the crowds are great for
the busses, it is about two miles away and takes quite a time but
at least a bit of the way is through the park.

It is so amusing, you know we have allotments everywhere,
in the parks, square gardens etc, the seeds have been carried by the
wind all over the place and I found some cress growing out of the
pavement in a quiet street the other day. It was most odd.

I have been sharing in that wonderful parcel that you
sent Hilda for her birthday, it was most kind of you. We often
talk about you and wonder how you are getting along. I feel so
sorry that you have such restrictions on the use of your car because
it is so much more difficult to get about in the States, where the
distances are much greater. And for you living away from a town
it must be awfully hard.

We went to the Greek art exhibition yesterday and it is
lovely but so sad, when one thinks of what is happening to-day in
Greece. They had beautiful exhibits, many ancient cups and
statues, and also some good casts and copies. I think it was
extremely well arranged and one has a chance to understand them
more than when they are all piled up in a museum, for there were
only two or three objects in every case. There is an enchanting
head of a spirited horse and a small boy, with even the mark of the
pick on it, where it was once turned up in a plouged field.

They had in another room exhibits of proposed changes
when London is re-build but I found them disappointing ...too much
rebuilding on old lines and not enough imagination. Still, they
seem to please some. I loved the new architecture of Holland
and Finland, I shall never forget the lovely post office in the
middle of Helsinki, it was both practical and blended so beautifully
with the landscape and there were buildings at the Hague as beautiful
as I have seen anywhere.

All our love and we both hope so much that you will
have a pleasant time this Fall and good news from your son,

Byher

W. MACPHERSON (ENGLISH)

23rd November 1942

Dear Viola,

We can't thank you enough for that wonderful parcel
with the underwear, it fits so snugly and is so warm. But
we are completely astounded as it is strictly forbidden. We
may not receive any rationed article article, clothes or soap.
I think that they must have been kind as it was a Christmas
parcel, because every day there is printed a warning that we
may not have such things. We look at each other and say but
how lucky we are that we had the parcel and it will make a lot
of difference to us, I assure you. All we can send, alas, is
thanks. We may not even send a book this Christmas.

Your letter of September 17th and the Reader's Digest
have only just arrived, but it did take a long time en route but it
is here and that is the main thing. Yes, I like you, keep
some old magazines, I think that they are fascinating reading
two or three years after events have happened. It is hard
to know about the German character. One of the most Christian
like people I ever knew was German but she left in 1933, on
religious grounds, she was a Protestant and would not stay there
after Hitler came to power. But the whole German system was
wrong from beginning to end. They ought after the last war to
have seen that the teaching in the schools was changed, that was
much more important than any other factor if we wanted peace.

How wonderful that you got so many peaches! I had
lovely ones in Switzerland, but we seldom get enough sun in
England to ripen them properly. We have had some quite good
pears from a friend's garden but the apples this year are not
keeping at all.

Did I tell you that they asked for volunteers in our
district when they had a mock invasion? It was great fun, I was
asked to be a refugee and to ask as many stupid questions as I
could! So I pretended to be able to speak no English and had
such an amusing time, finally I was arrested by the interpreter
as a suspicious character and that meant that I had to drop out
of the game and sit for so long guarded in the office. I must
say that the organisation was so splendid that I cannot imagine
that any invasion would be successful here. They had thought
of everything. Some people even had dressed up, and came with
pots and pans in little carts or barrows. One rather sad aspect
was that we were all either under eighteen or over fifty, the
defence workers apart, everybody else was in the services or the
factories.

No, we do not get much time for solitaire or anything of the
sort. I never get any time to myself except the evenings and then
somehow there are always things to be done in the house or letters
to be written to friends or occasionally someone comes in to see
us. I am so cowardly about going out in the black out.

I am so sorry that you have to be rationed for coffee because
I know what it means to you all. As yet it is unrationed here but
as you know, English people drink it very seldom as we always have
tea. Hilda likes coffee best which is a good thing as it stretches
out our tea ration so that we always have a little in hand. Almost
everything else is rationed with us now and I think we shall have
a very " austere " Christmas. Fortunately we collected enough
ingredients through the year so that a friend who is a splendid
cook, could do us two puddings.

I do thank you so much again for your many and repeated
kindnesses to us throughout the year and only hope that one day
I shall have the chance to thank you in person. My best and
most sincere wishes to you all for a very, very happy Christmas
and I hope that the New Year will see you re-united with your
son and that it will be very prosperous and happy for you all,

Hilda will write to you as soon as she is able, she
is in bed with a severe chill, and I fear, she will not,
though better, be able to write for a week or so.

W. MACPHERSON (ENGLISH)

4th December 1942

Dear Viola,

Oct

I got your letter of the 26th/two days ago. Not too bad was it, in these times. I was duly envious of your son's photograph, in his plane, for I love flying almost more than anything else in the world. What fun it must be to have a plane like that under his control, though I imagine that the constant routine and training flights are boring. He is very handsome too, isn't he? And I should imagine from the photograph he has a great sense of humor.

As you will have heard no doubt before this, we did get your wonderful parcel. I wrote you as soon as it arrived, for we were surprised when it came to us. And aren't we grateful. Thank you again ever so much.

You see some amusing sights these days. I met a lady a few days ago, she must have been seventy and she had on a little fur coat coming midway between her waist and her knees, riding breeches, old fashioned buttoned leggings and a neat little bonnet on her white hair. Yet nobody even looked at her though I must confess I laughed all day whenever I thought of it. It is the cold, we had a distinguished visitor this week, an American officer who had a letter of introduction to Hilda. I cant tell you how impressed and excited we were. For one thing, he even asked us to tell him about the raids. You daren't mention the subject in an English household because everybody goes one better than yourself about escapes and so on. But he was really impressed with our ruins and our tales. He said that he had been given such a good time here, I was glad to hear that, for we are all so busy and so rationed that we have hesitated to ask anybody in, feeling that it will be so dull for them. But he could not get over our climate, said he had had a cold ever since he had arrived, and how we sympathised with him. It is so damp always, here, it is less the cold than the rawness and the fog.

I do wonder if you settled the problem of the building lots and how it all worked out for you. It sounded like what used to happen in Switzerland where all land has to be left by will in equal portions to children and so when a friend of mine wanted to build a house he had to buy a small bit of land from thirty two different people! We are now cut off from all news from Switzerland which is awfully worrying because I have so many friends there, English and Swiss. And I wonder how your daughter is getting on, with her opera ambitions? It's nice to hear of people thinking about art, everything here being so reduced.