A Story of War

My posting through to SPAFU Ternhill, where they give you hell, so all the ex-pupils say! I go to town on Saturday night and go to ‘Barlows’, a pub upstairs in Chester, where one meets lots of women – I don’t, but should do though. I meet my friend ‘Bish’ and we go down to a dance at the Castle. We drink some whisky, then order and pay for half a dozen gins before they all run out. I dance with some dame, an ‘excuse me’, and three women cut in on me and nearly turn my head. One is an A.T.S. sergeant. I dance with her later on and then for the rest of the night. If ever I saw love in a girl’s eyes, which I never did before, there it is. She is Jean Admunsen (or something) from Manchester, down in Chester on a baseball course of all things. I take her home to the ‘Girls Friendly Society’ where she is billeted, and we sit above the racecourse a little before midnight. I get busy and find she is all of a dither, and stunned with pure love for me. She keeps asking what hit her, but beyond kissing her I can do nothing, and take her home and wake up the ‘friendly girls’ at 12.15 am. God! I never met the like of her before – aged 20 – and her emotions bring out her Lancashire accent! I cycle home in the rain to not much sleep.

‘Bish’ well organised with one Betty Bevan whose husband is a POW. I go flying in a Harvard after one hour’s link and find things easier. I also go and look at Haneck Oak, where I once stayed with ‘Jonah’ of Harrow and Sandhurst days.