try to ignore her as best I can but she can be such a tease; I think because she knows that she can make me blush so just at the mention of your name. Sometimes I do so hate my pale complexion, being a redhead makes it all too easy to reveal one's feelings easily; just via the giveaway redness of my cheeks, which I have no control of. Is it too early for me to reveal to you that I do have feelings for you Jimmy? Feelings and thoughts that mean I can even make myself blush when I think of them? Please understand that I am not normally such a forward girl, but, it seems to me that the nature of the written word invites us to reveal ourselves. Writing can give an authenticity to one's nature. Yes words can easily deceive and be misunderstood but I feel that our communications we are going beyond that. I feel that you are above such deception with me and are showing who you really are. Much more so than perhaps you would in a face to face conversation; at this stage in our relationship anyway. Writing a letter breaks down the barriers of reticence and shyness, and perhaps even social convention. I knew, from the moment I met you, that you are a shy soul Jimmy. A shy soul with such depths, as shy people often are. The medium of writing allows you to reveal your depths. You would not speak as finely as you write I am sure, at least not until we knew each much more closely in person. I do hope you understand and do not take that wrongly Jimmy. It is as if a letter is a conversation that you have with yourself about things that you then reveal to another. Do you follow what I mean Jimmy? I do hope so.
I sincerely do not think it foolish or self-indulgent of you to dream of being a writer and I dearly loved your description of the two of us in Victorian times. I too love to dream, as does Dulcie I know, and we revel in stories and fictions. However one must be careful to not let the dreams run away with us. This is what I tell Dulcie anyway. One must be prepared for all of the harsh realities of life don't you think?
Guess what? It’s now the end of January and Aunt Mathilda, dear Aunt Mathilda, is still here! Time flies so! I cannot believe it is a month since New Year’s. Of course we spent it at home, playing games and listening to the wireless. Dulcie so loved staying up until midnight and at that point we went out onto the street. We heard voices and shouts of 'Happy New Year!' so went to look. Lots of people had gathered from the houses round about and we stood in a circle in the middle of the road, joined hands and sang 'Auld Lang Syne'. I don't remember that ever happening before; so many people breaking the curfew just to be together. It was delightful. Women and children all hugging each other and passing good wishes. Soon the warden came shuffling along, telling us to go back inside. She was quite good natured about it and even shared a brandy with a few of the women. Aunt Mathilda said it showed the true spirit of the Englishwoman.
I am so glad that she is still with us. The railway line to Dover got bombed again just after New Year and so she couldn't travel back. They say it will be fixed within a week or two, but one can never trust such estimates. Mathilda has decided to stay a few weeks more at the very least. She says she likes it in London and is taking the time to visit friends and family while she stays here. I think she is lucky to be a woman of independent means. Her father left her a considerable sum when he was taken, and, I would imagine, she has invested it wisely in war bonds and suchlike. She also owns a B & B near Folkestone which is always busy and filled with military types who are perpetually coming and going to and fro from the front. It is so successful that she can employ a couple of trustworthy local women to run it for her while she is away.
Like you have done I think I will tell you about my day; I think you write in such an inspired way, that I do feel that I cannot possibly live up to your letters. However I will try my best to describe it for you, so that you can understand what life is presently like for us women at home.
At the moment Aunt Mathilda somehow wakes first and makes breakfast for us. I don't know how she has the energy to wake so early; her days always seem so busy and productive, despite her not having any work to speak of at the moment. Her energy amazes me and she always seems to conjure something delightful and unexpected to cheer us up. For example this morning I tip-toed down the stairs to discover the aroma of fresh coffee. Real fresh coffee, not that chicory stuff that most shops pretend is coffee. Mathilda says she managed to scrounge a tin of it from an American woman she knows at the embassy. She is always going up to the City to meet with friends of hers; some women in high circles it seems. Toast, home-made jam and real coffee for breakfast. Heaven.
In these winter months I wake in the dark and return home from the factory in the dark and like you I don't see much daylight, apart from through the high wire-reinforced windows of the factory. That is when they deign to open the black-out blinds for a few hours during the day. Sometimes Sally and I stand outside in the yard for our cigarette break, if it isn't too cold and we actually have managed to get some cigarettes. I wonder if you soldiers get cigarettes? Would you like me to send you some next time? Mathilda got a few American packs recently; 'Lucky Strikes'. You know, the ones with the soft cartons. I feel rather decadent when I smoke one, as if I am a film star. Mother complains that I am too young to smoke, but all the girls in the factory smoke and when I asked her how old she was when she started she reluctantly admitted that she was fifteen, so she can't really complain at me.
Mathilda has an old fashioned cigarette holder. She sits by the fire in a wobbly cloud of blue smoke, the holder between her outstretched fingers as if she were at a ball or something. I imagine her in long black gloves, with a taffeta ball-gown, tiara and pearls. Mother tells her to put it out as the smoke drifts through to the kitchen where she hangs the clothes to dry by the wood burner. Says the smoke makes the clothes smell, but they always smell of wood smoke to me anyway.
Wood is one of the commodities that seems to be very scarce at the moment, there certainly isn't coal to spare for the likes of us. I know we grow vast forests of pine in Scotland but most of that goes for construction, both at home and at the Front. I dare say some of the wood you see in your tunnels may well come from there, or maybe somewhere in the depths of France. But here we have a to scratch and save and be resourceful to find things to burn. I often scour the bomb sites on my walk back from the factory, looking for old bits of skirting board or beams that may have been missed. This is a hard task in the winter dark, scrambling over the rubble, and I daren't use a torch for fear of the wrath of the wardens. So I only venture there when there are other braver women who may be shining an oil lamp or torch over the wreckage. If I am lucky they kindly scan the ground with their light for me, or point out bits of wood they cannot carry. I helped a woman fill an old pram with the remains of some kitchen cupboards the other night and she let me have some of the wood she had found. Cowardly of me to not take a torch of my own I know, but if the warden comes at least I won’t get the blame. You can get fined or worse for breaking the blackout or curfew, and we couldn't possibly afford that.
We also collect any old newspapers or magazines we can find and Dulcie knocks on doors collecting them with her trolley; it has become quite the little business. We used to get a paper every day, but then mother decided we couldn't afford it. Luckily now Mrs Cumberland next door gives us her copies for us to read and recycle. I cut out anything I want to keep for my scrapbook from the Daily Mail and the rest goes to be recycled.
We put all the papers and magazines to soak in buckets of water outside the back door or in the coal shed. That is unless it is really freezing, then we have to bring them in by the stove or put them under the stairs. Mother hates us dripping on the carpet so, even if it is looking a bit threadbare.
Once they have soaked for a day or two Dulcie and I have fun crushing the wet paper into odd shaped bricks which we then leave to dry on top of the kitchen cupboards. We make lots and lots of paper bricks, and then sell those we don't use; twenty for a shilling. The smaller and tighter you can crush the paper the longer they burn for. Dulcie sometimes makes them into funny shapes; sometimes she makes them like little men, saying that they are t
he Kaiser and that burning him is too good a fate!
This morning as I walked to work in the dark you would not have believed the weather. It was a veritable blizzard; snow in heavy flat flakes sweeping sideways across the roads. I had to walk at an angle and could barely see where I was going, as the flakes continually plastered my face and caught in my eyelashes.
I could see the weather was bad out of the window while I was eating breakfast, so I left the house early because I knew it would take me longer than normal. It's bad form to clock in late at the factory because they dock your pay. Jenkins is always there keeping his beady eye on who is on time or not. He notes down the names of the girls who are late on his clipboard and mutters things about how they are letting everyone down with their "unpatriotic tardy ideas" and "don't you know your duty to King and country?" Sally says he obviously doesn't know his duty otherwise he would have been at the front. She thinks he is a shirker.
Then it's work for the next few hours. It is regulations that we all have to tie our hair up so that it does not get