Weâre supposed to show them the ropes and act as a sort of nursemaid and go-between with the RAF
.
Of course, they think they already know it all, even though theyâve only just arrived and have never been in combat. It makes me furious when they start criticizing the way we do things. I keep remembering how our RAF boys have been fighting alone for three years and all the ones whoâve died. Flight Lieutenant Dimmock is always terribly polite, though. You can see the Yanks thinking what an old fuddy-duddy he is but heâs done two ops tours himself, so he jolly well knows what heâs talking about
.
Iâm the only WAAF left here and Iâve been billeted at the farmhouse by the airfield. The farmer had to give up a lot of his land but he can still work the fields outside the perimeter. The family are awfully nice but I really miss the other WAAFs and the RAF Itâs like a foreign land, Primmy â as though the Yanks had brought a great big chunk of the USA over with them and plonked it down in the middle of Suffolk. They thought the old station amenities were a pathetic joke â which they were, though Iâd never admit it
.
I go off on my bike to get away from them, only theyâre everywhere. In the good old RAF days we all used to go down to the Mad Monk in the village, but the Yanks have discovered it now and spoiled everything. They think youâre just there to be picked up
.
I had a letter from Vi the other day. Did you know sheâs fallen for a sailor â a lieutenant serving on submarines. I do hope nothing happens to him. I havenât heard from Lily or Iris for ages. Hope theyâre both all right. How are you and the ambulances, Primmy? Write and tell me all your news whenever you get the chance. Love, Daisy
.
I put the letter back in the envelope, disappointed. No mention of the pilot. No helpful clues at all in the letter, except, perhaps, one. A local pub called the Mad Monk. With such an unusual name, it should be possible to track down the Suffolk village and, therefore, the airfield, close by. It wasnât much to go on, but it was a start.
Three
I drove back to London two days later, having left the Oxford house in the hands of the estate agents and made removal arrangements for the bureau and the old radiogram and some boxes of books and pictures. The semi-detached house that I had bought with the divorce settlement was in Putney, not far from the river. When I had first moved in, the tree-lined street had been run-down and seedy, the house cheap, but since then the other houses had been bought up and done up and now cost several times the price I had paid.
I found a parking place, with difficulty â the street being car-lined now as well as tree-lined. As I let myself in, the drone of some afternoon TV programme downstairs told me that Callum was at home ârestingâ. I collected my post from the hall table and went on to my flat upstairs: bedroom, sitting room, kitchen, bathroom and, in the attic above, my studio.
The attic had attracted me to the house originally and kept me there ever since. In the beginning it had been nothing more than a loft, accessed through a trapdoor in the ceiling by an expanding ladder. The cold-water tank had gurgled away in one corner and there had been a cobwebbed collection of rubbish â boxes and boxes of empty jam jars, leftover rolls of hideous linoleum and fruit-frieze wallpaper, moth- and mouse-eaten carpeting. But as soon as I saw it from the top of the ladder, probing with a torch beam into the blackness, I knew what it could become. The loft extended the whole length and breadth of the roof, the ceiling easily high enough for a person to stand upright and the floor sound.
The ladder was eventually replaced by a spiral staircase, the rubbish was cleared away, the water cistern boarded in, and a dormer window inserted into the north side of the roof, together with two Velux skylights.
.
Of course, they think they already know it all, even though theyâve only just arrived and have never been in combat. It makes me furious when they start criticizing the way we do things. I keep remembering how our RAF boys have been fighting alone for three years and all the ones whoâve died. Flight Lieutenant Dimmock is always terribly polite, though. You can see the Yanks thinking what an old fuddy-duddy he is but heâs done two ops tours himself, so he jolly well knows what heâs talking about
.
Iâm the only WAAF left here and Iâve been billeted at the farmhouse by the airfield. The farmer had to give up a lot of his land but he can still work the fields outside the perimeter. The family are awfully nice but I really miss the other WAAFs and the RAF Itâs like a foreign land, Primmy â as though the Yanks had brought a great big chunk of the USA over with them and plonked it down in the middle of Suffolk. They thought the old station amenities were a pathetic joke â which they were, though Iâd never admit it
.
I go off on my bike to get away from them, only theyâre everywhere. In the good old RAF days we all used to go down to the Mad Monk in the village, but the Yanks have discovered it now and spoiled everything. They think youâre just there to be picked up
.
I had a letter from Vi the other day. Did you know sheâs fallen for a sailor â a lieutenant serving on submarines. I do hope nothing happens to him. I havenât heard from Lily or Iris for ages. Hope theyâre both all right. How are you and the ambulances, Primmy? Write and tell me all your news whenever you get the chance. Love, Daisy
.
I put the letter back in the envelope, disappointed. No mention of the pilot. No helpful clues at all in the letter, except, perhaps, one. A local pub called the Mad Monk. With such an unusual name, it should be possible to track down the Suffolk village and, therefore, the airfield, close by. It wasnât much to go on, but it was a start.
Three
I drove back to London two days later, having left the Oxford house in the hands of the estate agents and made removal arrangements for the bureau and the old radiogram and some boxes of books and pictures. The semi-detached house that I had bought with the divorce settlement was in Putney, not far from the river. When I had first moved in, the tree-lined street had been run-down and seedy, the house cheap, but since then the other houses had been bought up and done up and now cost several times the price I had paid.
I found a parking place, with difficulty â the street being car-lined now as well as tree-lined. As I let myself in, the drone of some afternoon TV programme downstairs told me that Callum was at home ârestingâ. I collected my post from the hall table and went on to my flat upstairs: bedroom, sitting room, kitchen, bathroom and, in the attic above, my studio.
The attic had attracted me to the house originally and kept me there ever since. In the beginning it had been nothing more than a loft, accessed through a trapdoor in the ceiling by an expanding ladder. The cold-water tank had gurgled away in one corner and there had been a cobwebbed collection of rubbish â boxes and boxes of empty jam jars, leftover rolls of hideous linoleum and fruit-frieze wallpaper, moth- and mouse-eaten carpeting. But as soon as I saw it from the top of the ladder, probing with a torch beam into the blackness, I knew what it could become. The loft extended the whole length and breadth of the roof, the ceiling easily high enough for a person to stand upright and the floor sound.
The ladder was eventually replaced by a spiral staircase, the rubbish was cleared away, the water cistern boarded in, and a dormer window inserted into the north side of the roof, together with two Velux skylights.
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