"Just this_minute—Sunday noon—I hear the raid siren going, but as 1 have been sitting here for' so many nionths with scores of bombs dropping and hellish gun-fire all around, you may be sure that I don't intend teave ing until T finish this letter to you. We have been evacuated once from the office as three delayed action bombs fell in the street just outside the front door, "The street was roped off for about a week, but I still went back occa~ sionally' to get whatever papers and {les we needed to carry on with, The Suicide Squad dug down abou ten feet and exposed the bomb ready for the special man to draw the fuse, 0 I went down to have a look, The bomb was about three feet long and about eight inches in diameter.
Millions of us have been through quite a hectic time and I have lain in bed many a night listening to the damned whistle and swish of bombs dropping, expecting one to come little closer any minute, Guns firing worse than bombs and then came the wallop and you could hear bricks, stones, iron work and the rest of it tumbling down with a damnable clatter and you remark to yourself: Missed me again this time and turn around to go to sleep again, At first everybody dived for shelters but not any more, Buses run, taxis around; men, women and children £0 shopping, dawdling and looking into shop windows as though nothing was happening, when a bomb might. come down any' minute. Truly, it is amazing to watch the folks treating it as a great joke.
Fires All Over can't pretend to describe the damage here as you would not realize por understand "it, "Pires are here, there and every= where, and on the way to the office tone has to clamber over miles of those-pipes and usually Just as you fare climbering over, one spurts a Teak and you get wert And all the time everybody is treating it asa great joke. If the Germans. think they have our Jot scared, they have another think coming.
"One of my firms called on mes Week or so ago to report thew fourth, removal in a month, Purniturg, typewriters, fes, records, and every Old People Stand Up Well Old people generally are standing. up to the blitz remarkably well, An elderly seousin writes to me: "Cone idering that T am within a few days tot my 87th birthday Tam really very well. T have just recorded our S14th raid since August 14. 'Total duration of periods covered 1.825 hours 45 minutes (58 days odd). Ten of my windows wore broken' and un old laurel bedye blown away into dust."
The blitz has. of course.—eausedl many migrations in England, from town to country, from east to west and from south to north, Only recently. however, didn't Team that live stock are behig. similarly evacuated. The owner of a pedigree milking herd hear me hag sent some of his stock to Scotland so as {0 spread hig risks. hear also of a migration of sheep from the Sussex to the Berkshire Downs. "Many of the shop-keepers. especially' art and antique dealers. tering their stocke.
neidentally Parkers, the well-kno\ print sellers, told me that they are doing very well. People here ar buying for a rise after with inflation buyers are sining into the market the latest way of making money. Two business men T know. competitors in the sane market, made their routine applications to. the authorities for import quotas for the ame class of goods. One was granted a guoia far short of his requirements ud the second was given a quota of £3000 which he did not require.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.