Thurs Nov 28 8. o’c am [1940]
# PARCELS FOR THE BOYS ON ACTIVE SERVICE

“We may be puppets dancing on a string
Pulled by some Master Hand that knows the Game
And yet, within our sawdust bodies burns a secret flame”

Marjorie Stewart

These lines were at the beginning of a book “Some Master Hand” by Marjorie Stewart that I have read this week. It was “like the curate’s egg, good in parts”. Jean is at home with a cold. Harriet came yesterday afternoon to tell me they were sending a parcel to all the boys on active service, so I am making a cake. They (they being The Fellowship) are sending cake, chocs and cigs and apples and posting them on Tuesday, so Ron ought to get his before he moves, he may move on the 13 Dec. Had a letter from Emmie yesterday with her photo. She says Ron was very seedy over his inoculation. He never told us that. Rene came home yesterday afternoon too but got no talk to her as H[arriet] was here and of course Flora had to come and little Dennis F. He is a fine little boy and so good. He came to me and went to sleep and slept over an hour.

Marjorie Stewart is believed to have been a pseudonym for the prolific author Marjorie Huxtable whose work ‘Some Master Hand’ was published in 1934. Most of her books were published under the pseudonym Simon Dare, between 1927 and 1950. (See website www.authorandbookinfo.com/ngcoba/hu4.htm)
Harriet, Will’s eldest sister, was a farmer’s wife.
The Women’s Fellowship was an organisation of St Leonard’s Church.
Emmie Russell, Ron’s Yorkshire girlfriend whom he had met on a Methodist youth holiday in Scarborough, was steadily becoming accepted into the family.
Flora was the schoolgirl daughter of local storekeeper Jim Hall.
Dennis F was a baby whose grandparents lived in the village.

Have you read an introduction to May Hill & family (includes photographs) and explored ‘The Casualties Were Small’?

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