Thurs April 1. 9.00 pm [1943]
# WILD WEATHER ENDS MONTH
# RAF IS TWENTY FIVE
# MODERN MATERIALS DEBATED
# WILL MAINTAINS GARDENS FOR HOUSEOWNERS
# WIRELESS PERSONALITES AT SKEGNESS EVENTS

Ship Halfpenny 1943

Keep hearing a plane or two go by. Wish they would cease, or perhaps I should not say that, they may be on our own patrol. Visitors to within 10 miles of coast between Humber and Penzance may be banned at very short notice this summer. It looks as if things may be moving before too long. I fear 4 years will not see it thro’. Jack Stow is home on leave and George too. B[illy] Hallgarth [junior] gone back, left his gas mask, frantic wire for them to send by regist. post. Ralph on bus going away again, to Aylesbury first I think. Said he had not Ron’s address but would get his mother to get it. Monty Hall gone away too. My eyes ache, shall have to get glasses changed before long. Mavis’ ankle troubling her again. Rene’s B’day last Sunday. Very pleased with gloves which have to be finished yet. As we used coupons we could only raise her 1 bar choc.

RFC – Royal Flying Corps (before the founding of the RAF). May’s brother, Frank Simpson, had served in the RFC in WWI.

RNAS – The Royal Naval Air Service (existed prior to the founding of the RAF).

Alvar Liddell, Neil Munroe and Bruce Belfrage were all well-known BBC radio announcers.

‘Ship-wrecked Mariners’ concert was meant here, probably in aid of the Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariners’ Royal Benevolent Society, a charity. During the war this supported families of merchant seamen injured or killed by enemy action.

‘President II’ was a conference series held between the British Prime Minister, the U.S. President and others, but May was probably alluding to ‘HMS President II’, the Royal Navy accounting base (see 6 Feb. 1942).

‘Ship halfpennies’ had a sailing ship depicted on the reverse – see photograph.

George Stow (junior) was the brother of Jack and Frank and was the youngest son of stores owner George (see 12 Mar. 1942). He served in the Royal Navy, including submarine service.

Montague Ashley Hall was an architect who, having served as a Lincolnshire Regiment captain in WWI and early in WWII, had transferred to the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve as a lieutenant. Penelope was his daughter (see 15 Feb. 1942).

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