April 28 Mon 9.45 p.m. [1941]
# SOLDIER’S WIFE – SYBIL ADAMS – ARRIVES
# NEPHEW KEITH INTRODUCES WELSH GIRLFRIEND

Bedroom finished off with Eff’s help Friday and Saturday morning. Am much better but shaky still. My soldier’s wife has arrived, she is a bonnie girl and I think she will be alright. She has brought enough food for a siege. Can see she means having Frank [Adams] here to as many meals as possible, which was hardly the bargain. Proposed giving him tea before he went in the morning but think that will drop thro’ safely.

Keith brought his Welsh girl down on Sunday. She is a lovely girl and he is very proud of her. They wanted Father to take them to catch the 6.30 train at Sk. this morning but he was on watch so they were going for Mrs. Ashton. Father took Miss R to Alford to-day, she asked Jean to go with them. Father got 100 onion plants, hope they will do well.

The soldier and his wife have gone to post postcards, hope they will soon be back and go to bed. She does not seem at all tired tho’ he does. He is used to being in bed at 9 o’c so hope they are not too late. Jean’s cough still troublesome. Father is at watchbox until 2 a.m. One or two mines have been washed up, also some wreckage and a baby’s body at Hollands Gap.

Soldier, Frank Adams, billeted nearby, and his wife, Sybil, became long-term friends of the family.
The girlfriend of Keith Hill (see 16 Dec. 1940) was Marion Griffiths (often spelt as Marian by May).
Mrs Ashton, a hairdresser and shopkeeper, near Herbert Raynor’s garage on Sea Road, provided a ‘private-hire’ car service. (See Village Map.)
‘Hollands Gap’ was an area close to the seashore, alongside ‘Short’s Pullover’, at the end of Trunch Lane, south of the village.

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

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