We are not so late to bed this week. Jean is sitting for the School Cert. and needs longer rest. Her school-days are fast running out. She started at the S.G.S. [Skegness Grammar School] the month war began and has carried a gas mask many months in the earlier part (shall we ever need them? and if so how many there would be who could not find them in the spur of the moment?) Ours are safe, mine on top shelf in kitchen and Jean’s hung on peg at bottom of stairs. She has run to the school shelter too several times and was in 4 or 5 hours once, but happily school was never bombed, tho’ Sk. has been several times.

It has been more rain the last 3 days. Sun started fine and Jean and I went to Chapel in the A.M. and after dinner it started with a fine rain and wind rose, but it stopped raining and we went to Rene’s for tea. After tea I sat in the chair Father sat in, that wet Mon before he went to bed. He had a sleep and kept teasing me because I said if we had gone home I could have done this and that. I was feeling I ought to be at work after my skin poisoning. He seemed so near as I sat there. I think Rene will always be pleased he spent that afternoon there by the fire. It rained fast on Sun. whilst we had tea, cleared a little after, but rained fast before we got home. I tried to hurry but had done a lot too much and could not. Rene persuaded me to ride her cycle so I got home that way. Jean went on first and found Elsie. She had come on from Chapel, she stayed supper but Rene went back to get Tom his. We had Strawbs, Rasps and Cream for tea.

I weeded between cement slabs on path this morning but not quite to gate. It seems a constant job this showery weather. Jean took Annie’s Teddy B[ear] Sun[day] after Chapel, they are very pleased with it. I have made a golliwog this week, but it is not as nice as Ciss’s. I hate making the clothes for dolls and gollies. I have no pattern either, so more difficult. I made the duck up too yesterday which has been cut out some time. Letter from Ron to-day, written June 22, not so long for sea mail. Says he has a big tent this summer and a big mosquito net and has a comfortable bed now that they have got spring mattresses! In Rene’s letter he says they heard of some for sale and went and bought them. It’s nice to know they sleep comfortably and that he is fit and well. At one billet he says he had to climb 96 steps to his room. I think I would never get to the top, the 69 steps of the old C.G. [Coast Guard] box were enough for me. Tom goes back to work on Thursday. It came several showers again to-day, but he has managed to get suntanned and is peeling now Rene says. He lent me a book of John Oxenham “Bees in Amber” (poetry) which I have enjoyed very much.

School Certificate examinations, in a range of subjects, were taken by those pupils (normally at Grammar School) who continued in education beyond the leaving age of 14.

John Oxenham was the pseudonym of William Arthur Dunkerley (1852 – 1941), an Englishman. His book ‘Bees in Amber, a little book of thoughtful verse’, first published in 1913, was a best seller which has been re-published in recent years.

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