Saturday 10th November 1934

(Am writing this by the fire at Magna Charta – back again!)

The alarm awakened me at 4.15 and I heard rain driving at my bedroom window. In the kitchen I fried bacon, made some tea, filled my thermos. A quiet meal, smoked a cigarette, then out into the saturated darkness. Saw two people only, on the way to work. Sometimes seemed to be riding through water.

Jones was already at the works; met him in the sodden yard. We filled the mixer – fifty gallons – zinc oxide, litho oil.. Then the noise of machinery obliterated the drumming on the roof.

Later, I solemnly turned a little wheel. Huge belting shifted, shafting revolved, grinding rollers began to turn. Jones opened the valve, and a white, lumpy liquid flowed from the mixer into the grinder. The contract was being fulfilled! Work had commenced!

By lunch time we had done 400 gallons white enamel. In the afternoon I helped clean up and left at 4 o’clock. Moved the rest of my kit to Magna Charta and now here I sit by the fireside. My bedroom; at the top of the house with a shamrock shaped window. It is already looking pleasant yet neat, methodical and tidy.

Such things please my orderly mind.