Sunday 21st November 1937

Thick fog – like a blanket. Anne came to lunch at Hawthorn Court. Mother thought she was “very nice” and “ladylike”. An apt summing up. Took Anne home, called for Mrs Butler and was on the North Circular Road at 7:30p.m. About 5 miles from Ealing I spoilt my hitherto “clean” record as a driver.

We were droning comfortably along a nice, wide, one-way road. We had topped the crest and were running downhill but I did not realise this cos of the blasted fog. The stream of traffic was suddenly held up at an invisible cross-roads by an invisible policeman. The shape of the next car ahead, loomed out of the fog. For a moment, I did not realise that it had stopped. I put on the brake, thought, “It’s not slowing up enough, it won’t pull up in time”, then crash! JN4218 struck GMX330, bending the rear bumper and denting the body. My car was not damaged badly except for a dented and slightly leaking radiator and smashed glass in the offside headlamp. The other driver and I took each other’s particulars, shook hands and parted.

(“I didn’t even cry Oo!” said Mrs Butler proudly. She did though. I heard her!) The rest of the journey was uneventful. There was no fog from Edmonton to Laindon, so we did the whole run in 2 ½ hours. Not too bad.