Thursday 1st and Friday 2nd December 1938

Two very cold days at Colchester, on the road with Spurgen, new traveller for Wrights Ltd. No orders. It’s unsatisfactory business, selling through merchants and thus being able only to deal in the higher priced products. Glad I only tried the system in one zone. I’ve got a more or less free hand, everywhere else. Pleasant journeys with Spurgen however (although I felt time was being wasted). A fairly rough and ready sort of feller. Towards the end of the second day he began to recount some very feeble naughty stories (BBC type). After I’d explained that I was a Territorial, he brightened up and we eventually exchanged some sizzling yarns, increasing each others stock of nausea considerably!

On Friday evening, having seen an advert in “The Essex Weekly News” I called at a digs in Chelmsford. It seemed quite a decent place with good-class blokes staying there; and a telephone. Rather expensive terms however. I eventually arranged to move in next Saturday.