Friday 21st April 1939

It is still summer. Southend district today. At 3:30 I’d made nine calls, all fruitless. Things looked bad, but then I at last received the order for materials at the new Rectory, Sutton Road. I’ve been angling for this order nearly 18 months, since I first heard that a new Rectory was being planned. Allowing for the 20% "donation to parish funds” which the Rector receives, this order is still worth over £9. Later I sold a cwt. of Ceiling Distemper at Rayleigh so it was a decent day’s turnover, in the end. I’m up on last weeks figures!

Territorial drill night. Apparently most of us have “classified”. Gobey, Sampson and Sorrell (S) were the only Chelmsford failures. Six new signallers tonight. Dean taught them the alphabet. Some blokes rigged up lamps and telephones. Hignall, Boden, Ron Sorrell and I had to fix up wireless sets and get them working. Typical Army way of tuition! Sorrell and I had done no wireless work before; however we managed to get some decent results. (I, at 6.0 kilocycles had just found a nice musical programme when we were ordered to pack up.)