Friday 7th April 1939

Good Friday. This week hasn’t been too good for business and doubtless it will be worse next week.

Sunny day. Slinky B brought Lois and I through thickening holiday traffic to Ealing. Lunchtime special news bulletin on the radio brought details of the latest act of aggression. Italian troops had forced landings at four points in Albania (a small mountainous kingdom in the Balkans) and were marching inland.

Later:

Rome reports that there is no resistance and that Italians are being greeted everywhere (adding that this occupation is necessary in view of the ill treatment accorded to Italian nationals in Albania). “Badly jammed” radio messages from Tirana (Albanian capital) state that the Italians are meeting with “ferocious” resistance and that Albanian towns and villages have been bombed and shelled – one town having been destroyed. The Queen, with the two-days old heir to the throne, has fled to Greece…

Rather as in the autumn Crisis Week, Lois and I sat by the fire in the warm lounge, late at night. Heard wireless dance music faintly, from Luxembourg…