Monday 3rd April 1939

After a warm weekend, wintry weather again. The windscreen wipers swished all day.
Dagenham, Romford, Grays and Stanford le Hope – the oil and petrol country. Gloomy, yet more prosperous, or rather less depressed than the rest of Essex. Lots of fruitless calls but two orders and a turnover of £4-5-0.

“Still the grey rain fell” I was going to write, describing this day. I wondered from where that phrase sprang to my mind. From an old diary? Or was it a quotation from the book I never wrote, “Horizons Beyond”?

Went to the flicks in Chelmsford tonight. Still raining! A feast of music. One song I liked especially –

“… Blue skies, smiling on me,
Nothing but blue skies,
Do I see.
Never saw the sun shining so bright;
Never knew things turning so right;
Blue skies, this is my song,
Nothing but blue skies
From now on…”