Tuesday 22nd April 1941

A mail came today. All the letters were from the wrong people – except one from Win. She wrote that she is now married. But she doesn't seem any different, all the same, a real friend, never a sweetheart. Otherwise the mail left me profoundly depressed – about in the frame of mind which I tried to express in this diary on March 18th.

Black days! The war drifting on endlessly and when it is over – what then? My affairs just as rottenly tangled, no, worse! than they were before I came away. I'm not even “happy in my work.” The good days when Pond, Gayler, Hammich and Nicholls were with me on M1! But all these went, one by one and now I've no friends here. Strange, there are more friends, blokes I have something in common with, on any other vehicle in the battery except my own. Rarely do I even enter into any conversation here. Somehow the conversation – or noisy arguments are such that I can say nothing except an occasional “yes” and “no” sycophantic-like.

The horrors of being, for months, with people whom you do not interest and who do not interest you! But this I could stand if only the other were settled. “Never be free in the heart” Never be free!

Two pages of self pity! What an exhibition!