Saturday 15th July 1944

It has been a tiring week, no doubt. Today – what remains of it – and tomorrow is a period of blessed leisure however.

This morning in the office I dealt again with rows of figures, (I handle them with a little more facility than before) and took two or three telephone calls. (The phone no longer alarms me, either.) Afterwards, lunch in a snack bar, the crowded Tubes, Liverpool Street, and the packed train down.

Alighting at Billericay, the fresh air settled around me. I collected my cycle from the shop where I leave it each morning, drew my Pension of £1-4-0 from the Post Office and then rode homewards. As soon as I was clear of the town the road inclined downwards slightly, so hardly touching the pedals, I sat in the saddle and let the wind and the gradient take me merrily the two miles to Little Dene, along winding, quiet roads between green hedges.

Then I washed, took off my city suit, tie, collar, studs and shirt, and donned a khaki drill shirt and grey bags. It's a nice, sunny afternoon and I'm now cycling to Terori to see Vi and get a few things, which I'll bring back in my rucksack. April has gone up into the town to get her hair “done”; having first performed her first wifely “wash.” She went out to the bus then turned back to cry exultantly, “Be sure you go down the garden, darling, and see your little shirt beside my little shirt!”

Obviously I have been into the garden and have beheld a line of washing. My shirt is flapping in the breeze, flanked by a dainty pair of knickers and a chemise, shift or chemisole, which is her “little shirt,” I suppose.

This is the last journal entry, until February 1983