Saturday 8th April 1944
I had to go into the town of Newcastle this afternoon, as I wanted some air mail letter forms, cigarettes, petrol-lighter fuel and the luxury of a hot bath. Now that I've been, I won't make another trip , if it can be avoided. I obtained the cigarettes, and air mail forms (one each for Robin in Canada, Jack Chenery in Egypt and Dick at Freetown) but to my surprise I could not find a shop which sold petrol lighter fuel; there were always plenty around London. Also I had a decent hot bath at the Corporation Baths.
But Newcastle is deadly! Crowds and crowds of people, all chattering in the queer sing-song Northumbrian dialect. There was no room on the trams – which were grim and apparently square-wheeled vehicles – no room on the pavements, and no room in the cafes. I had the deuce of a job to get a meal at all but eventually got into a cinema cafe after queueing for a long time. When I did get in there was hardly anything to eat, and no sugar for the tea or mustard for the half-cooked sausages. I compared this with the efficient Lyons and ABC systems in London – and wondered.
A few local people whom I questioned said dourly that it was always the same around Tyneside; other places seemed to be well organised but here they just muddles through.
So, disliking Newcastle and it's vast crowds I came back to the camp at 7 o'clock. I felt tired and stiff-muscled in the legs, too, for this morning there was strenuous physical training. I weakly struggled through some arm exercises in the gym, jumped 4 foot 6 inches in the high jump and 13 foot in the long jump, and ran in a field adjoining the gym. I finished forth (out of four) in the 100 yards in 13 seconds and ran tenth (out of sixty) in the mile in 5:56 seconds. My God! It was cold there! My teeth chattered until my jaws ached. I only began to feel warm during the last lap of the mile!
The weather is still cold, but dry. We now have a fire in the Nissen hut so it is quite warm there until the fire goes out, late at night.
But Newcastle is deadly! Crowds and crowds of people, all chattering in the queer sing-song Northumbrian dialect. There was no room on the trams – which were grim and apparently square-wheeled vehicles – no room on the pavements, and no room in the cafes. I had the deuce of a job to get a meal at all but eventually got into a cinema cafe after queueing for a long time. When I did get in there was hardly anything to eat, and no sugar for the tea or mustard for the half-cooked sausages. I compared this with the efficient Lyons and ABC systems in London – and wondered.
A few local people whom I questioned said dourly that it was always the same around Tyneside; other places seemed to be well organised but here they just muddles through.
So, disliking Newcastle and it's vast crowds I came back to the camp at 7 o'clock. I felt tired and stiff-muscled in the legs, too, for this morning there was strenuous physical training. I weakly struggled through some arm exercises in the gym, jumped 4 foot 6 inches in the high jump and 13 foot in the long jump, and ran in a field adjoining the gym. I finished forth (out of four) in the 100 yards in 13 seconds and ran tenth (out of sixty) in the mile in 5:56 seconds. My God! It was cold there! My teeth chattered until my jaws ached. I only began to feel warm during the last lap of the mile!
The weather is still cold, but dry. We now have a fire in the Nissen hut so it is quite warm there until the fire goes out, late at night.
posted by Paul Wilson at 12:59 pm
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