Evacuee Boys by John E. Forbat Page A

kisses
    Johnny

    Undated – partially typewritten
    Dear Mum and Dad,

    In this letter I include the reports of the examination of October last, and the school has therefore contributed 1 d to the stamp, thus saving some of my money as well as theirs.
    However, talking of saving money, I am afraid that I cannot feel too pleased with myself for last Saturday I spent a monstrous amount on trifles, and I humbly beg your pardon for it. Namely I spent altogether 5/- on pictures, fares to pictures, and refreshments after pictures. It happened this way, because ‘Pinocchio’ was on at Trowbridge and I considered it to be such a work of art as what deserves a second look. So after spending 1/3 on fares for the two of us in a crowded bus, I found a huge crowd waiting outside the Gaumont, and it took us about an hour to get in. Then I found that the only seats below 1/10 left were the 1/6 ones, and what was worse there were no half price seats for John. After pictures we were rather hungry so at Woolworth’s I bought 4 d worth of biscuits. During my walk round Trowbridge (in order to recover Rosemary’s lost gasmask at the Lost Property Office) I passed a sweetshop because John was very thirsty and he wanted something to drink (2 d ) and we spotted two 2 d bars of chocolate, which are so scarce that I could not resist the temptation of buying one each. That very wonderfully and fearfully makes up the 5 Bob. 21
    I have received your letter and contents this morning for which I thank you very much and which rather eases my financial tension.
    As regards further education, I saw Mr. Redfearn about it to-day, & he said that in his opinion my best policy was to wait in school until we get the results for the Cambridge, & then we can apply to a Secondary school for a transfer. However all the masters I spoke to about becoming a doctor warned me about high fees, long training & the necessity of cultivating a good ‘bedside manner’, which really the key to success for a good, successful & confidence inspiring doctor.
    You will see from the reports that, just as you say, John’s report is very unsatisfactory. He only came 21st in the class, & from the Schoolmaster’s note below it is obvious that he is not satisfied either.
    Well I cannot spare any more time, but I should just like to say that I miss you tremendously & I should like you to write to me just how things are in London, & whether it is a possible consideration that I should come down for a few days after the exam, for my birthday, which would give us a chance to talk things over.

    Millions of kisses from
    Andrew

    (I am writing in pencil, because my pen does not work. I shall have to get a new nib.)

Growing Pains
    Except on rare occasions, the only Melksham school had no room for ‘the Londoners’ so we were taught in a series of church halls spread around the town, involving a mile or so hike between lessons. After school, we were recruited to sweep acres of floorboards, employing large brooms and of buckets full of soggy used tealeaves, to keep the dust down. Brought back from retirement, elderly teachers well past war-service age – like rotund little Mr Foy – drilled French verbs into us and remonstrated with the help of hearty slap about the face when we got them wrong. Wispy white-haired English and history master Mr Bell, ‘Dinger’, had an unfortunate propensity to hit the wrong boy whenever some offending behaviour aroused him, usually resulting in whoever was nearest getting it in the neck. Rocking back and forth like one of those egg-shaped, pot-bellied, musical toy clowns, ‘Nick’ Redfern remonstrated in staccato time with his rocking, ‘You have not done your homework!’, while the big boys murmured The Quartermaster’s Stores song: ‘There was Nick, Nick, playing with his prick, in the stores, in the stores.’
    Although two years younger than the rest of the class, I kept well up with the school work, which in a Central School included