Who Do You Think You Are Kidding, Mr Hitler

I've been carrying boxes in from the garage and sorting through their contents- hence the reappearance of the menu cards from the Queen Mary.

Something else that showed up was my mother's war-time diary. At the start of it she is still at school and at the close she is in uniform, driving people who are important enough to need drivers round the Home Counties. The typical entry begins "up" and ends with "bed". There is a lot of "messing about" and on more than one occasion she eats "sandwiches in car". Yes, there's a war on and she's doing her bit but mostly there's nothing happening with knobs on. A highlight involves her skidding on ice and bending a fender on a telegraph pole, but it's OK because her Lieutenant is nice about it. Occasionally she takes note of events on a larger stage.

Here's a sample:

Friday, May 10, 1940: Up. Breakfast. G-O (no, I've no idea what this means) Did room. Mother had hair done. I picked flowers and made rock cakes. Lunch. Mrs Taylor came to tea. Showed her cottage. Supper. Neville Chamberlain announced his resignation as Prime Minister at 9.0. Opposition would not join C' gov. so had to go. News grim. Bed.

VICTORIA D:G: BRITT: REG: F:D:

When I was a kid there were still coins in circulation that had Queen Victoria's head on them. Also the heads of every monarch since. You reached in your pocket and out came a handful of history. Victoria, Edward, George, George, Elizabeth. The changeover to decimal currency put an end to that. Now everything in circulation is Elizabethan.

Among the things that came out of the boxes in the garage was a purse full of pre-decimal -loose change that my grandmother had stashed away. It has all the heads- going back to a middle-aged Victoria. There are pennies, halfpennies, farthings. The farthings wear best- and I've selected a couple out for keeping- because they're pretty. The rest are off to the charity shop. None of them is worth anything but loose change; I checked.



Victorian Farthing, 1878