Letter from Bill Akrill to his mother

Letter from Bill Akrill to his mother

Bill writes describing his new living accommodation in Sulhamstead House, Theale, where his bedroom overlooks rose gardens, park land etc. All except the flying takes place here, whereas the airfield is a couple of miles away. Writes about the journey from Aberystwyth, which took over 12 hours.

Postscript: his been up in plane today and really enjoyed it. Food good.

1941-12-31

Three page handwritten letter

This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.

EAkrillWEAkrill[Mo]411231

No 1436220 LAC Akrill,
No 26 E.F.T.S.
[deleted] R.A.F. [/deleted]
Theale,
Nr. Reading; Berks.

Wednesday 31 Dec. 1941.

Dear Mum,

Am writing this from the sumptuous mansion of Sir Norman Watson, where we are billeted. Sulhampstead House is its name & it’s in a glorious park setting, & quite a fine example of modern architecture. I’m in a lovely bedroom over looking the rose gardens, pergolas, wall gardens & park. Here we eat & sleep, do our drill, P.T, all lectures & link trainer – in fact all but the flying. The drome is two good English miles away & the station quite another so that’s one disadvantage though there is certain

[page break]

2/

transport to the drome at times. Reading is about 15 mins journey from Theale & London less than an hour from Reading.

I’m feeling dead tired as you can guess. We had to work to the very last minute in Aber. & marched off from the Lion at 5 o’clock to catch the 5.25, all looking very jaunty, waving goodbye to old friends with Sandy charging in front barking wildly. Our Officers & Brownie wished us farewell at the station & as we looked out for the last time on our old haunts we found we’d got Sandy in with us! We put him out at the first stop with instructions for taking him back. Well just 12 hours after starting we got to Reading & had to wait until 8.15 for a train to Theale. You can guess we were dead tired

[page break]

3/

but we got no chance of a minute’s rest or wash or any of the common neccessities [sic] of life until late tonight & then I found I had to do fire patrol at 7.0 & 11.0 so it will be late when I get to bed. [underlined] Never [/underlined] have I longed for sleep more. Today we’ve rushed up & down to the drone for parachute fittings, medicals, issuing of lockers for flying kit, lectures & interviews by various officers, filling in forms, issuing of kit & dorms & on top of all that I can’t get to bed until nearly midnight & I’m flying tomorrow. Things are certainly starting off in a rush & there looks like being a busy time ahead but we get Saturday off though this week we work on Sundays all day We have Sat & Sun off on alternate

[page break]

weeks but there’s no hope of both.

We have some Turkish officers here who are training with us.

Well I haven’t the energy to write anything else. Will write & let you know how I get on later.

Got Mums letter. Glad to know you had a good time.

Love

Bill

[underlined] Wed. [/underlined] Been up today. Its [underlined] great [/underlined] going to enjoy life!!! Will be at controls every five day now.

[deleted] Got [/deleted] For your peace of mind I have a very Steady instructor a Flt/Lt of 15 yrs experience. Most are crazy Sg/pilots. In Reading tonight food good.

Love

Bill