Letter from Bill Akrill to his mother

Letter from Bill Akrill to his mother

Writes to confirm that he has arrived in Brighton, although clearly wasn't expected by anyone and took some time to get a bed. He is waiting for posting to Air Observers Navigation School. Has met up with friends and was delighted to receive parcel from home.

1942-02-20

Two 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]420220

No 1436220 L.A.C. Akrill,
“E” Flight. No 1 Squadron,
A.C.D.W.
Metropole Hotel.
Brighton.
Fri. 20.2.42.
Dear Mum,
Thought I’d better let you know as quickly as possible that I’ve already arrived in Brighton.
Two of us got to know yesterday morning that we were being posted somewhere and eventually arrived in Brighton at 5.30 last night. Nobody seemed to know quite what to do with us so we just had to search this enormous hotel for somewhere to sleep & by 8.0 o’clock we’d at last been able to collect a bed together. This morning we managed to find out our flight & squadron & I for one am just making myself scarce as there’s no point in looking for trouble. Warren, who is with me, has managed to get bagged for a fatigue already.
[page break]
This is the place where we hang around for postings. I’m wanting one to A.O.N.S. I managed to bump into the 3 old pals. Cook, Thornhill & Hart & find they’re [deleted] still [/deleted] in the same flight so that was lucky. I think they’d managed to get 7 days leave but had it cancelled owing to a Posting Rumour. I expect that lots more of our boys will follow.
I was very surprised to get the parcel on Tuesday. I’d seen it on the Rec. Room Table but never dreamed it might be for me. Thanks very much for all it contained. I was going to send my dirty washing but now I’m here it may not be wise.
Well I can’t write much at the moment but I thought I’d better let you know where I was.
Sorry to hear about Mrs. Baines.
Love to all
[underlined] Bill [/underlined]