Letter from Bill Akrill to his mother

Letter from Bill Akrill to his mother

Describes difficulty of travel by train due to restrictions. Has very little free time. Catches up with home news of family and friends. Hopes to be home on Friday.

1942-03-24

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]420324

No 1436220 L.A.C. Akrill,
2 Flight, D. Squadron,
No 1 E.A.O.S.
Eastbourne.
Sussex.
Tues. 24.3.42.
Dear Mum,
Found your letter waiting when I got back from posting the parcel. Thought I’d better let you know that the 8.20 will be quite O.K. on Friday. We’re only allowed to travel by rail on presenting passes and are only allowed on certain very infrequent trains & [underlined] all [/underlined] travelling is stopped from April 2 – 7 I think we have to catch the 5.13 from here. It will be a rush but believe me I can do it! It will give me plenty of time to get to Kings X.
Just because its my one study free night I’ve been bagged for duty tonight & although it’s a glorious evening I have to stay in. [deleted] so [/deleted] Anyway I can get some letters written. I’ve got Auntie Nellies finished.
Had a letter from Annie B. She says that the Thompson baby is to be called John or Jane & then makes [deleted] a [/deleted] one of her fine remarks that [deleted] these [/deleted] fine names are too common these days & the aristocracy chooses simple ones!
Old Brindle one of the old flight from Theale who followed me to Brighton arrived strangely enough in the same hotel the other day. He’d managed to get posted by a wangle & left the other lads still down there. I must say I was lucky to get away so very early.
[page break]
Gosh that chunk of cake [underlined] was [/underlined] good! Talk about luxuries! Haven’t started of [sic] the almond one yet but it won’t last long when I do. I’ll bring my bag for some pig-cheer as I know you’ll not know what to do with it.
Poor old Harry. He does seem to be in for it. I think he’d better come back with me to the “Queen of Watering Places” for a rest cure, though you can’t even rest here these days with tanks & barbed wire & things. It’s supposed to be one of the healthiest spots in England.
Sorry to hear about Auntie.
Unless you hear anything else I’ll be off that train at Newark about 2300 on Friday & look out for Mary. I must say its very nice to have a sister who’ll turn out at that hour to meet me.
Love to all
Bill