Tom Critchley's son, also Tom, has been posted to Swansea to study radiolocation and radar. He arrived at the Swansea railway station in the fog, over-loaded with kit and slipped on to the track, arriving at his destination with cuts and bruises. Here is a letter from his fiance.
53 Buckingham Avenue, N 20
3.1.42
I was very pleased to receive that letter from you. I do hope the damage to you was not very serious. I gathered it could not be too serious, otherwise you would have been carried to your destination on a stretcher. Perhaps your powerful mind overcame all physical damage. Am I right? Anyhow I do wish you would not go throwing yourself about when I'm not there to look after you. Do look after yourself because I'd rather see you whole than in pieces. It was certainly a horrible experience to arrive at a strange place loaded and in thick fog, and so late.
Well, I did not firewatch after all yesterday as Miss Zuigg duly appeared on the scene yesterday morning. So as your mother and father required that Lamb book to be taken to the Library to-day, mother and I went to visit your people. I must say I hated going because you were not there and everything seemed so strange. However they gave me some elderberry wine to buck myself up. I showed them my letter as this time it was "alright', and they let me see their's. We do not quite understand whether you say you love the landlady and her daughter or your live with them.
The other soldiers at your billet are training for radiolocation too, I suppose in which case your billet will be filled again when they have left.
Today I am going shopping to buy shoes and perhaps other things. It is raining but as there is nothing to stay in for, I feel I must go. I feel perfectly alright at the office but immediately I go home, I feel I m waiting for something to turn up and that something never comes.
It feels so strange, so long, and so lonely. I sigh, sigh, sigh, sigh. But, somehow I feel, however hard that hill may be to climb, she might just manage it.
Well now, by this time, you can tell me all about your billet. How is the food? Daddy was most dismayed that you didn't mention food in your letter and wants to know if you had anything to eat between 7.15 and the time you went to bed. Your mother hopes you will be tidy, as having had the use of two houses for all your books etc, she is rather dubious.
This is just a short note as I want to catch the post this afternoon – the post is so slow and I would like you to have this on Monday. I expect the work you are going to do is very interesting and that just at present you will not get that Monday morning feeling.
Mr Sainsbury persists in calling me "Margaret". I don't know why, but Ethel is always "Miss Carmody". Anyway I think I might wangle some time off don't you?
I am thinking about the weekend I will come and visit you. As you finish as 11.30 on Saturdays, I think it would be best for me to have the Saturday morning off and beg for Friday afternoon & travel down then. That seems to me the best way of having a longish time together. What do you think?
All my love,
Margaret.
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