Another night-watches letter, it now being 0300. And a fine night & all’s well. Yours of the 18/19 came this morning. Office in Alcester Eileen suggested ! Office in Alcester – No. A hut maybe, where you bring coffee, but a cell in the Woods mènage would dry me up. I’d like best is to be allowed to sit quietly in the house, please, I’d be very good.

                        Eileen & her mother had come in your letter, a nice idea. And you were to decorate the pulpit for the Harvest Festival. Good. More excellence. And yes, my objective is indeed a straggling noah’s Ark farmhouse & yard, a donkey & a horse, a little T.T. cow, geese & ducks & chickens & pigeons, preferably with pink feet. And you can milk the cow. I’ll make pigeon lofts & hen coops & things & drain out & clean the duckpond. I can’t write all day ! What’d I do in between in the Alcester office ? Telephone you all day. Yes a farm, & where you will. Italy if you like & we’ll make our own wine. I know how.

                        I’d not be too lonely in a hut. I’d fetch you in.

                        So Dickie rides the W.P.B. with dressing gown cord reins ! A predilection for WPBs is probably inherited. He’ll write. Must be so. Dear, how curious I am about that man.

                        I have sent off the two Michelangelo books today, & the Velazquez, not very good the latter. Inside the top Michelangelo are various little things. Covers of magazines, postcards etc. Also the XVIII C. Picture. Maybe useless, may not I leave it to you to judge.
letter handwritten up to this point
All that was written when I was more tired than I realised, and things kept happening, so there it stopped. So this afternoon, after seeing the night shift through, bringing my 130 men back, watching them have their breakfast (bacon, beans, bread and tea, with porridge first and then, having breakfast myself, bed till noon,  a lie and think, lunch, a bath and here I am. In my room at my desk quite fresh and dandy. And in my lie and think the novel title came to me, I am sure its right and it helps the rest, gives it its pace and tone, what thinkest thou… “ALARMS AND EXCURSIONS” It looks and sounds good, it has the tang of war and the little pun about our many excursions, it is thus slightly ironical and is not pedantic nor stuffy. I hope its not been used much. I think I might get going now, its been difficult as yet though I’ve been fiddling with it. So, ecco !

                        I thought I might do out an introduction for and the four instructions and details of, the four one act plays we have. Then Jonathan can have them, of if he doesn’t want them Harrap can have them, the links, the scripts and all. We needn’t send him the script of the Q and Mr. S., but I have the copies of the last two and maybe you can find the copy of the Adventure, or Bertha may have good stage directioned copies, what do you think ?

                        No, not an office in Alcester, if we try to make it too much a trade I’ll go dumb. I must go my own peculiar way my modest wonders to perform. I like the idea of a family and a wife and my household gos around me. Six hours a day at regular hours of words might not lead to they’re being very good words.

                        You might telephone the Library and ask if they have a book called ALARMS AND EXCURSIONS or ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS.

                        Please send me the dimensions, tip to tip, of my son Richard. I have lost touch and want to mark the wall. I know he is mobile but I’d like to imagine how much there is of him if he were static.

                        Also let me know what stories and Things have not sold. Don’t be shy, its a help to know. And you might try the Housekeeping one that failed on Colliers. John Trevor says they lap up things domestic. See if they are in the Writers and Artists Year Book. Did you send the Hut one to Punch. News of failures is welcome, and of ones that are bought even more welcome.

                        Disapproving as I do of this price increase in the army, as it is part of a desperately dangerous tendency which will result in rising prices and a spiral upwards towards inflation, we now get 15/5 a week extra as from Sep 2nd. I think it should be :- 13/- pay plus 1/10 Corps Pay, plus 4/6 Med. Allce., plus 2/3d new pay (as from 2/9/44) per day, i.e. 21/7d per day. If you are in Alcester you can check that with Careless and ask him to write for any discrepancies to Manchester. And did he get a tax rebate ? If I draw my full advance allowance here we have £14-7-6d a month credit in the bank. All you don’t draw from that is increase to our balance. Before 2/9/44 it was £14-10-0, because we drew less. But there we are. Forget it all, I beg your forgiveness this shower of figures. But we do need out farm. I do like your Wavell present. I read it much. Bless you. And I look  long and often at your picture of Richard. He does look fun. You might ask Careless to send me a statement, I have it from June 1 43 to May 9 44. It all seems in order, praps Mr. Lloyd knows best. He’s not Careless. A scrambly letter, but bless us, we are us and glory be it is so.