Millom,
Cumberland
18-4-42
Dear sister Maud
I expect Mum keeps you pretty well posted with such news as there is, so I won’t rehash too much of it – just enough to make George jealous!
You will have heard of our fun and games in America on embarkation leave over there; we had a great time everywhere we went, and the Americans did everything they possibly could for us. After Chicago, Detroit, Niagara Falls and three days in New York there was just time for a day in Washington, and that was well worth the effort of getting there. We didn’t meet President Roosevelt but our guide, the HON. Frank Langston, gave us an insight into the way they do things in the States by saying that it was a whole lot easier to get an interview with the president than it was to meet the chairman of some piffling little bounty council back in New Zealand.
You’d have laughed if you had seen the three of us who went to Washington sitting up like Jacky in the huge NZ legation car as we drove through the streets of the capital city. It was quite a bit of fun. And, by the way, I don’t think I have ever been in a nicer place; it is clean and tidy, and there are whole avenues of beautiful buildings everywhere you look.
However, all this praise for Washington doesn’t mean that we were unfavourably impressed by New York, which is another grand place. Having been to the top of the world’s tallest building, visited the world’s biggest theatre, seen the world’s finest precision dancers, toured the world’s biggest business area under one ownership (that’s the Rockefeller centre to you) and seen one of the world’s largest liners lying on it’s side in the New York docks, I am now content to stage a temporary retirement from the sightseeing business.
The dancers I mentioned – the Rockettes – perform daily in the Radio City Music Hall, and they really have to be seen to be believed. There is a wonderfully-equipped stage, where major miracles take place every performance, and any musical show you have ever seen in the movies is totally eclipsed by the real flesh-in-blood act you get in the Music Hall. It is, of course, primarily a picture-theatre, or is that the wrong way to describe it? Anyway, there is always a first-class movie screening, with this magnificent stage show in support.
We saw one other remarkable show; “It Happens On Ice”, which had been running for over 18 months in the Center Theatre. It, too, was a great piece of work – staged by Sonja Henie, although she herself did not appear in it. I should mention that all our requirements in the way of theatre tickets and tickets for ‘bus tours, etc., we’re very well looked after by the British-American Ambulance Corps and the United Services Organisation, who saw to it that we didn’t pay for anything we wanted to see. And that included the ten-dollar midnight dinner to Quentin Reynolds in the Hotel Roosevelt! When the Americans take it upon themselves to entertain a visitor no one I have yet met can excel them at the game.
You will scarcely be surprised when I tell you that I could have used twice the amount of leave we had.
So it had to end, and now we are waiting to get down to business in England. It was a long, slow trip of about twelve days to cross the Atlantic but it was a very peaceful little trip. The nearest approach to a sub was a large whale which gave our gun-crew a thrill one morning; they really thought they had something to deal with until the creature flicked its tail at them instead of sending off a torpedo.
England, of course, is in striking contrast to America for entertainments and so on, but there is still a surprising amount doing on both stage and screen. We were very pleased to find out that many of the stories we had heard about shortages of this and that are quite without foundation; on the contrary, one can live very comfortably here. Luxuries like chocolate are definitely rare, and perhaps that worries me more than anything else. One can get along without these things, of course, but it is much nicer if you can get them when you want them.
Just now we are on a fortnights leave, Millom, where I am staying at present, is on the fringe of the famous Lake District, and on a borrowed bicycle I have been having fun and games all round the countryside. There are some very nice views, mostly over hills, as my poor feet have long since found out.
Tom and I have had four days in London, “doing” the sights and shows there. A few more days would have bankrupted us both, as it is an expensive place to visit for any length of time. We stayed with a Presbyterian minister and his wide, but they did not overwhelm us with the odour of sanctity.
All the shows start between six and seven, on account of the blackout, and since the introductions of double summer-time we nearly always start for home in twilight at about nine or nine-thirty – a strange arrangement. However, I am getting used to all sorts of odds and ends like that, but it won’t prevent me from having a rattling good feast of luxuries when all this is over.
Bet you were surprised to hear they had given me a commission; but never mind – as was I.
Hope our George is a good deal better than the last news I had of him; I think he was just about to be delivered to hospital so perhaps they have patched him up by now.
All the best to yourself, husband and family.
Love from
Arnold G.