(20) No.4 S.F.T.S.,
Saskatoon,
16-2-42.
Dear Mum and Dad,
We are right in the middle of the nearest approach to a Canadian blizzard we have seen yet; all day yesterday and most of to-day it has been blowing like billy-oh-oh, and it is far from tropical outside. One or two of the boys got their ears nipped just walking from the barracks to the hangar.
There was a letter from you and one from Joan three days ago, so perhaps there is more on the way. Still apparently Father has not received his electric razor, so it commences to be rather worrying; I’d go hopping mad if I thought some beastly Jap was getting a shave out of it.
The last week has been pretty much like the last two or three weeks except that the weather closed in and we didn’t fly so much. However, I managed to get off on one rather interesting cross-country of about 360 miles, so it was not an unprofitable week.
Last night I was invited out to Mrs Steeves’ place again, and she made a note of our address and said she would write to you to let you know how I am and so on, so you should be getting another Canadian letter one of these fine days. Mr and Mrs Steeves are both very nice people indeed, and have given me a great time.
We had our interviews with the big-wigs last week – it was the usual routine stuff with a lot of apparently pointless questions. They asked some of the boys how they liked the food, and got told the truth, too. I wish they had asked me; I would have said a mouthful myself.
Here’s a technical point for Uncle Wattie; I haven’t had a really decent haircut since I left home. These Canadian barbers don’t know what a haircut is, for if you ask for a short cut they give you a neck-trim and leave it at that. In town it costs 40 cents for a straight-out haircut, and if you want a little oil put on it costs 25 cents extra – total, 65 cents, which is very close to 4/-. A barber on the station does the job for 25 cents without oil, but it still isn’t a real haircut. I remember that on the boat our Mr Aitken told us it could quite easily cost you $1.25 or $1.50 for a haircut by the time you had tipped the barber, tipped the manicurist and tipped the little negro boy who brushed you down. That was in some of the big American cities, of course. You would be robbed at that price, wouldn’t you Dad?
Bah! Is everything dear in this country? I’ve just been robbed of 6 bucks for a wings dinner. A pretty expensive celebration if you ask me, but of course a fellow has to be an ass and pay. We haven’t got the wings yet, so after all this I just better had get them. Wings parade is a week from Friday.
Peter Day and I went along on Saturday night and had our faces photographed again – this time with wings and sergeant’s stripes pinned on. They look very pretty, too – the wings, I mean. The proofs have to be collected tomorrow; they should be very interesting because we took it in turns to pull faces at the other chap while each was being posed. And by the way, in case I have tangled you up a bit, the wings are stripes were pinned on our uniforms and not on our faces. There’s such a racket going on here that if anything I write makes sense it will be a major miracle.
There’s a snow plough going full bore just outside the hangar windows just like one of Mr Semple’s bulldozers. It reminds me of the slip that held us up while I was on final leave, though the snow isn’t quite that deep.
There hasn’t so far been a big enough fall for them to roll it out all over the ‘drome as I believe they usually do at this time of the year, so that’s one sight we have missed. All the same, I’d hate to be here when the big thaw comes because it means mud and slush everywhere, as I know from a demonstration we had with a break-up a month or two ago.
If all goes well I think I’ll be able to pull off my American trip all right. I have it all planned out from Ottawa onwards so that’s one time I really will have something to write home about. The time is getting pretty close now and still nothing has knocked the idea on the head, so here’s hoping hard. I will be doing it in a bit more of a rush than Dad, I guess, but still ought to see plenty.
That’s all for now, folks, so
love from
Arnold G.