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Transcription

[Page] 113
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iron, tin, paper etc.etc. Though we had a
very open winter before the New Year we have
had some hard frost since -10° to -12°, and now
we have had two heavy falls of snow this week,
on Monday night - 5ins. [inches] and on Wednesday night
some 10ins [inches]. Today, Friday 23rd. Jany, there has been a
rapid thaw and heavy rain. The storm was
probably general, for although there are no
weather reports at present, it is stated in today’s
‘Scotsman’ that it took a party of M.P.s [Members of Parliament] some
23 hours to travel from Glasgow to London!
Mary has been at Brockinghurst in the New
Forest for three weeks taking a course for N.I.Os [National Intelligence Officers]
and I rejoice to say, returns to Edinburgh early
tomorrow travelling tonight.

7th Aug. 1943
Little of excitement has happened in Edinburgh
since I last wrote in my journal. There may have
been one or two occasions on which the sirens
sounded but only on one. I think. were any bombs
dropped in the Edinburgh area. and, on that oc:
:casion, part of a tenement was demolished at
Restalrig and a man and a boy, (I think, killed.
Domestic life has been completely revolutionized
by the calling up of women for various war services.
and I doubt if there are a hundred homes
in Edinburgh in which there are two or more

domestics. In Barton Avenue I am, I believe, the
only householder with two regular servants and
for that I am eternally thankful. A cook can
practically call for any wages she likes, and £120
to £150 is not infrequent. A lady (save the mark)
sent a message to Catherine recently trying to
tempt her away by an offer of £130! but Catherine
refused the bait and remarked to me when she
told me of the incident - ‘Money is not everything’
I heard of a friend of my own, who lives in Summer
some miles away in the hill ground above Dun:
:blane, having gone into a Labour Exchange
and in desperation offered £4 a week to any
woman who would go and ‘do’ for himself
and his wife! As my income reduced by
heavy taxation and a serious fall in a
life rent, I receive from Henry Butler’s Trs [Trustees], I cannot
keep pace with the rise of wages so I have
transferred a number of war saving certificates
to Catherine, which I had taken up some years ago.
Last Sept. first when I returned from a
holiday with the Mowbrays in Dorset, my
gardener, Robb, who had been with me since
I came here, died after an operation In the Infirmary.
He was a born gardener and though he had
started his life as an engineer he had, at a
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