Letters from Arthur Seaforth Blackburn to his family, 1941 - Part 24

Lt Col A S  Blackburn
SX6962  2/3MGBn
AIF Abroad
17/11/41.

My darling Wody.
I have two lovely letters from you to 
answer. There is so much to read & enjoy in your letters
that I can easily fill all my allowance of air mail
paper for one envelope just in answering your letters! 
Has the typewriter gone back my dear? As the last few letters 
have all been written I assume it has. I wish I could 
afford to buy you one of your own. I will manage to 
someday my dear. Poor little Wody! working hard in her 
room all evening while the family were having a
singsong. You really were a hero! What a lovely
time you all have had with Dick at home for a week 
or so but I know how you will be missing him now. 
He really is a marvellous lad _ but then so are you all, 
except that you & margie are lasses! I was sorry to hear 
about poor David Muirhead's illness but was glad to see 
from your second letter that he is recovering. My dear, your
description of your train journey to & from Glenelg amused me 
immensely. I can quite understand your feelings about humanity 
en masse.  The only humbling thought about it all is that 
the mass probable individually probably includes us in the mob 
which they detest! I am still laughing at the scare you gave -
and got from  the old man. Just as well he didn't have 
a heart attack or anything like that! What great tennis 
matches you have have been having my dear. I do love hearing 
all about them. By the way what team is Meg in now?
I am looking forward by the way to the photos which you 
are constantly promising to send me. Hurry up or I will have 
to give them up in despair. You told me in your first letter 
that you were to be "interviewed" for fruit picking (whatever 
that means) but you don't mention it in your second letter. 
Didn't it come off or were you turned down. I assume you 
are going with someone you know, and to a place where 
the people will look after you. I was very interested 
in your syllabus of exams, or rather should I say
the timetable for them. There is one exam in which

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I know you will come top - English. It is on my birthday 
and I am sure you will do wonderfully in it because of 
that. I shall keep that timetable near me & look it up 
each day to see what exam you have & wish you luck! 
Poor little Wodie! It must be awful to have Miss Hass  
all to yourself so much. Never mind my dear stick it out. 
Next year will go ever so much quicker than you think
and you will find so much to do that you won't get 
time to be bored. At anyrate my dear don't don't don't 
ever let people see that you feel bored. Half the battle 
of life is in making yourself be interested in things all 
the time. There is a tremendous lot of interesting things 
about people Wody, if you only look for them and it
is surprising how interesting even very boring people
can become if you treat them as if they werent boring & 
try to bring them out a bit. Anyway you owe it to 
us all not to be too bored with life even if all your 
friends have left school & your boy friends have 
enlisted! I suppose it sounds awfully like preaching 
Wody dear, but the petty rules, petty details you 
complain about at school are most excellent things 
for disciplining yourself. Don't forget when you get 
so bored at school that Bob has been terribly bored 
finishing off his University course for the past two 
years but he hasn't given up. He has stuck it out 
in spite of hating all the inactivity of it for him. Don't 
forget that Bob was just as keen to give up & enlist - 
the varsity seemed just as boring to Bob as school does 
to you - to enlist was just as big a thrill to Bob as to 
leave school & go the Varsity is to you - but in spite 
of this Bob has just gritted his teeth & stuck it 
out - partly I think because he knew that mummy 
& I had set our hearts on him finishing his course. 
In just the same way dear we have set our

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hearts on you having another year at school so as to 
win a bursary & go on to the varsity with the extra 
maturity & knowledge that that year will give you.
The Wightons are a nice family aren't they? I am glad you 
like Lidibo. She always seems a wonderfully refreshing person 
to me. I am glad you had a good win against MLC. 
I always feel a grievance against them - and do you 
know why? Because the Lees go there & the Lee girl has
beaten you in the Aged tennis tournaments a couple of years. 
Doesn't that sound utterly illogical? It is I know 
but I really can't help it. I am glad you liked 
"Red Ike" Wody. It is a quite unusual book - rather 
crude in many respects but I found it refreshingly 
original in its form & style. Bad luck old dear about 
Miss Catener's story competition. It is bad luck to 
just miss each year but never mind, your 
stories will come good soon. Have a try in the 
holidays (if you can ever get time) to write a story 
& send it to me. I would love to read one. Anyhow 
send me the one which got second in the competition.
We are still going on in the same old way here. It
all becomes pretty boring but of course someone has 
got to garrison the place. On Sunday afternoon 
I went for a long walk down to the sea from 
our village. The track ran along the very top of 
a ridge about six feet wide which then fell 
sheer down to a gully some hundreds of feet 
below. This continued for about _^3/4 mile. The sides 
then sloped out a bit instead of being sheer cliffs 
& here they were terraced all the way down & 
on each terrace was a ploughed up area which 
the natives were preparing for their crops. About 
a mile further on the road track reached the very 
tip of the ridge which ran out at this place 
from the general range of hills & dropped down

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to the coast. Nowhere was the track wide enough for 
anything except one person or animal. When it got to the 
tip of the ridge it wound round & round down the face
of it until it reached the bottom. Every inch of this 
part of the hills was under cultivation, either 
crop, fruit trees or olive trees. It was a glorious
day & the wild flowers were just coming out into
flower so all together it was a lovely walk. I
had arranged to send my car round to pick me up 
at the bottom, so I drove home after my walk.
Although it only took me 1 _^1/2 hrs to walk the distance 
& it was all plainly visible from my quarters, it took 
Robert _^3/4 hr. by car to go round by road to get to 
the same spot. From up here in this village we can 
see a long way out to sea. It is very beautiful 
on these still clear days to see the sailing ships & 
fishing boats passing. There was before the war a 
very big trade with sailing boats across the 
Mediterannean at this place. A large number of 
ketches used to trade to Turkey, Greece, Italy, Albania 
etc. Now the war has rendered it too dangerous 
for any of these boats to try to trade to Greece, 
Italy or Albania so they are trading up and down 
this coast trying to earn their living. On any 

fine day one can count on seeing 9 or 10 of 
them at sea. The Med. is very blue on a 
calm day & the sails of these ships look very 
white in the sun. Altogether they make a 
beautiful picture as they pass & repass along
the coast.
Since I wrote the above the weather has become
very very cold & we have had quite 
a heavy fall of snow up in the mountains

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looking out from my window I look up to a huge
rising crescent of mountain. It rises up from each 
side of me up the highest peak immediately opposite 
my window. It is all in the form of a crescent 
with the two tips resting on the sea. The last two 
nights there have been a light fall of snow & the 
result on the mountains is very, very beautiful. 
The top is covered in snow which gradually thins 
out down the slopes until it ends just below 
a few scattered trees. These trees - pines - & a  
lot of rocks etc show out very black against 
the white of the snow & the whole effect when 
the sun is shining on it is something which 
almost takes one's breath away.
Well Wody darling this is the last sheet of 
this letter. I find that I have left it rather 
late to finish off & the Postal Cpl is waiting 
here at my side to take this letter so as to 
catch the mail so I must stop. Goodbye dear 
& keep on writing those nice letters. Tell Bob 
now his exams are finished I am expecting 
more letters. I will write to margie next week.
Love to you all
Daddy
Arthur S Blackburn