Aldwinckle, Eric, Letter, 27 April 1943

Letter, Eric Aldwinckle.
Description: 
Letter to Harry Somers

Tabs

Case Study: 
Creative Dialogue Across the Ocean: Eric Aldwinckle’s Letters to Harry Somers
Creator: 
Aldwinckle, Eric
Source: 
letter
Date: 
27 April 1943
Place: Glasgow
Collection/Fonds: 
Contributer: 
McMaster University Libraries
Rights: 
Copyright, public domain: McMaster University owns the rights to the archival copy of the digital image in TIFF format. Reproduced with the kind permission of Margaret Bridgman.

Identifier: 
00001541-2
Language: 
eng
Type: 
image
Format: 
jpg
Transcript: 

(which is full of dark meaning I see, because we are 'uneven') I love musicians. And so we went on a tour of three or four air stations, bomber fighters and reconnaissance, positively dripping with interest but most of which unfortunately must remain sealed within my bosom until Hitler has stopped being so fidgetty. On one station I was taken up for an hour and given a taste of hedgehopping, at 50 and 100 ft up, and other manoeuvres which left me breathless with what I supposed to be a pleasure. Saw a castle which I had visited from the ground in 1936 and of course didn't recognise it until afterward told the name.
The country I was in was simply indescribable owing to censors, as was the weather but I can tell you that at the end of one runway on a very important station I stood in a blanket of primroses and violets which delighted my whimsical fancy.
The crews on these stations a splendid lot and command admiration and respect. It is a queer battle front though. You are buried among beauty and surrounded by peace as the preparations are made for the night's bombing, and on Sunday afternoon, with coffee, we joined them in the lounge and listened to quite good chamber music supplied by an airmen orchestra. Then a rest and off they go in the enormous metal fish of the air.
It develops a special philosophy in them. (Which is enrichening my own)
This will all contribute to destroying a weak sentimentality which has been governing