大象传媒

My father had two brothers, the eldest, Bill French, worked for the railways. He didn鈥檛 actually work on the trains as he was a van driver. He had a reserved occupation. But his younger brother,Jim French, went into the army. I do know that he had to get treatment for snow blindness. I am not sure what country he was in.

My father is reputed to have supplied a character reference regarding someone who some felt should not be serving in the armed forces.

The photograph I have got here, is believed to be the writer of the following letter. It鈥檚 very interesting, but very difficult to read and it is slightly censored. The letter is from a man in Tunisia, written on March 14th, but the year is unknown. His name is Will Farrow. He was a work colleague of my father. They worked for, Colony or Conolly Brothers in Somers Town, in London. He wrote it to my father. It contains a little French. Unfortunately, my father, despite his surname, could only speak English and cockney rhyming slang.

Dear Tom,
Very many thanks for your letter which I received on the 13th. Well you lucky bounder, you still seem to have dodged the army and if you take my tip you will continue to do so. Army life in peace time is far from rosy, so you can guess it is much worse under these conditions. So if I sound browned off, but it is simply pelting down with rain, and its not like rain in England. Five minutes of it and you are soon wet through. It had been raining in torrents all night, and I was happy that it would clear up this morning, but it seems to have got worse, and to make matters worse the bally tent is leaking like hell. Nothing makes me feel so bad as rain, especially under these conditions. You get soaked through and take it as a matter of course, but I think there will be plenty of rheumatism after the War. I think this will bring out the rum ration, we badly needed right now. We were told that the rainy season finished at the end of February, but at the moment I don鈥檛 think it wants to stop. Well so much for my grousing. You mustn鈥檛 take it too much to heart. If the sun had been shining I would have been just the reverse.
Have you seen Mr Hussey of late? I wrote to him sometime ago, and had a letter from him only this week and he too told me to of Dennis Weald. Well if he is in the RAF he is well to our rear, but for all that I should think he is pretty busy. We had a glorious sight the other day. 104 heavy bombers which I think were Flying Fortresses returned from a raid on Tunis and upon going higher up the hill, we could see the extent of their activities. A big black pool of smoke which I think must have been at least five miles wide. Well as you gather, just a few of these raids must keep the RAF ground staff very busy. Your references to chickens, no we didn鈥檛 catch them and to make matters worse we had to move on Christmas day, so we finished with cold bully beef, not very appetising for Christmas, eh?
Things in this sector have been very quiet of late except in the usual artillery duels, but we were very busy a week or two ago. Anyway we sent Jerry back quicker than he came and the amount of booty that we captured was extensive. Should he try it again, we shall have the extreme pleasure in hitting him with his own weapons. Of course you don鈥檛, I am now a lance jack. I don鈥檛 know how it happened, its just one of those things, anyway it shows that they appreciate my work.
It has never been easy, and I have also tried to do my best, so perhaps this is my reward. We have moved several times since I last wrote, and as usual we always manage to laugh one way or another. At one place we were very friendly with an Arab and he took great pleasure in trying to imitate me on the wireless and often he had us in fits. I called him a cunning old bugger, and he replied, "Bugger." I said to him one day, Mussolini, and he replied in French he would like to carserato him. Do you get me? He would say "Angleterre" tres bon, "Allemagne" pas bon. By this you see, that wherever he goes, the British Tommy always makes plenty of friends. For an English cigarette, they would run miles for you.
Tunisia is getting a family affair now, my brother in law is already out here after getting torpedoed. My next brother is on the way and my youngest has just finished his embarkation leave. Len is the luckiest, his stalls at Worcester.
Many thanks for the offer of cigarettes, when they arrive they will be very much appreciated. On the whole we don鈥檛 do too badly and we do make the most of things, everything except rain. Sometime we even get a laugh from that.
Well Tom, all for now. Give my regards to all the boys and tell them to keep at it, especially Tom and Harry.
My kind regards to your wife, whom I trust is quite well. Chin up and keep smiling.

Yours sincerely,

Will Farrow.
PS. Still raining!

Sadly, I gather Will Farrow was killed in action.

There is some War time memorabilia I used to play with. My mother used to have a metal hat which I wore. There was a gas mask, which I can remember.I don鈥檛 know what would have happened if the enemy had used gas, I didn鈥檛 like the mask on me. I have my identity card confirming when I stayed in Islington and in Abbots Langley. I have an infants weight card to prove my weight. I have a wireless licence, 10 shillings just to pick up the radio, 50p in today鈥檚 money. A ration book holder. I have got a feeling I have some ration books, but I just can鈥檛 find them. During the War, within the first year of my life, I was also a poor old soul. I was born a weakling and almost died of German Measles when I was a few months old. I have come across a card which is written to my Mother, Antenatal clinic, Dr I.R. Marre of Holloway Road. This was the man who saved my life during my illness.

Although there is a lighter side to the war, there was obviously, a very terrible side. For example, Billy Hutchings and his tin bath, (See part one.) is funny. But we must not forget to ask ourselves, whatever did happen to the other half of the rocket? The war fetched out a comradeship amongst people. But do we ever learn by our experiences? As one friend of mine who fought in the Vietnam war remarked. War is a filthy business. Despite all this, there have been wars since. I have visited countries, and hopefully, have befriended people not of my nationality. I prefer friendship to that of being an enemy. Is there an optism for the future? If we reflect further back in time, to the First World War, there is this incredible story of soldiers, who were on opposing sides, calling a truce. Why? Just so that they could have a friendly game of football because it was Christmas Day. So maybe there is somewhere, an optimistic future. Stories like that indicate that perhaps all is not lost. I sincerely hope so.

Alan French. Hemel Hempstead Library.

The End.

By the same contributor: 'The Three English Brothers French.' : 'The White Figure.' (A true ghost story.)

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