- Monday May 22, 1944
Just before ten this morning, as I was beginning to put my fresh bandages on, the alert sounded, and we had a short day light raid, the first day light one for some time. This mornings bombs dropped somewhere, supposing they had dropped on me.
- Wednesday May 24, 1944
I had several visitors this afternoon. Mrs. Fitch and Bertha, Mrs. James, and Elizabeth Coppen. We had another daylight alert from four forty-five until five –twenty and only a little gunfire. I suppose it was only a stray reconnaissance plane.
- Saturday May 27, 1944
I am afraid I am perilously near what is known as a complete nervous breakdown. I am so tired in body and exasperated in mind I feel I can’t endure another minute. I was in such a state of nerves this morning whilst cooking the dinner I felt I should break down and cry, and I did not dare to let myself go in case I should never stop. I am sick to death of cooking dinners, I am sick to death of the house and the housework, I am sick to death of looking after a husband and I am sick to death of the war, this infernal war. I am sick of myself, this miserable body. The weather has turned very hot suddenly and consequently my legs are bad. It is torture to walk about. It is worse I suppose because of all the heavy work I have done this week. I really do feel on the verge of collapse. Ted is too silly for words. At dinner just now he said if the war ended now he was afraid it would be too soon, because we, England, hadn’t suffered enough. France had suffered, he said, and Poland, and now very likely Germany was suffering, but we hadn’t suffered enough. This is the religious maniac talking; also the safe old man. It is true this country hasn’t suffered invasion, but it suffered the expectation of invasion and still isn’t free of the dread of the threat of it. It is Ted who doesn’t suffer, but he is an abnormal man. What about Artie? What about Cuthi? What about me in my grief for them? What about all our millions of young men fighting and dying in the air, on the sea, on the land, all over the globe and all their families grieving for them? What about our blasted cities and villages? What about our young women thrust into the factories and the services? What about the demoralization of our juveniles? What about the nightly air raids, the fires, the terror? What about the taxes, to put something down to Ted’s comprehension? This war will never be paid for, even in cash. All who survive will be impoverished for the rest of their days in mere money, let alone in their affections.
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