Tuesday 6 September 2011

31/5/40 - Staying at Chevron's Club - Working at the War Office

                                                                                                                Chevron’s Club
                                                                                                                74 St Georges Sq
                                                                                                                London SW1
                                                                                                                31/5/40
My Dear Ida
                It seems such a long time since I write to you, but am doing so now.
I am very well in health and we are working as, no doubt you have seen in the papers, 7 days a week, but it is all I can do to help.
We have been badly let down by “Leopold the arch traitor”[1]. I saw a couple of lads just back from Flanders, dusty, dirty, tired but cheerful and full of fight. Wonderful chaps, the sailors, soldiers and airmen of ours and thank god for them and Winston Churchill.
I suppose you have evacuated children in the district now. I see Meryn now and again but have not heard from him for 6 months or so.
Hoping that you and Trixie are fit

Love
Your aff cousin
Elydyr
I hope that you are all cheerful, because all is well.


[1] King Leopold III of Belgium, took control of the Belgian Army and without reference to the Belgian Prime Minister or Belgian Government, surrendered to the Nazis on 27th May 1940. The French Prime Minister accused him of Treason, Winston Churchill said “At the last moment when Belgium was already invaded, King Leopold called upon us to come to his aid, and even at the last moment we came. He and his brave, efficient Army, nearly half a million strong, guarded our left bank and thus kept open our only line of retreat to the sea. Suddenly, without prior consultation, with the least possible notice, without the advice of his ministers and upon his own personal act, he sent a plenipotentiary to the German Command, surrendered his Army and exposed our whole flank and means of retreat”. Winston had made the decision to evacuate on 25th May. Now seen as a bit of a scapegoat.

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