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Please note these are transcribed by software,so there WILL be mistakes. 
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                                                                                             Isoka, 
                                                                                    N. Rhodesia.

                                                                                11th July, 1943.
                                         Received Aug 20
Dearest Everybody,
I wonder what will have happened by the time this letterreaches you all? We are agog for more news as yesterday we heard of the invasion of Sicily so things have really begun in earnest now, end it IS marvellous to hear of it at last. They haven't told us any details yet - not even whereabouts on the island that the landings have taken place -- but by the time you get this they will probably have finished with Sicily altogether and be half-way up Italy.  We spend all our available moments sitting over the-wireless listening to every available news bulletin - at least that is the theory, though actually G has to go to the Office and instructs me to listen in at 9.30. and at 3. and I dutifully go on remembering until 9.15.; then I put Nigel to bed and the boy calls me to get something out of the store, then I order the dinner, then I give out the vegetable seeds to the garden boy, then I find a bunch of cuttings (brought by somebody)and show him where they are to be planted, then I suddenly remember the news again, rush in, and find that it is 9.45. and Michael Brooke is just saying "That is the end of the News". (At 3 p.m. of course I was fast asleep).
But Thank Goodness the wireless is working now, as it would have been just too frightful if it had died now; it usually chooses the exciting moments to die; the beginning of the El Alamein battle, and the fall of Bizerte and Tunis, and in the middle of ChurchiIls' "leaves of autumn' speech were the moments it has chosen so far, so we are expecting it to fade out at any moment.
Last time we were lucky enough to have a convoy here full of R.A.F. ground staff and Electricians, so one came up and took the whole thing to pieces and Blew into bits of it, but couldn't get it right, however we turned it on and glued our ears to it to hear the headline news, and it did the same as it had done before, suddenly came on with a ROAR that made us all jump! and was perfectly all right. But the man didn't know what had made it suddenly come right and could take none of the credit for it.
We also borrowed a doctor from that convoy as Robin rode down the steps on Gill's big tricycle and broke (a) his nose, and (b) his glasses.  He cried quite hard at first, and I think might have done a Blue if I hadn't arrived in time, but his nose was bleeding and he was so fascinated by it that he soon stooped crying; and while I was kneeling beside the Corpse washing itsBloody Face, who should come in but John Powell, our cousin from Marendellas! He was so nice, with a charming deep voice, and G. says he has an amazing family likeness to Dad! He couldn't stay long, but managed to produce this doctor who felt Robin's nose and said he was almost sure it was broken as he could just feel a slight grating when he tried to wiggle it! but I don't think it can have been at all bad as it only swelled very slightly, and it didn't hurt him in the very least when It was wiggled and has given him no trouble at all since.
 
- 2 -
He is a jolly little boy, and is always the ringleader in their games. On tour with G., he was reading and heard Robin calling to him, looked up and saw him sitting astride the ridge-pole of the top of the tent! It is one of those huge green marquee sort of tents with a verandah-part at the back, and has two thick guy ropes going from each end, crossing each other in the middle of the tent and pegged down the opposite end, and Robin had walked up the canvas pulling himself up hand-over-hand on the rope. He then slid down the other side.  It was a grand game, and kept them happily occupied for hours.
But he is comically recalcitrant, and there are same days when nothing seems to go right for him, and on those days he does everything he can to make it worse: One day when he had got into several scrapes, at lesson time he suddenly said that he didn't like his green pencil "because it was too green" and he wanted a blue one like Gill's, so I lent him mine and he wouldn't use it "because it wasn't DARK enough blue." Then he wanted to sit on Gill's chair because his stool was brown and he didn't want it to be brown (having sat on it every day without a word of complaint!) He ended up the day by refusing to say goodnight to Gill, and when asked why, he said "because she is in a muddle, she is too hot and I don't like her." He often says he doesn't like her, which is quite untrue as actually they are devoted to each other and are awfully good at playing together for hours on end - but he has very definite ideas and will sometimes say kindly "You're a darling Mummy, to-day," and at other moments he will come up to me with a determined look on his face, stand in front of me and say solemnly, "Now, you are going to have a hug ''. Their newest idea at bedtime is to do "sit-up Nigel": Nigel's latest trick is to clutch. on to my fingers while I pull him up to sit up, which makes him laugh, so the other two copy him and think it's very funny!
They spend a lot of time tooling about on their tricycles, Robin on Gill's, and Gill twiddling along on his tiny one; its handlebars came off some time ago and have been re-soldered on twice without success, so she manages somehow to guide it by the knob on the top and is very nippy at it but he can't ride it at all. When they are riding, they come along and say "Mummy! There is a car coming in, and I THINK it is Mr, and Mrs. Miller, or Heather and John (their favourite) or Mr. an Mrs. Cato - or anybody they can think of, and. thereafter have to be addressed as such and are most indignant if we forget, and we of course are addressed as Mr. and Mrs. Clay.
But there was one lovely conversation I overheard while I was doing Nigel and they were tricycling on the verandah: 
Robin:    "I've got a wireless in my motor car.
Gill:    So have I, mine is making music. ( sang) .
Robin:     Mine is making the News. (In a dramatic voice) This is London calling. This is the B.B.C. This is the B.B.C. This is the News. The Germans have gone, the bombers have chased the Germans out of England. This is the B.B.C. ... Oh, dear, my wireless has gone wrong, its stopped ...
Gill:     Come near my car then, and listen to mine. This is the news, read by Michael Harris. The Russians have turned 
 
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the Germans out of Germany, they have all come to England. The Russians have bombed Germany twice (that's two times,
Robin.     That IS good news, isn't it? - Yes, that's lovely.) The Germans have put our people in prison and built a new house for themselves (oh, isn't that a bad bit?) The Russians have bombed Germany again, that's three times (that means they dropped bombs on the place where the Germans live, Robin.)  The Germans have killed some of the babies, the ones who were killed were in Germany and the ones who didn't get killed were in England. (Very sad news, isn't it Robin? - Yes.) The ones who were killed got eaten. That is the end of the News, read by Mr. Churchill.  Tong! Tong! Tong! Tong! (that is the bell to tell us the time, Robin.)"
Then there was another rather nice one a bit later. I didn't hear how it started, but I heard:
Gill:     "If you do that again I will hit you with my hairbrush. Robin: But I will climb a tree so that you can't.
Gill:    I'll climb up after you.
Robin:     Then I'll climb up as high as the sky, and I'll bend the sky into a box and I'll sit in the middle and you won't be able to reach me.
Gill:     Yes I will, I'll climb in at the door.
Robin:    But I'll lock the door with Mummy's key, then I'll make a tiny weeny hole in the bottom of the sky and throw the key down    to Mummy.
Gill:    Well anyway it isn't true because you can't climb up as high as the sky,
Robin:     Why can't I?
Gill:    Because the sky isn't anything, it's just nothing, it's just made of air.
Robin:     No it isn't, it's blue stuff! It isn't nothing, silly! (laughed heartily) - Mummy, Mummy, Gill says the sky is made of nothing!"
We have the auditor with us just now - they have sent two this time as they haven't been for a whole year. We have met neither of them before, and one is a Pole and seems charming, most polite and formal and click-heely.  He was with the army when it went almost en bloc into Roumania, and they were interned there but the Roumanians closed their eyes when anybody tried to escape, and he finally got away and got to Palestine, then Egypt and then was sent here.  He heard news of his wife and 16-year-old daughter through the Red Cross until a year ago, since when he has heard nothing.
Apart from them, and Dr. Will, and old Father Roy we have had no visitors for ages.  We drove out last Sunday to see Father Roy at Kantenshya, which is about 9 miles from here; it is a place of about 4,000 acres which belonged to Mr. Stokes (a retired P.C. who has come back for the duration of the War) and he only lived there for a very short time, In rondavels, and the place was completely undeve1oped, and now he has sold it to the White Fathers and Father Roy is now starting to build the Mission station there.
This is very dull, I'm afraid, but there's nothing really to say that's why I'm polishing you all off at once!

LOVE,
         US.
 
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