Matty Lawrence

M.W.G.

PORLOCK.

10 DEC. 87.

Dear Matthew,

Since the last load of gumph I sent to you an important thing happened Nann and I have had a months Holiday in Tenerif which in case you don’t know is in the Canary Island Group. It is a long way 1600 miles by jet plane (a little more if you walk) but even at these distances we still meet “them.” Don’t have any idea who he was or where he came from so lets call him Fred.

Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife, Spain

Now Fred like us, chose to eat in the self service restaraunt in our case because we couldn’t understand the Spanish Menu, Fred chose to go there in order to break the world record of seeing how much dinner one could get on a 16″ dinner pate.

Tigaiga Restaurant – just a random picture from the internet of a nice restaurant in Puerto de la Cruz

Mind you the rule was have what you like and this evening he was just in front of me so I saw what went on.

The meal was set out in 4 separate sections, plus the choice of 3 kinds of soup followed by 4 or 5 choises of sweet (Pudding).

The main lot was set out in 4 different departments Cold meats and salads, Rice dishes and oriental fruits, Hot meats with pretty well you would expect a good English Dinner, with certain reservations \ choise or several fish dishes of Spanish or of African origin, including Squid, and no FISH ‘N CHIPS as we know it – and then their idea of Your Nannas Stew, Ragout, or Beef Strogenoff etc.

And may be much more. Well with careful selection we managed to serve ourselves with very tasty, if unusual, meals. But our Fred, he had got the lot, that is to say as far as he had got down the table the plate was full to Balancing point. Salads fish meats of all sorts eggs, and so on. Till disaster struck – There was No Gravy, but over there they don’t serve it as we do.

So Fred had a brilliant idea, back he went to the start of the servery, to the soup container where he took the large ladle brimmed to capacity with a gleam in his eye in triumph but! suddenly it all over flowed all over the floor. He was only a litte man about 5′ 5″ and I never saw him again in that restaurant no doubt he had gone next door, where there was a waiter to serve you then again there might nave been an English sort of “Cnippy” somewhere in Puerto de la Cruz.

And there was a song my dad used to sing which started

It’s the same the whole world over.

and so it is.

So long See you at Christmas or Whenever.

Grandad

          One person who would have appeared in the saga of my life was a private in a company I was in in the R. A.S .C. during the War.

C Section 30 S.T. 340 Coy October 1940

          I can ‘t remember his Christian name, but that doesn’t matter because he only answered to Hey you, Taffy or Jonesey. He came From Tonypandy, a real tough looking guy worked under ground as a miner who reckoned to be able to lift 3 cwt bags of coal, played in t he front row of the rugger scrum where he was a very good player indeed, that is, providing he wasn’t too sober. But it didn’t take long for anyone t o see that apart from his rugger playing his only other ability was to shift more ale than anybody else in the whole battalion. And he certainly excelled at that. The trouble was that at that at that time the weekly pay for a private in the forces was only 14/ – (70 pence) a week. But then beer in the canteen was 5d (2 pence) per pint. And if you played your cards right to the civvies the Pub, one could get plenty for nothing if you could tell a good enough tale. Well this Jonesey bloke bought absolutely nothing save his beer, not even a letter to his home unless he could find a second envelope with a stamp on it that hadn’t been franked .

Could Bryn Jones be one of the men in this picture?

          But there was something more noticeable that all this and that was that he was more than a bit mental. So how or who made him an ambulance driver one cannot understand. Mind you his kind of situation happened with utmost regularity.

          Any way to get on with my story which I assure you is true. Every pay day our hero would be seen changing all his money into copper coins (168 pennies) which he would make into little piles of coins which he then wrapped in paper. These packets he then placed in every pocket of his uniform, greatcoat, overalls one packet in each pocket and if he found he had any packets left over he would hide like a squirrel hides nuts.

If however he had any coins left over he would borrow a penny here and a halfpenny there until he had level money!

Pause here my lad, and solve this riddle, which again I tell you is true.

By the way I have just remembered his name- Bryn Jones.

Well I am sure you have it.

This dear lad was nearly illiterate only barely able to read or to write his name, able only able to count up to ten and totally unable to add up either on paper or mentally. And the packets?

The price of a pint of beer, and if asked by anybody from the Colonel down to the latrine orderly he would answer to the question, “How much money have you got?” wou1d reply,

“4, 5, 7, 9 pints,” or whatever, always absolutely honestly answering only in level money.

But he was a likeable chap

Never finagling on the coppers he borrowed.

Always smiling – and ready to give you a helping hand.

Would have been chosen to p1ay Rugby for Wales save for the war.

But couldn’t he sup some ale.

But the heartbreak tales he told to con a free pint !

And not on any count was he a womanizer.

Disappeared.

On receiving an infrequent letter would hold the envelope up to the light an after making sure there was no money in it would say, “Well if they can’t afford five bob (25p) I can’t afford the time to read it.”

Had his hair crimped and bleached and his dad ‘aint ‘appy ‘an hall.

Flopped his A Levels

Has been seen with Clara from the Cake Shop

Has been seen with Mickey the Mik

Typing Exercise No. 4

Subject: Letter writers in my life.

One may think well, a letter writer is just a letter writer, but mainly because of my Army experience I came to see now many sorts there are.

Firstly, The wuncers

Then there are the Zendus class. There were a godly few in this class and whilst the people to whom they wrote is very varied, the contents (usually 3 lines) was almost a duplication.

A typical Letter would be like so.

this type of letter I might add was always written with a soft lead pencil!

Next comes the Help me write it class. And I am serious about this together with the Write it for me class. These persons were usually discovered when their wives wrote to their Commanding Officer asking him if their husbands were alright as they hadn’t written for ages 3, 4 or 6 months, and they very often failed to give their own name and address.

So the search went on to find who the enquiry was about. The soldier’s Sergeant was sent for and he it was who was given the job of getting the letter written.

And this was a most distasteful task. Many a time we discovered the reason he just was unable to write at all (or read for that matter), and was very conscious of it add got extremely upset of his mates finding out.

The next batch and there was a lot who simply couldn’t find anything to say after being at a military camp situated miles from anywhere having said what little there was to write about in the first place bearing in mind that we weren’t allowed to mention any way. And to cap it all was the fact that all our letters were subject to censoring and a lot of men couldn’t bring themselves to write anything a little bit personal knowing that some body was going to read it.

But then, came they who would argue time after time that they had written, and sometimes after hours they came out with the truth -

- it all depends which wife you are talking about! NO 1 2 or 3 !!

But of all the jobs that came my way was the job of writing for the illiterate. Writing someone else’s letter bearing in mind that the recipient also knew he hadn’t written it himself.

I don’t know if the next example is funny, tragic, stupid or just unlucky. It is certainly true, I’ve seen it several times. That is getting the letters into the wrong envelopes. This can be very embarrassing at times as you can well no more than putting the girlfriends letter in the wife’s envelope.

Hence one good reason for saying NO MORE LETTER WRITING FOR ME.

The saddest person of all is whoever the one who never receives a letter at all. I have seen blokes many a time fold a sheet of paper sometimes newsprint, put it in an envelope and address it to just to kill off the adage that old Charly Korker never gets a letter from anybody.

Poor old Sod!

And so, remember when you write, be careful what you say and be very to whom you say it.

Meanwhile, more true fairy tales sometime or other time.

Grandad

Typing Exercise No. 4