It’s been a busy day today so I’m just getting this blog post in under the wire. My daughter and her husband flew out tonight to spend the next three months in South East Asia. (If you’d like to read her travel blog, please click on girltrieslife.) They will arrive in Bangkok in just over 24 hours. Back in 1944, it would have taken weeks to get there by ship – several days, I would imagine, by plane. The world has certainly changed in the past 70 years.

Getting back to my wartime rations; for lunch today I had white fish baked in a cheese sauce with a spinach salad on the side. For dinner at the airport tonight… not quite wartime rations.

 As for what was making news in The Glasgow Herald on October 28th, 1944:

On the front page, under the Birth/Marriage/Death announcements was one for Prisoner of War.  Girvan.  Official information has been received that Private William Girvan, Cameron Highlanders, reported missing in August 1944, is now a Prisoner of War in Stalag V11, Germany; thanking all friends and neighbours for inquiries and information of broadcasts.  Mrs W Girvan, 103 Cartside St, Glasgow.

Jordanhill Church, Woodend Drive, Glasgow. Collection for both Sunday services for Christmas Gifts for Our Members in the Forces.

Two hundred thousand cases of Spanish oranges, weighing 10,000 tons coming to the UK from Spain. A Ministry of Food spokesman stated… “There will be some for the public, but details of the division between manufacturers and the general public have not yet been worked out.”

Sinking Standards in Schools: “It seems to be a general opinion among secondary teachers that the standard of elementary proficiency in reading, writing and speaking is steadily sinking among the pupils of 12 or so who enter secondary school.”

As a writer, I’m really taken with human stories and the Undefended Divorces listed in the paper is fascinating. Several were given to soldiers currently POWs in Germany. One was given to a woman whose husband, current address unknown,  had deserted her. One was given to a woman in the W.R.N.S and another to a woman based on her husband’s cruelty. But I’m particularly fascinated by those given to the men in POW camps. What was the legal mechanism that permitted that? Who initiated those divorces; the husbands or their wives?