Sheriff opened his letter to Pips with a pang of regret: ‘This time last week we were just cycling past Oxshott Station on our way home to dinner – how I wish I was doing it again, although it is not much use wishing.’

On the brighter side, however, officers now seemed to be going home on leave more frequently, so he hoped that he would ‘be on the way again safely in six months time, or before that if the war is over sooner’ (a remark conditioned by recent rumours of a peace talk in Berlin, which Sheriff hoped would ‘lead to something definite’).

His company was still at the Officers’ Training School, so he was having a fairly easy time. he hoped it might last another 8 or 10 days. He had read about the recent air raid in London, and wondered if Pips had seen anything of it (‘If you were in the City at the time you probably did’). The easy time he was having gave him the opportunity to read more, and he now had a good stock of books, including one sent to him by an old friend from the Artists’ Rifles – a book called Over Bremerton’s, by E V Lucas: ‘it promises well’ he wrote.

The other book he was reading (or re-reading) at the moment was Alice in Wonderland, which to his mind was ‘the finest book ever written: I consider it is always fresh if I read it ten times.’ [And certainly it stuck with him, because it crops up on several occasions in his letters, as well as in his published writing – including Journey’s End itself – and in screenplays such as Mrs Miniver].

And with that he signed off, for the next day the Battalion Sports were being held, and he and some of the Sergeants and men went for a training run every night in preparation. He promised to tell Pips all about it – and about his cricketing exploits – in a future, longer, letter.

[Next letter: 13 July]