Diary of Annie's War (16 page)

I must get a little more flesh says the doctor. I have gone down to eight-and-a- half stones and that’s too little. He says that I have to drink plenty of good red wine. And I dislike it so.

I have been busy this week putting vegetables in cans for the winter and making fallen apples into jelly. I am looking forward now to going in my own home again. Nine months of hotel life is enough to sicken one.

It is Hermenia’s birthday so we are very happy. She had such a big post and I think it pleased her mother more than her to hear the letters read.

The people here seem to realise now that I do not intend to return. They cannot understand that we leave such a beautiful home and especially when we have spent so much money on it. One old man grumbled at me for an hour last week when I said that I could not live among such people. He said that we could live here all our lives and no one would molest us again. He said that the people had found out their mistake. The real truth is that they are afraid that a person will come into our house and work the land himself and then they will not have enough land for themselves. I asked the old man if we should consider the people who had not considered us. And if he thought that we must stay here just because the people thought it fit to let us. Then if they thought it fit to annoy us again they could do so.

I said it was not my character to live on tolerance and that wherever we lived it would cost money. For that money we could live anywhere. It was easy to find better people than lived in this village. The next day he sent a man to say that he had heard of a cheap motor car that would just suit Herr Dröege since we had now no horse. He does not believe, even yet, that we shall not return.

I hear very little about the war. They say that Italy makes no progress at all. But Belle says she reads in the neutral papers that they have got one or two large cities. The Germans say they got a lot of war material in the last place they took in Russia. I do not believe half I hear.

I wonder when they will write from home. Their letters are very few and I long for news from Canada. I never hear from them at all. I had a letter from Gladys Unquhart last month and she says that she is now in the confectionery business as all things are bad on account of the war.

We received orders last week that all copper and brass must be given up to the government. All kettles and pans are being taken away and the people must get iron ones. It means a lot of trouble here. All the wash boilers are copper and when they cook a pig they cook it in the boiler. Here in our house the boiler is of copper and we can cook four hundredweights of plums at once as it is so large. The government will get a lot of copper that way but the people do not want to part with their heirlooms. Silver was collected early in the year and still gold is collected. In one place they received over eight hundred wedding rings and the people got the value in money and an iron ring in exchange. All the men here wear wedding rings so there is a great many in use.

The third war loan is called up at five percent interest and to be paid back in twenty years.

I had a long talk with Anna, the married sister of Hermenia who lives in Leipzig. She told me that she was often without bread in the house and could not buy it for love nor money and must cook potatoes often in the day.

I wonder if English prices compare with ours here.

Bread is two pence per pound, white bread four pence per pound, and limited to half a pound per day. Butter is two shillings per pound. Tea is eight shillings per pound. Coffee is two shillings and sixpence per pound. Meat for boiling is one shilling and three pence per pound. Meat for roasting is one shilling and ten pence per pound.

Lard is one shilling and sixpence per pound. Rice is a shilling per pound. Sago is ten pence per pound. Potatoes are one penny per pound. Milk is four pence per quart. Cream is forbidden to be sold. Oil is sixpence per quart. You can only get a quart per week and most houses burn lamps. Coal is one shilling and sixpence per hundredweight. Brickettes are one and three pence.

Many things you cannot buy and wooden articles are very scarce.

The English are to blame for it all.

You go each week to the town hall for your bread tickets. They have your name and address and how many people in the house. You get bread tickets accordingly. The baker dare not sell without these tickets because he must give tickets to account for his flour or his flour is short. When a stranger comes in he must bring his ticket from his town hall and take it to our town hall. He then gets it exchanged for one of ours or he gets no bread. You can only buy a dinner of vegetables and meat at a hotel. If you want tea and bread you must give your bread card – green tickets for four ounces and red tickets half a pound and so on. There is no way of dodging. If you are a farmer and have pinched a cut of corn the miller dare only grind you so much per month according to the people on your ticket, which is from the police. The baker dare only bake so much per week so you are stuck.

The worst is where there are children who always want a piece of bread. Here in the land it is better. The people have killed their two or three pigs in the winter and put them in cans. That is such a good idea.

One man in the village has a machine and sells the cans. A two pound can costs three pence and you cook your meat, vegetables and fruit, put it in the can and take it to the man. He puts a lid on, puts it in the machine, turns the handle for a second, and your lid is fixed on air tight. The Steinoffs killed a calf last week and the flesh was put in cans, eight and ten pounds, ready for the threshing feast. It’s a fine idea. Then when you open the can it can be used again. You send it to the man with the machine and he cuts it level. The same can is used many times a year until it gets cut down too small for further use.

I have done twenty-two pounds of apples and twenty-six pounds of beans ready for the winter and then I will send them to Wörth Strasse villa. I will also send five hundred pounds of potatoes in sacks and two hundred pounds of apples and pears before I leave here.

I am glad August is over. The Germans have made great progress and so many forts in Russia have fallen. Over half a million prisoners have been taken. The papers each day are full of victories. Last August it was the same in France and Belgium.

I was in Hildesheim today and got a shock when I went to buy a few things. Woollen shirting, which I gave one shilling and nine pence per yard for in England and which was two shillings and nine pence here before the war, is now four shillings and nine pence per yard. They told me that when they sold out of their present stock there was to be no more.

The decorator, who I wanted to do some painting, told me that he could only do a little as his oil and turpentine was nearly run out and he could get no new. Oil that cost eight pence before the war was now two shillings and nine pence for the same quantity.

There are notices in the paper of the calling in of the half pieces of nickel (five pfennigs). We are to have them made out of iron and the nickel is to be used for bullets.

I think that things are bad for everyday we have men here to buy the animals and none are for sale. The price now is one hundred and twenty-five marks or shillings per hundredweight for pigs and one farmer was offered one hundred and forty shillings a hundredweight for a pig that weighed four hundred pounds. He refused it. So it sounds as if pigs are scarce.

I have enjoyed a good servant and Hermenia will come with me.

Arthur writes that he has hopes of being with me soon. I have my doubts.

They certainly have a way here of making you feel important. Just take the instance of my getting permission to travel to the estate, some twenty-eight miles distance, and going to take baths in Salzdetfurth which lies just between the two places, Hildesheim and Woltershausen. In the first place it took fourteen days to get permission and then I must announce to the mayor of the village that I was here by police permission. The police in Salzdetfurth were informed that I came to bathe three times a week and the railway officials too. The man who owns the baths was also informed that I was coming. The officials on our rail (Woltershausen) were informed that I could travel three times a week and the railway servants in Hildesheim also. All my letters must go to the Hildesheim police to be read before they go away and before I receive them. It is enough to make you feel
very
important.

We are having miserable weather this last few weeks and it is bad for the farmers.

We hear that all the fortresses of Russia have fallen and that there is to be a big transport of men and guns to France.

In the papers today there is a list of what people can do to help their government to have plenty to give the people to eat. With two million prisoners there will be a lot to do to provide food. Every rood of German land has been cultivated. Where there were no men to work the land prisoners have been sent. They are to gather all the horse chestnuts to cook for the pigs, and all acorns. Parties of school children go and gather them. All cherry stones (from preserving), all plum stones and all small nuts from the lime trees are to be gathered and sent to be made into oil. Very good oil is in the nuts and the people can cook with it.

Every school has so much used wool and cotton yarn sent according to the numbers of scholars (girls) and the school is responsible for so many socks for the soldiers. The management is fine and the little ones knit the legs and the older ones knit the feet. The children must take the work home and do so much per week.

Went to Hildesheim today and arranged for the house. Belle is quite excited and takes such a great interest in it. I am sure that we will be happy there - as much as we can be in these times. I am feeling a lot better and I notice it in the walk to and from the station. Before I had to rest many times because of palpitation but now I rest only once.

They are taking in all the copper, brass and nickel this week. Belle went into a shop to buy a piece of nickel and they said they dare not sell any metal other than enamel. In the drapers also only one bobbin of cotton is allowed to each person. Belle had asked for two.

If you take your brass pans, candlesticks, copper kettles etc. before the 20
^th
of September you get one shilling and sixpence a pound for brass, two shillings for copper and ten shillings for nickel. After the 20
^th
it is to be called up. Then it has not been given free willing and you will only get one third the price. They have a way here of making you free willing.

The gendarme called here yesterday and told them to get their iron kettles ready. For if they had killed a pig, and the copper kettles were called up, they would have nothing to cook it in.

There is ammunition for over twelve months. Germany always looks twelve months ahead.

After next week we are to have more bread per person as the harvest has been good and we were only limited to see if the harvest was all right. Even if it was not we have bread enough on this allowance until next year’s harvest is ready.

I went hay making yesterday and we are having lovely weather.

Had a letter from James Walmsley and he says that there is a record August in Blackpool and all our people are there. He says Winnie has grown in the last twelve months.

Here in Germany there are no bands or amusements and never a piano in a house is played. Everyone is too serious and all have people at the front and nearly all have lost someone. Sadness is the chief note. No one thinks of pleasure trips and they cannot believe it is not the same in England. When I mention it they wonder at the want of feeling displayed. According to our papers they are terribly afraid of a German invasion in England.

We are sad today for the last son of the Stoffregans must go away tomorrow and he is the third son to go. The old man is too old to plough it and the wife and daughter are very much upset.

We had news yesterday that we can have no more butter for the next few days and the people are angry about it. Butter and milk are scarce at the dairies and the people say that if they get no butter they will keep their milk and make butter themselves. I cannot understand it for we always got our butter from Holland.

Yesterday, and also last Sunday, from every pulpit the people were begged to take up the third war loan. If you pay ninety-six marks you get papers for a hundred marks before the 20
^th
of September. But if it is later you must pay the hundred marks for a hundred worth of paper. The people are told to take all their savings out of their saving banks and put it in the loan. They will get five percent and can always sell their certificates if necessary. If the people do not quite understand about it then they must go to their Catholic or Protestant priest and he will do all the correspondence for them. The smallest sum is one hundred marks or five pounds sterling.

We are having lovely weather this September and I am busy with the fruit and am out all day. I feel extra well. Belle and Carole are coming tomorrow so I am preparing for them a little.

My stay here is drawing to a close. I go to Hildesheim early in October.

We had a nice day on Tuesday and Carole and Belle were delighted with the place. We had a long chat with Stoffegan about the prices of pigs which are now at one hundred and fifty marks (shillings) per hundredweight. Swine flesh is one shilling and ten pence per pound, beef two shillings, butter two shillings and two pence, flour four pence, lard one shilling and eight pence, rice one shilling and eggs two pence each. Many things are too dear for the poor people to buy and many are not to be had. Coal is one shilling and ten pence per hundredweight and coke is one shilling and six pence for the same.