Acton Acton and welcome to the latest Christmas reading and today we've got a

slightly different take. This is from a diary by Veer Hodson. He was quite a

remarkable lady. She was born in 1901 in Edgberston in Birmingham where her

widowed mother ran the family home as a boarding house. Veer although actually

she was Winifred Veer but she was known as Veer. She was named after an uncle who

was a marine biologist on Captain Scott Ship and she read history at Birmingham

University and she taught at the Poggio Imperiali which was the former

summer palace of the Grand Jooks of Tuscany and she did that sort of

between the between the wars and then later taught at a school in

Folkston but from the early 1930s she was helping to run a local charity in

Notting Hill Gate in London and she did keep a diary right from childhood

onwards but also kept one up during the Second World War and of course witnessed

all the highs and lows of being a Londoner in that incredible period but rather

than me reading it because she's a she my beloved wife Rachel is going to be

reading it which I think is much better so you're all in for a bit of a treat.

December 1940 Monday the night. Last night was very bad indeed began soon after

5.30 pm. Barashnikov and I had to run from my place to the sanctuary as the

barrage was working up it never ceased until 2.30am. Many bonds came down some in

our district. On inquiry today I was found it was around the Sion Convent,

Cheap Stoivillars and Dawson Place, people buried. Miss Emma arrived back at 8 o'clock

I got her fire going and made myself a Mr. Hilliard a cup of tea. We had not

turned in until 2.am and had slept little. She had managed York there and back by

...