The Christmas entertainment was held on December 15th early in the afternoon as we were unable to have the gym lighted after dark. The stage was not put up but the audience sat round the edge of the room and the play took place in the middle. The play written by me and acted by the Upper and Middle division was called 'The Land of No Matter Where.' 1 read the story. Eleanor and Mr Crageen had painted on large thick cardboard attractive little houses representing farm houses. These were held by three couples, Three farmers and their wives sitting at intervals diagonally across the room, representing the river valley. At the top end was a water-mill and down at the other end was a little town represented by market stalls showing fruit, eggs and other market produce with the square church tower in the background. To this quiet little valley comes puffing one day a little train (I wonder if Charles Taylor ever remembers that he was once a little puffing engine!) Behind him came, hands on shoulders, one behind the other, the Townsfolk from a big city on their day out. They look right and left out of the train and exclaim with delight at the lovely countryside. They decide to come and live here. Soon prim little modern villas spring up between the farmhouses and the newcomers bring new ideas and new ways. Then, one never to be forgotten day, the little puffing train brings a very important man in bowler hat with attaché case and umbrella. He travels upstream from the little town to the waterfall at the top which works the watermill. 'Ah' he exclaims 'This is the very spot where I can build my factory for the making of china pigs.' 'What,' says the miller, aghast at the idea. But sure enough the tall factory chimney rose up beside the waterfall and the whole character of the valley was changed. The river became polluted with the refuse from the factory, the houses were grimed from the smoke of the chimney and the fresh country-side spoilt by blight. There was quarrelling among the farmers and the new-comers when they met in the market-place, the farmers complained of the factory for china pigs and the new-comers complained of the smell from the real pigs. 'Why cannot you have china pigs like us?' they said 'Why can't we all have the same thing, why can't we all be alike, why? why? why?' 'STOP' said a loud voice and there in the market-place stood a tall hard-looking man. 'I am Mr Uniformity' he said 'You all want to be alike, you all want to look alike? Very well.' And he went round taking square grey caps from a bag under his arm and putting them on the head of each of the astonished people. Then he went up the river to their homes straightening up the banks as he went and turning the houses so that only the hard grey backs showed. The place was tidy and straight but oh so dull. When they went down to the market-place they found even the eggs and apples for sale were graded and uniform and in every home there was a china pig. One day a poet came whistling down the mountain side to the head of the waterfall and stopped aghast when he saw the altered appearance of the valley. He asked his old friends the farmers what had happened and they told him the sad tale, and asked his help. 'Wait a moment' he said and went back up the mountain side. Presently he returned with a lovely lady dressed in a beautiful rainbow dress. 'I am Lady Harmony' she said and took from her handbag numbers of scarves and ribbons all of different colours which she gave to each one of them. 'I give you back each your own individuality to live just as you please, - remembering only one thing- that it does no harm to your neighbour. So peace was restored to the valley though they could not blot out all the scars, as a broken vase is never the same however cleverly mended. But if anyone is ever inclined to grumble the others say: 'Remember the china pigs.'  It was the best of the war-time entertainments as so many factors - the shortage of staff, the influx of boarders, the opening of the Nursery Class, several epidemics of various kinds and 'doodle-bugs' in the latter part of the time all made life very busy.

In the Christmas holidays we had two senior girls as evacuees, Pamela Simon aged sixteen and Deirdre Fraymouth aged fifteen. Pamel's home was in London but Deirdre had been a boarder at the Manor House School for Girls in Godalming, and had left there prepared to join her mother and step-father in India. But she never got there and eventually stayed with us until she was old enough to join the WRNS. 

I shall never forget the first Christmas of the war. Bookham was reckoned a safe area but people who lived there and had gone to Scotland, Devonshire, Wales and other parts of the country for their summer holiday stayed there and let their houses to people coming out of London. But London people could not bear the quiet of the countryside, the unlighted lanes and the lack of shops and cinema and as time went on and nothing seemed to happen many of them gradually drifted back to London again. Eleanor had gone to Catterick to spend Christmas with my brother and sister-in-law, Mr. King had gone down to his wife and baby Ann Pat in Devonshire and the other two masters had gone to friends. The Rector who with his wife went as usual to spend Christmas at Bournemouth with his parents had asked us if we would entertain the curate who had only just come to the parish and knew no one. So mother and I, the domestic staff having made other arrangements, were left to cook Christmas dinner and entertain the two girls and the curate!