Sunday, 8 May1955
Much calmer. Sun shining. We sleep past breakfast until lunch. We show up on the Sports Deck where the rest of our newly formed group is already ensconced and engaged in conversation.
After dinner there is more political discussion and talk of New Yorker cartoons (No, I have never sold the New Yorker but Ruth did sell them one of the little fillers they run at the bottom of the page) until the wee hours of the morning.
Will has got a haircut and is wearing a new suit. He looks quite dapper. He confides that he is to be married at the end of summer in England. Well, that would make one want to leave for home, wouldn’t it?
The Scots boys are working as building inspectors in Newfoundland and expect to return after a spell in London. They say there is a lot of unemployment in Canada, many soup kitchens with long queues.
The Scots seem to avoid the many Cockneys on board. Don says nobody can get along with them because they don’t like anyone else. [These sketches were done at a later date.]
Don says that the people get better in Britain the further north one goes. Will allowed as how Londoners appear snooty but are quite friendly when approached by a stranger.
That sounds encouraging, but what’s all this about the Stone of Scones that the Scots boys say they want to get back from the English?