7 Dec 1943, Barbara Anslow's diary

C.B. Younger died today.

((Other notes about December 1943:

In December 1943 we were rehearsing a 'farewell' concert by the children (whom we thought were soon going to be repatriated) which we put on in the Prison Officers club just before Christmas: recitations, choir numbers, and a short play 'The Room in the Tower' which we had adapted from the original (don't know who the author was).  Bill Colledge polished up the play which went very well, with Anneke Offenberg, Kristine Thoresen, Yvonne Blackmore, Rose, and Nita, though there was a last minute headache because  the day befire the performance, Anneke forgot to collect her little brother Arnold's milk ration so her parents forbade her to take part.  We frantically rehearsed Nita in Anneke's part the next day, when  Anneke's exam results came through and were so good that the parents relented.  Anneke was even better in the part of Lady Jane Grey awaiting execution as a result of all the crying she had been doing.

Father Meyer wrote a religious play for Christmas 1943, I had a very small part, as the wife of a character played by Hans Lourenz.  Mr Concannon was directing, practically from a sick bed.

We burned a fire in our room on Christmas night – there was not much in the way of extra food, though an ounce or so of margerine per head etc. came in.

Children's tableaux in the grotto, with Sally Leighton (4) as Mary.))