01 Jan 1943, John Charter's wartime journal

A Happy New Year everybody!

This morning Yvonne and I went on our rounds and wished numerous friends a much happier year than the last. There has been quite a feeling of optimism about all day, for everyone feels that this year will see the end of this war. Even for those who lost dear ones here during the fighting, 1943 will be a happier year than 1942. It has been a great help, in many ways, for those last mentioned people that we have spent a year here in these unnatural and exceptional conditions, for it would have been far more difficult for them to sustain their loss if life had flowed on in its normal channels than it has here, where things are so abnormal and where the majority of people are separated from their husbands and wives. It has given them a year in which to slowly accustom themselves to the idea.