The “Times” in India – ‘We Scramble For It,’ Says Conisbrough Soldier

December 1945

South Yorkshire Times December 1st 1945

The “Times” in India.
‘We Scramble For It,’ Says Conisbrough Soldier

A reader now serving in India, L,Corpl. V. E. Rich, whose address is 14819666, M. T. Sec, Admin, Coy., 2 K.O.Y.L.L., 19, Ind. Inf .Bde, sends a cheerful letter of thanks for the South Yorkshire Times.” The paper reaches L/Corpl. Rich (a reader “ever since I could read”) and his friends regularly, and is evidently welcomed by them. L/Corpl. Rich writes, “just a few lines of thanks and appreciation for your good old paper, the “Times,” as it is known to the lads in my section. There are a lot of lads out here with me from Doncaster, Conisbrough, Denaby, Swinton, Parkgate and Wath.

So you can imagine the scramble when the paper arrives. There is almighty rush, and the paper is very neatly dissected and then not a word until all the local news has been devoured. Then the talk starts, and thousands of miles seems like the next street as first one, then another, talks about his little part of the world. It’s Yorkshire in the heart of central India.” Even when we were in the jungle right in the middle of the monsoon the “Times” used to arrive like a ray of sunshine, and everything was okay again.

“At the camp we are in at present we are having plenty of entertainment of one kind or another; mobile cinemas once per week, an E.N.S.A. show has just gone, not to mention a snake under my pillow 2 feet long. Two were killed in our training area, one 10 feet and other just over 15 feet, both pythons. There are plenty of jackals, a few deer and bags of baboons, so you can guess we have a fairly exciting time.”

“I must close now, so once again I thank you for a paper that brings home to us out here. Best wishes for Christmas and the New Year.”