I am getting more and more settled down. But I won't be quite right until my things come. Fagging starts for us next Teusday. It is run on the same principle as the Gallic councils that tortured and killed the last man to arrive; here one fagmaster calls and all his fags run the last to arrive getting the job. You have to have cold showers in the morning here like cold baths at Marlborough. We have tea at 6.30 here on Mon., Wed., Frid. I manage to go without food from lunch to then. … The general strike had a part of it as a printer's strike the result of that is that 'Bennetts' booksellers had none of the books ordered and I am without a lot of them. As in most public schools new boys have to sing some song. The time has not yet come. I am not sure what to sing anyhow it won't be 'buttercup'. … The amount of work we are given for Hall here is sometimes absurdly small e.g. Read Acts chapters 3 and 4 and that is for 3/4hr.

Yr loving son Alan

There was indeed a song-singing and another ceremony in which he was kicked up and down the day room in a waste paper basket. However, if his mother read between the lines, she subordinated sympathy to her sense of duty. Her comment on this letter was that it displayed Alan's 'whimsical sense of humour'.