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This story was submitted to the People's War site by Lin Freeman of Radio Derby CSV on behalf of Olive England and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I stirred and my wooden bed creaked. Opening one eye I looked at my watch. “Goodness, it’s never that time”, and I jumped out of bed — must have missed the rising bell. “Relax, it’s Christmas Day”, so I sank back on the hard bed again. A few minutes later (or so it seemed) there was a banging on the door.
“Wake up, the Officer is coming round with a pot of tea” shouted Vera.
“Go away, it’s Christmas Day, not the first of April” I replied.
“It’s true, they’ve just gone to no.5”. Time for action indeed, better wake Ciss up first, her temper and language is unbearable first thing in the morning.
“Wake up, Ciss” I shouted “Officer Watkins and Sergeant Mac are coming round with tea and you mustn’t swear”. Now who next? Joan is a deep sleeper. “Wake up Joan, cuppa tea is coming round”.
“Crikey” said Joan, “pass me my mug, my teeth are in it!”
In a few minutes flat five pairs of bleary eyes and five chipped mugs at the ready faced the door.
“Good morning, girls, Merry Christmas”.
“Morning, Ma’a’rm. Morning, Sarge. Mac” we replied in chorus. As the door closed we sipped our warm, sweet tea. This was bliss indeed. Breakfast anytime up until 9a.m and dress informal, no buttons to polish. We strolled down to breakfast. There was another surprise. A real egg and marmalade. This was a change from golden syrup, which always ran into your baked beans before you could sit down, and no queue at the tea bucket. Afterwards as I lay on my crumpled bed and added ‘no bed to barrack’ to my list of joys, my eyes wandered to a Christmas card on a nearby shelf ‘Peace on earth, goodwill towards man’.
Was this the wonderful feeling of Peace and Goodwill towards man?

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