Mrs. V. Evans, aged 40, died today.
((She became cyanosed after an operation in the camp hospital and died.
She would probably have survived had our supply of oxygen cylinders had not run out then. She was such a cheery person, and a great entertainer on the Stanley stage. I wrote a poem in memory of her, what she might have said at her own funeral:
Well I'll be blowed! What, all these people
Come to see me put away?
Left their queues and chores and cooking?
(And it's such a rainy day -
Not a day you'd do your washing,
Never get it dry for weeks;
Yet what can you do when you have
Just two pairs of flour-bag breeks?
Why've you all got hankies with you,
That's what I should like to know.
Big ones too, that means more washing;
How that Welfare soap does go.)
Look here, don't tell me you're crying,
Weeping for the likes of me!
Goodness gracious, well I never!
I don't call that tragedy.
After all, I'm no spring chicken
Though I'm game for much more fun;
There's younger folk than me been taken,
Fair's fair, when all's said and done.
I've had my youth, and then a husband
(Nicest chap you'd ever meet) -
Yes, we lost our little girl – but
While we had her she was sweet
It's this crowd I can't get over,
Half of Stanley must have come!
Still. I s'pose it makes a change, a
Funeral breaks the old hum drum.
Well, I think it's time you're moving
Back to work, and laugh and chat;
And listen, don't waste time on crying
Over me: I'm gone – that's that.
Sadly, her husband died a POW in Kowloon.))