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| A big house in Oostacker (not necessarily the one mentioned). Vlaamse Gemeenschap, CC BY 4.0 |
When we had been at Oostacker four weeks those of us not in billets moved into a big house and occupied the first floor. The Belgian family lived downstairs but we didn't see very much of them. The six of us managed to get into a room together. It was nice to be able to look out of the windows and see the rain pouring down without hearing it on the roof. Very soon we found that there would be scrubbing of floors and stairs to do but as it only came around once a week it wasn't too bad. The cookhouse was put in a house across the road.
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| "Dead 'ot on fluff under beds . . ." |
I had a dose of constipation so I wasn't able to go out for a couple of weeks but after that I went to town again. I wandered around the shops for a while and then went to the E.N.S.A. [1] Cinema to see Tommy Trinder in "Champagne Charlie". After this came tea in the Canadian Legion, and then we saw and E.N.S.A. show called Jack Radcliffe "Revels of 1944". This was a very good show. While we were at Oostacker two Army chaps used to come along with a small truck and give is a film show each Tuesday afternoon. Even with this portable equipment it was always a very good show, which usually lasted over two hours. Some of the films shown were "Higher and Higher", "On Approval", "Meet the People", "Going My Way", and "Heavenly Body".
We managed to fix up a football game here with 15071 who were situated only the other side of Ghent. As this unit had nearly all of the old 103 Maru [?] team we didn't think much of our chances. As it was we did better than we thought and only lost 3-1. I played goalkeeper and was kept very busy.
My third trip into Ghent came after we had been here nearly seven weeks. I went in on my own and did the same thing as I had done before. A walk around the shops, a visit to the Cinema to see "Up in Mabel's Room", then tea in the Canadian Legion and this time straight back to camp. I had one more similar visit to Ghent before leaving there.
