Documents on the The skies overhead here are strangely empty of planes. Total silence in fact. The car radio has the explanation .
January 17, 2008 (Thursday) Windsor (England) I LEAVE for the Public Record Office around 12, after seeing the gardener John alright with tea and assigning the housekeeper Dawn to get the house ready for houseguests this weekend. (My enlightened landlord provides both for one day a week, to make sure everything is properly cared for.)
Not that there is much furniture to arrange — most of it was seized and destroyed by the trustees appointed by the authorities; we have a final shoot-out over this infelicity next month. It is 12:30 when I get to the Kew archives, to spend the rest of the day reading the Heinrich Himmler decodes ; to my horror, the computer screens come up with “all seats full” messages — the building is undergoing a reconstruction, and capacity for us researchers is halved.
There’s a two-hour waiting list says Julie, the best of the PRO’s assistants, so I give up and drive