Grandad’s Diary. 26th January 1945

Entry from 26th Janurary 1945

Saw Widders and Bill Knight. Rather overjoyed at seeing old mates. Life deadling waiting. Usual duff gen that trip may be off yet.

It’s good to hear Grandad talking about old friends. It helps him transcend the Grandad I knew as an eight-year old into more of a real person.

A couple of words I wasn’t sure about here. Firstly the word ‘waiting’ – I’m presuming that because the phrase ‘life deadly waiting’ makes some kind of sense to me as that of it’s so boring and tense waiting for something as dramatic as going overseas to fight for your country… However I could be completely mistaken and it doesn’t actually say waiting.

The second is the phrase ‘duff gen’, which I thought makes no sense, until I discovered that there is an entire dictionary of RAF slang and it’s all on Wikipedia. ‘Duff gen’ is slang for incorrect intelligence. I love that insight into the rumours flying around that the next push into Europe might not happen, and also the fact that Grandad was on to them – he was wise enough to recognise a rumour for what it was, i.e. duff gen.

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