Thrasher on thin ice

THE POSTMARK was smudged, but the date on the letter itself showed that it had taken some eight days to reach me. (A heart‐warming indication, as my friend Abe Silence would be quick to point out, of how the quality of life has improved for postmen.) The greeting was ‘Dear Old Mate’ and the address read ‘Somewhere in England’. Thrasher, in wartime humour, had struck again.