3 OCTOBER 1941, Page 10

The best of them all was the gipsy story, which

I regret to see is now dying down. It had many variations. The more reckless among us told the story as having happened to a man we knew down in Wiltshire. The more cautious just told the story. Some gipsies refused to camp on a certain field on the ground that it would be bombed the next Thursday. It was bombed. Impressed by this prevision the landlord asked the gipsies whether they could tell him when the war would end. They replied " Three months after the death of your farmer." The farmer in question was in the prime of life: he died suddenly on August 3rd last. Therefore the war ends on November 3rd next.