3rd - 6th October, 1947 - International politics lead to a sense of uncertainty, while local politics lead to a sleepless night...

Friday, 3^rd October, 1947

The “I.G.”[1] came to the station today and men from all over the District came to hear him say he knew nothing of the future for us but advised us to carry on with our long term plans and not jump to conclusions read from the newspapers.

The cinema in the club tonight showed “ The Hidden Eye” which I have seen on two occasions before.

 [1]At this time the Inspector General was a former Royal Marine Commander, Colonel William Nicol Gray

Saturday, 4^th October, 1947

Sunday, 5^th October, 1947

No entries 

Monday, 6^th October, 1947

Modern day Balata-al-Balad - literally "Balata the Village"

At half past one in the middle of the night myself and all the station were awakened by the sounds of rifle & automatic fire from very nearby.

We thought the prisoners were giving more trouble so went back to sleep only to be wakened by the Sarg. who was very inebriated, and told to get dressed.  The shooting had been in Balata Village [2] about a mile away.  After four hours in the village in which time the A.S.P. who had been in the prison wine-ing and the Palestinian Inspector and others arrived on the scene.  Questioning revealed that the Mukhtar (on his way to Mecca) and an Elder had been recently deprived of their black marketing control of the village rations by a majority vote led by another elder.  It was the house of this latter on which the shots had been fired.

[2]Balata became the site of a large refugee camp housing up to 30,000 Palestinian refugees displaced from the Jaffa region during the troubles that followed the British withdrawal in early 1948.