Letter from Jack Darby to Jean
Title
Letter from Jack Darby to Jean
Description
He has been to Nottingham for dinghy training and visited the town. They went to the cinema then had many beers before returning to camp. Two of her parcels have gone missing with cigarettes in one and a razor in the other.
Creator
Date
1944-11-25
Temporal Coverage
Coverage
Language
Format
Two double sided handwritten sheets and envelope
Publisher
Rights
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
Identifier
EDarbyCAHWellandJ441125
Transcription
[postage stamp] [postmark]
Miss J Welland,
7, Queens Drive,
Surbiton
Surrey
[inserted] 25-11-44 [/inserted]
[page break]
F/o. J. Darby, 154676,
Officers Mess
R.A.F. Station
Syerston
Notts.
Friday.
My darling Jean,
Was so pleased to receive your letter today. We had just finished flying and were going to have a late lunch at 3 o/c That’s one trouble with flying the meal-times are irregular the day before we did’nt get anything from 8 AM breakfast until 4.30 lunch, boy, was I hungry!
We’ve been into Nottingham once,
[page break]
2/
we had a wet dingy [sic] drill to do, for once the water was quite warm and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. After the swim we stayed in the town, first of all had a meal (most important) then went to the flicks to see Betty Grable in Pin.Up Girl, was pretty lousy but we endured Miss Grable’s curves for an hour or so. We then decided to have just one drink for the road that’s when the trouble started, there seemed an endless line of pubs to the bus stop, we finally caught the last bus, the inbetween [sic] time I will descretely [sic] pass over, to crown all things we were on early flying, doing [deleted word] corkscrews and
[page break]
3/
such things, not very kind to our stomachs I must say.
Shall be interested to see that letter that Aunt Lill wrote, I think it would be a good idea to frame it and then when you start nagging me I’ll just trot it out and remind you what a marvellous husband you have, don’t you think its a good idea?
When I was in Nottingham I had a look in the furniture shops, really prices are terrible, so afraid we shall even have to follow the sugar box your Mother is going to use as a table, have you discovered any way of getting the remaining
[page break]
4/
knife and fork?
Am afraid the parcel from home has disappeared the same way as your cigarettes, expect someone thought it contained a watch being small, bet they had a shock, a razor and two blades!
The war news seems pretty good, we are progressing slow but sure, Jack has been asked again if he would like to do the job I was talking about on leave but nothing definite has been settled, he did very well in his exams so thats quite a help.
Well my dear this is all for the moment, take care of yourself and roll on next leave! Remember me to Mother & Dad.
All my love, darling
Jack
Miss J Welland,
7, Queens Drive,
Surbiton
Surrey
[inserted] 25-11-44 [/inserted]
[page break]
F/o. J. Darby, 154676,
Officers Mess
R.A.F. Station
Syerston
Notts.
Friday.
My darling Jean,
Was so pleased to receive your letter today. We had just finished flying and were going to have a late lunch at 3 o/c That’s one trouble with flying the meal-times are irregular the day before we did’nt get anything from 8 AM breakfast until 4.30 lunch, boy, was I hungry!
We’ve been into Nottingham once,
[page break]
2/
we had a wet dingy [sic] drill to do, for once the water was quite warm and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. After the swim we stayed in the town, first of all had a meal (most important) then went to the flicks to see Betty Grable in Pin.Up Girl, was pretty lousy but we endured Miss Grable’s curves for an hour or so. We then decided to have just one drink for the road that’s when the trouble started, there seemed an endless line of pubs to the bus stop, we finally caught the last bus, the inbetween [sic] time I will descretely [sic] pass over, to crown all things we were on early flying, doing [deleted word] corkscrews and
[page break]
3/
such things, not very kind to our stomachs I must say.
Shall be interested to see that letter that Aunt Lill wrote, I think it would be a good idea to frame it and then when you start nagging me I’ll just trot it out and remind you what a marvellous husband you have, don’t you think its a good idea?
When I was in Nottingham I had a look in the furniture shops, really prices are terrible, so afraid we shall even have to follow the sugar box your Mother is going to use as a table, have you discovered any way of getting the remaining
[page break]
4/
knife and fork?
Am afraid the parcel from home has disappeared the same way as your cigarettes, expect someone thought it contained a watch being small, bet they had a shock, a razor and two blades!
The war news seems pretty good, we are progressing slow but sure, Jack has been asked again if he would like to do the job I was talking about on leave but nothing definite has been settled, he did very well in his exams so thats quite a help.
Well my dear this is all for the moment, take care of yourself and roll on next leave! Remember me to Mother & Dad.
All my love, darling
Jack
Collection
Citation
Jack Darby, “Letter from Jack Darby to Jean,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed June 15, 2025, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/collections/document/40094.