Letter from Mrs F. Payne to Doris Weeks

Letter from Mrs F. Payne to Doris Weeks

Very happy to receive three letters from Doris and one from her mother. Offers opinion on photographs, speculates over Malcolm's fate and relates dreams about him.

1944-12-30

Two page handwritten air letter

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.

EPayneMLWeeksD441230-01

[underlined] No1 [/underlined]
Box 29.
“Yarawonga”
Watervale
30.12.44
My dear Doris,
I was hoping for some mail yesterday but did not expect the grand big one I got. Three Air letters from you & one from your mother!! I was so thrilled & excited when Pop came in with them. I opened yours & put them in their correct order (they all having been written the same night) & had a grand old read! Lets see now. About your snaps. How did we like them? We are of the same opinion as Malcolm Shall I tell you what he said, or rather, how he described you? Had written about an air graph all about your mother, then added quite casually “By the way, Mrs Weeks has a most beautiful daughter.” So there you are! I was reading the letter to Pop & he said “So I knew there was a catch in it!” Yes poor little Peggy has had a bad blow. She is brave, without a doubt. I wish you’d check up on her information re. location, I have done so this end, & it is all the same, everyone was given that place & mentioned to you & all our friends were most excited over it, being so near Swiss territory. I know only too well, my dear, that Malcolm had too much to live for, & loved life too dearly, to take any risks. He would bale out if he could. And that is what tortures me – [underlined] Could [/underlined] he? I lie awake for hours at night, wondering what happened & praying to God that he didn’t suffer. It is strange you should mention that you’ve been dreaming about him. Every night for a week, & even longer before he went, I saw him baling out, & one night I screamed so loudly I woke myself & Pop up. Instead of a parashute [sic] this night, he was holding a white shirt by the shoulders & I was yelling, when I woke up, “He’ll never make it!” When a friend of ours heard the dreadful news (he’s headmaster at Watervale school) he said “Payney is alright. I was dreaming about him last night & saw him bale out & land safely & saw him
[page break]
& heard him laugh, just as tho he stood in front of me.” Wasn’t it strange? Well. After hearing our news, I never dreamed of the poor kid again & I used to try & will myself to dream as he seemed quite lost to me, but I couldn’t. However for a week past now I have been dreaming of him & tho some of the dreams do not make sense, I see him quite vividly usually looking thro a window at me, always laughing, but I can never get near enough to speak to him. Yesterday I had a letter from Keith & he wrote “No you know, Mother, I’ve the strangest feeling about Mac & am sure we’re going to have news of him.” I couldn’t let my hopes be raised because a disappointment would break my heart, if it isn’t already broken. I had several snaps from Mac but none of him before Edinburgh Castle, so if he sent it I didn’t receive it. He gave me a gold Airforce locket for my birthday (his last in Aus!) & I always wear his photo in it. Now I must stop but will write another. Bye, lots of love
[signature]
Xxx
xxx
Sender’s name and address:-
MRS. F. PAYNE
WAGTERVALE
Sth. Aust.
Miss D. Weeks
37 Hawthorne Rd.
Bunkers Hill
LINCOLN
ENGLAND