To Jessie from Harry Redgrave

To Jessie from Harry Redgrave

A letter and envelope from Harry Redgrave to his wife Jessie. He writes about memories of their home-life and admits to being homesick. He has finished some tricky examinations and hopes to have more time in the evenings. Harry plans out Jessie's proposed visit with the idea of shopping in Glasgow and sightseeing.

The back of the envelope has been used for housekeeping calculations.

1940-04-06

Four handwritten sheets and an envelope

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Mrs. H. C. Redgrave [inserted] 73 [/inserted]
Redwood
Oaken Grange Drive
Prittlewell
Essex
[postage stamp]
[page break]
House owes me 22
[deleted] I owe Milly 2 [/deleted]
[deleted] House owes Joyce 64 [/deleted]
Butcher 23 ½
[deleted] Laundry 1 [/deleted]
Papers 1-1
Greengrocer 2 0
7 – 6 ½
14 7 ½
[page break]
Redbrae
Monkton
Ayrshire Sat 6. 40
My Darling Jessie,
Your Standard and letter arrived today and your little bouquet of violets. Thank you for your kindly thought; they seemed to bring back visons of our little bungalow and trim lawns with Pamela playing and you looking smart and neat doing the gardening and with me just coming in from work on the Bean and being greeted with a kiss from you and a “Hullo Daddy from Pam. Darling those days were wonderful and the thought of them makes me miserably homesick and just longing for the day when [inserted]we[/inserted] can be together again. But then I did not mean to write in this strain and meant to tell you about todays [sic] exam.
This second course exam has been a stinker and I shall be surprised if I maintain my 80% It was a terrific rush and the ten questions to
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be done in the three hours were all sub-divided and in all made up about twenty five [sic] answers to be given. You remember me telling you how we applied for postponement of this exam well the instructor concerned had his own back today. His two questions for which we could allocate thirty six [sic] minutes had umpteen things to do in each one and it took me fifty minutes to do them. Anyhow its [sic] all behind me now and it’s a relief to think that we have three weeks and then we do our finals and after that we can begin a better mode of living. Its [sic] not any good for one to stop in night after night working away one even forgets how to enjoy oneself. This evening I went into Ayr to the pictures and afterwards had a cup of coffee but cant [sic] realy [sic] say I enjoyed myself. I do miss you so darling but there I go again thinking of myself. You must find it hard too. We have always lived for each other and I suppose you feel as lost as I do when we go out with anybody else.
As soon as I know the results of this exam and all still well I am going to make
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arrangements for you come up here. Tentatively I suggest you leave home on Thursday evening getting here Friday morning and meeting me at tea time when I shall be free until Monday morning. I could stay out [inserted]until[/inserted] Monday night and you could leave Prestwick again on Tuesday morning or evening and get home Wednesday. Let me know if you could fix that up with Mum and Milly and as soon as possible I will fix things up this end. All this commencing Thursday 18th April.
Well goodnight my sweetheart I will write you some more tomorrow.
Sunday.
Hullo darling I hope you are getting better weather in the South than we are here. April had been truly showery up to now and this morning it was teeming down until just before Church Parade when the sun came out and it was bright until dinner time but has rained off and on since. After church this morning Ian and I bought a couple of newspapers and walked down onto the front and sat in a shelter from the cool wind and had a read for about an hour. After that we went to the Homestead and had a
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coffee and biscuit and sat around until dinner time.
While out this morning I noticed several places where we can stay for our week end and I have been planning what we can do. On Friday evening we will walk into Ary [sic] [Ayr]and we go to the pictures and on Saturday morning will go to Glasgow and we can go over Lewis’s and look at all the big shops and we will have our dinner in the restaurant in the store, where they have a lovely orchestra. On Sunday we can ramble over the hills to the Heads of Ayr and down to Alloway and the Brig.O. Doon. If we have time we may get down towards Maybole and south from there its realy [sic] mountainous. It will make a great change for us both and I am sure you will enjoy every minute of your stay in Scotland.
I have just got time for a bath before tea so I must close now. Give my love to all from your
Always loving
Harry. xxxxx
P.S. Tell Pamela Daddy sends his love and hopes she is a good girl.