Letter to Jessie from Harry Redgrave

Letter to Jessie from Harry Redgrave

Three-page handwritten letter from Harry Redgrave to his wife Jessie. Harry writes about life in the RAF at his station in Yorkshire including observers being posted to Scotland, training and his social life in Doncaster.

1940-10-04

Three handwritten sheets

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.

ERedgraveHCRedgraveJM401004-0001,
ERedgraveHCRedgraveJM401004-0002,
ERedgraveHCRedgraveJM401004-0003

[RAF Crest]

Sgts Mess
Finningley
Yorks
4. 10. 40

Dear Jessie,
Its [sic] a most miserable night and I have just returned from Doncaster having gone in to get some shopping and am sitting round a big fire in one of the lads [sic] billet

Being pay night I had hoped to go and get your present but as I have not heard from you since Tuesday I do not know what you want and have got [inserted] back [/inserted] early to have a read and [smudged] write [/smudged] you this letter. The [deleted] whe [/deleted] weather has been very bad from a flying point of view and have spent most of the time sitting around in the crew room.

My hopes of [smudged] next [/smudged] week end [sic] leave have had rather a shock as a number of observers have been posted to Scotland without doing their Crew Training Course

[page break]

and maybe that’s [sic] what will happen to us with the result no crew training course and [no] week end pass. Never mind hope for the best. Last night I went and saw “Bill of Divorcement” at the Gaumont and enjoyed it very much. As a stage turn was the R. A. F. Swinglette composed of players from Ambrose and other top line dance bands who gave a first class performance of some of the finer jazz classics such as Rhapsody in Blue. As it happened I had seen them the night before in a Mess dance in which the WAAFSs were invited. The dance went off very well. Going back to last night after the pictures we had fifteen minutes to wait for the bus so off down the street we went and had a threepenny and a pennorth [sic] which

[page break]

we ate out of the paper going back to the bus. It was pouring with rain but how we enjoyed our supper. Theres [sic] something about the way they cook fish and chips up this way that makes you want to go on eating them. I suppose its [sic] proximity to Grimsby gives us such fresh fish.

That’s all I tell you [sic] just now and I am looking for a letter from you tomorrow
Your devoted husband
Harry xxxx
xxx for Pamela
P. S. included P./O for £1.