Letter from Ursula Valentine to her husband John Valentine

Letter from Ursula Valentine to her husband John Valentine

Writes that she is urgently waiting his reply to her telegram but nothing yet. Hopes that she will be able to join him and asks him to get travel voucher for her and her dog. Describes parcel received from mother with his birthday present and some baby clothes. Writes of great excitement over Rudolf Hess 'dropping in' at Glasgow. Continues with baby matters and news of daily activities. Concludes with more plans for future and domestic financial matters.

1941-05-13

Four page handwritten 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.

EValentineUMValentineJRM410513

Trefilan May 13th
Darling Johnnie, It's agonising waiting for your reply to my telegram. At first I even hoped you might get it in time to ring up last night, then I thought I'd get a wire from you this morning, letting me know the worst or best, so that I could have written the various letters which hang on your reply by today's post. Now it looks as tho' I shall have to wait till tomorrow – or maybe this evening. I do so hope that I can come to you, but the longer I wait, the more I fear that I shan't be able to. If I can come, I hope you'll think to get another travel voucher for me, & I hope you'll have made sure
[page break]
about Jane as well.
A parcel arrived from Mother this morning, sent on by Bunty. It contains your birthday present, which I will post off to you today. There were also two lovely little sets for the baby, trousers, jackets buttoning up at the back & bootees to match, & another little coat. I'm longing to be able to put Frances into some of the lovely clothes she now possesses instead of having her always in her Viyella night-gowns, but while she sleeps all day there's no point.
Great excitement this morning over Rudolf Hess dropping in at Glasgow. One is tempted to jump to all sorts of wishful conclusions
[page break]
about internal strife, morale cracking & all the rest. I only wish someone would push old Adolf out of a plane & have done with it!
Frances was pretty good last night, slept till 4 am & then only gurgled & whimpered to herself instead of shouting the place, down, so that I didn't feed her till 6 am. She was very good over her bath too & hardly murmured a protest. I was more weary than I realised yesterday after walking into town with Frances in my arms. My arms & legs were quite shaky afterwards – or perhaps that was the result of your letters! Anyway, I took it quietly
[page break]
all afternoon, & luckily had a good night too. My glands on each side of my throat are a bit swollen & sore – much better today - & Mrs S. says that's a result of weakness too tho' I'd never heard of such a thing.
If I come to you, shall I bring that electric fire or shall I try to pack it up & send it back to Lido? We shall hardly be likely to want it & its a nasty bulky thing. I wrote to Grindlays yesterday on the lines you suggested. What would you think would be a fair cover for the furnishings of Lido? £500? or £1000? OR £2000? I've no idea, but would think not more than £1000.? I left it to them to value it, telling them the size of the house. You & I, not being householders, are still covered for £100 together so perhaps that's enough for our small belongings? I asked them to let me know what they do about it. Must feed Frances now, so all my love to you darling - & au revoir! Ursula