Letter from Ursula Valentine to her husband John Valentine

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Title

Letter from Ursula Valentine to her husband John Valentine

Description

Writes of potentially successful photography of daughter Frances. They still need printing but she will send them when ready. Says she is doing her hair differently and describes it. Mentions daily activities and describes a girl who is billeted with them. Continues with other news and gossip and talks of his health and lack of commission.

Date

1941-08-31

Temporal Coverage

Spatial Coverage

Language

Format

Four page handwritten letter

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

EValentineUMValentineJRM410831-02

Transcription

Start of transcription
[underlined] No [deleted] 16 [/deleted] 17 [/underlined]
Lido
Sunday 31st Aug
My dearest one,
There’s great excitement in the camp this evening – Barbara has just developed a film of Frances, and it seems to be very successful as far as we can see from the negatives. Some of the shots are of Frances on the pot, some in her vest, one doing a “flying angel”, and three out in the garden lying kicking on a rug – that was this afternoon, it has been a perfectly glorious day here and we have been sitting out on the lawn – I went fast to sleep! We shan’t be able to print them tonight, but of course you shall see them as soon as they are ready. I enclose some prints of us that
[page break]
2.
Barbara made yesterday. Two of these you won’t have seen before, they are old ones she had in her camera – I like the one of you very much. The other two are Mrs Howie’s negatives, of course.
By the way, I’m doing my hair differently now. You might not notice much difference in the general bird’s nest effect, but it is in fact different. The idea is to make one long roll up each side of my face, with a centre parting, and [drawing of a face] when freshly done I look something like this. It doesn’t last of course.
This morning Mrs Stenzel and I abandoned the housework and went for a
[page break]
3.
long walk, up Ashley Lane round Page Street & back across the church fields – the usual round. It was very pleasant, and Frances seemed to enjoy it too.
Dorothy Smith, our Waaf, is quite a nice girl. She fits very well into the household, helps to wash up etc (she sometimes shares our supper when we’re having any, though I’m not bound to feed her at all.) She’s unobtrusive and pleasant, and is altogether very useful as a companion for me in the evenings while not entailing any extra work except making one bed. Altogether most satisfactory, I’m glad I agreed to take her.
[page break]
4.
Mrs Stenzel has not yet received the permit or whatever it is she needs, so doesn’t yet know quite when she will go.
I’m getting on with the agriculture book slowly, & find it most interesting – but its very solid reading.
I’ll leave this now in the hope of receiving a letter in the morning. Goodnight, darling, and all my love to you.
Monday
Your letter No 20 of Thursday duly to hand. I do hope you do move back to billets soon & can follow the doctors treatment for your nose. Its satisfactory to have some more rational explanation of your lack of taste.
I’m [underlined] glad [/underlined] there was only one commission granted on your course, tho’ of course the fact remains that [underlined] you [/underlined] should have got it. However I’m not bothering about it any more, the first agony of disappointment has now abated, & as you say perhaps you may get one later on.
All my love to you, dearest one – come to me soon or I shall die of longing for you
Ursula

Collection

Citation

Ursula Valentine, “Letter from Ursula Valentine to her husband John Valentine,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed March 28, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/19622.

Item Relations

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