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 weather and daily activities. Continues with news of ferry command crash and other casualties. Continues with news of plans for next days. Mentions food she is sending and that she is getting through cash quickly but has not heard of extra from RAF. Writes of arrival of parcels and letter with his news.

Date

1941-09-03

Temporal Coverage

Spatial Coverage

Language

Format

Six 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

EValentineUMValentineJRM410903

Transcription

[underlined] No 19 [/underlined]
Lido
Sept 3rd
Wednesday
My dearest,
No letter has come so far today, & of course none yesterday, being Tuesday, but I’m still hoping. It’s going to be another hot day today by the feel of it. Frances is lying out with just a vest & silk dress on. Yesterday I spent an hour cutting the hedge – the first time it has been done since your severe pruning – I only did the hedge between us & The Popes & the front one, & then I bethought me that perhaps Peter would like to do the rest while he is down here, so I left it thankfully. I’m leaving the lawn-mowing in the same devout hope. The gardener didn’t come last week because it was raining on the appropriate afternoons, & there’s
[page break]
2.
still enough clearing up for him to[deleted]day[/deleted] do, in the raspberry bed etc Yesterday Mrs Lowe came over for a little while to see Frances & brought her a lovely woolly rabbit, but she wouldn’t stay to tea. She didn’t bring any winter veg. plants because Mr Lowe said it was too early to transplant his yet. I should have thought it was rather late!
Did you hear about the latest Ferry Command plane crash at your late aerodrome? It’s pretty grim. That’s the third in less than a month with a total loss of 54 lives. One crashed at the end of the new runway & the other two crashed into the familiar island mountain. Of course in the papers it didn’t specify which airport, but I thought it must the that one and Mrs Howie confirmed it. Seems very fishy to me, but the anti-sabotage arrange-
[page break]
3.
ments there never were too good. The worst of it is that they were all specially valuable lives, being experts & authorities of various kinds coming & going to the States on missions & official business. Bad show! There has been an official Air Ministry investigation after the 2nd crash. One that didn’t prevent the third one.
I’m going to ask Mrs Hagard & Olivia to tea one day soon, I sometimes meet Mrs H in the town & she’s always very friendly.
Mrs Stenzel & I have been busy bottling & jam-making. Fruit is so expensive & rare, still it will be worse in the winter so I thought I ought to do some. I’ve done 2 bottles of plums & some blackberry & apple, & Mrs S has made 3 lbs of apple jelly as well. I must make some marrow & ginger later on as well.
[page break]
I forgot to enclose your tie in the parcel, so hope to send it herewith.
I seem to be getting thro’ my cash at an awful rate. Mrs S. returned to me the £2 I sent to help pay her fare, but I regret I’ve spent most of it, 10/- for Mother’s & Daddy’s christmas books, 10/- to Mrs S. for her services, & the rest on nothing in particular except the extra fruit for preserving. It’s terrible how quickly it goes. I haven’t yet heard from the RAF about my extra 3/6 a week, but when that’s settled I suppose they’ll have to issue yet another book when you become a Serg. – or doesn’t that affect my allowance?
I do wish there was a letter from you, but I’m afraid it’s too late for the post now.
Dorothy saved a lovely ripe tomato from her RAF tea yesterday & brought it home for Frances, who ate the juice with relish this morning. Wasn’t it thoughtful of her? She leaves alternate mornings at 7 a.m & 5.15 a.m, & gets home either 6 p.m or 2 p.m. She’s working in the stores at the moment, it’s not very exciting for her.
All my love to you dearest all husbands – here’s the Postman!
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5.
Two letters & a parcel of socks! Not bad going. I’m so glad that you are back at Eaglehurst again, with Norman & the others. How on earth will you manage to get into camp in time in the mornings? Perhaps they send transport for you.
Thank you [underlined] very [/underlined] much for the lovely big bag of sweets (I’m sucking a barley sugar now) & for the salad cream, which is quite unobtainable here & will be greatly cherished.
I note the remarks about taking the Waaf dancing, she has fair hair done in little curls all round her head, so I think you’ll like her.
Yesterday I sent off a rather important letter containing the photos of
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Frances, also a NS&N & a parcel of washing. They were all addressed to the camp, so I hope you will have received them safely.
I love your story about the airmen telling the wing commander in civvies how badly his camp is run. Perhaps it will improve now.
All my love to you darling, I’m just pining to have you here again.
Yours always
Ursula

Collection

Citation

Ursula Valentine, “Letter from Ursula Valentine to her husband John Valentine,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed March 29, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/19624.

Item Relations

This item has no relations.