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 news of allied landing in Spitzbergen, mentions funny stories she has heard and comments on attack on Berlin. Writes about air raid warnings and their shelter in the garden. Mentions changing to the Times newspaper and parcel of baby clothes from mother.

Date

1941-09-09

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

EValentineUMValentineJRM410909

Transcription

Start of transcription
[underlined] No 24 [/underlined]
Lido
Tuesday 9th Sept.
My darling Johnny,
There’s no letter to answer this morning, but in case you haven’t heard the news I may mention that the Allies have occupied Spitzbergen. We apparently sent a mixed British Canadian & Norwegian force and quietly took the place some little time ago. It looks jolly important for us on the map, but I don’t know how ice-bound it is right up there. It seems there are large coalmines which may be useful – anyway its better the Germans don’t have them. Altogether it appears to be a good show, incredible isn’t it?
[page break]
Peter told us two rather nice stories. One is from Lilliput, I don’t know whether you’ve seen it. There was a picture of an irate kangaroo holding her trembling offspring out by the scuff of its neck and saying “How often have I told you not to eat biscuits in bed?”
The other was a true one from Rugby where they have a rag week in aid of the local hospital & all go a bit mad. Apparently some apprentices from the works rolling thro’ the town saw a chemist’s shop window displaying toilet rolls built up into a large V. So they wrote out a notice and stuck it up on the window, saying “Buy a Victory Roll and help to wipe out Jerry”.
[page break]
That must have been a terrific raid on Berlin two nights ago, I expected a reprisal last night but all was quiet. A few nights ago there was gunfire and a few bombs were dropped but there was no warning so we did nothing about it. The air-raid shelter is a terrifically heavy thing and once we’ve got it up we shan’t be able to move it about. Apparently it can’t stand right in the corner because you have to be able to get all round it to tighten up the springs on the floor. However unless peace breaks out quickly we shall be very thankful to have it, however bulky it is.
[page break]
We have started to take the Times instead of the Telegraph because the latter has been steadily deteriorating of late, and Barbara likes the times crossword better. Incidentally The Times costs twice as much so Ba’s going halves on the bill.
We have received another parcel from Mother, containing mostly baby clothes including a very dainty little muslin dress with sweet embroidery and a lovely warm pram coat. Frances is acquiring quite an extensive wardrobe.
What do you think of your chances of leave? Do most people get it? You really are due for it by right, aren’t you? I do hope this warmer weather holds when you’re here, its really lovely just now.
With all my love, longing to see you again
[underlined] Ursula [/underlined]

Collection

Tags

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/19629.

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