Letter from Ursula Valentine to her husband John Valentine
Title
Letter from Ursula Valentine to her husband John Valentine
Description
Writes about putting up air raid shelter and how they will use it. Continues with news of daily activities and mentions putting advert in paper for daily help.
Creator
Date
1941-09-10
Temporal Coverage
Language
Format
Four page handwritten letter
Publisher
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
EValentineUMValentineJRM410910
Transcription
Start of transcription
[underlined] No 25 [/underlined]
Lido
Wednesday
10th Sept.
My darling Johnny,
There has been no letter at all from you today, which is most unusual and unpleasant. I sincerely hope there’ll be one tomorrow morning.
We have been having a gloriously mucky time putting up the air-raid shelter. It is perfectly simple to do, though the parts are heavy to lift, and Peter and I did it in an hour or so. It doesn’t look as bad as I’d feared. The Persian rug, conveniently covers it, and when the divan is moved out (ie when Mrs Stenzel goes, I suppose)
[page break]
the room will be quite respectable though of course you can’t disguise the fact that there’s an air-raid shelter there. It should be comfortable to lie on too, because the floor is made of steel laths on springs woven in and out, and with a mattress over that it should be fine. Some acquaintances of Peter’s tell him that the only drawback is that the noises are amplified very much inside, but I thought I’d pad the top well with newspaper and then put that heavy rug over it and that should deaden the sound somewhat.
[page break]
It’s certainly extremely strong, and I shall feel that Frances is as secure as possible in there. Now I suppose peace will break out. Well, I wouldn’t mind!
Mrs Stenzel is making apple & green tomato [deleted] j [/deleted] chutney today, and tomorrow I hope to bottle some ripe tomatoes. There seem to be quite a number available just now, and they’ll be very welcome in winter if I bottle them.
I’ve put an advertisement in the paper for a daily woman, rather a sob-story about “Mother with young baby” & so on, hoping
[page break]
that will draw someone. Competition is pretty fierce these days. I also answered an ad. from a woman offering 3 mornings & 2 whole days for £1 thinking I might split her with Mrs Greenish (figuratively speaking) but she’s very likely booked up by now. I’ll get in touch with Mrs Hagard too, perhaps she can help. I do so want to have something arranged when you come so that I shan’t be busy [underlined] all [/underlined] the time.
All my love to you, Johnny dearest. I hope I shall get one of your precious letters tomorrow
Yours always
Ursula
[underlined] No 25 [/underlined]
Lido
Wednesday
10th Sept.
My darling Johnny,
There has been no letter at all from you today, which is most unusual and unpleasant. I sincerely hope there’ll be one tomorrow morning.
We have been having a gloriously mucky time putting up the air-raid shelter. It is perfectly simple to do, though the parts are heavy to lift, and Peter and I did it in an hour or so. It doesn’t look as bad as I’d feared. The Persian rug, conveniently covers it, and when the divan is moved out (ie when Mrs Stenzel goes, I suppose)
[page break]
the room will be quite respectable though of course you can’t disguise the fact that there’s an air-raid shelter there. It should be comfortable to lie on too, because the floor is made of steel laths on springs woven in and out, and with a mattress over that it should be fine. Some acquaintances of Peter’s tell him that the only drawback is that the noises are amplified very much inside, but I thought I’d pad the top well with newspaper and then put that heavy rug over it and that should deaden the sound somewhat.
[page break]
It’s certainly extremely strong, and I shall feel that Frances is as secure as possible in there. Now I suppose peace will break out. Well, I wouldn’t mind!
Mrs Stenzel is making apple & green tomato [deleted] j [/deleted] chutney today, and tomorrow I hope to bottle some ripe tomatoes. There seem to be quite a number available just now, and they’ll be very welcome in winter if I bottle them.
I’ve put an advertisement in the paper for a daily woman, rather a sob-story about “Mother with young baby” & so on, hoping
[page break]
that will draw someone. Competition is pretty fierce these days. I also answered an ad. from a woman offering 3 mornings & 2 whole days for £1 thinking I might split her with Mrs Greenish (figuratively speaking) but she’s very likely booked up by now. I’ll get in touch with Mrs Hagard too, perhaps she can help. I do so want to have something arranged when you come so that I shan’t be busy [underlined] all [/underlined] the time.
All my love to you, Johnny dearest. I hope I shall get one of your precious letters tomorrow
Yours always
Ursula
Collection
Citation
Ursula Valentine, “Letter from Ursula Valentine to her husband John Valentine,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed May 10, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/19630.
Item Relations
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