Letter from Ursula Valentine to her husband John Valentine
Title
Letter from Ursula Valentine to her husband John Valentine
Description
Writes that she has been considering how to solve problem of travel on Christmas leave by him nor wearing uniform and as a result she will send him civilian clothes. This still left the problem of getting out of camp. Catches up with family news, mentions her other gardening activities and getting fruit juice allowance for her daughter.
Creator
Date
1941-12-19
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.
Identifier
EValentineUMValentineJRM411219-02
Transcription
Lido Friday 19.12.41
My darling Johnny, Just for a change I am writing to you when I am not in a tearing hurry, viz at 9 pm. In front of a nice cosy fire with the prospect of a hot bath & an early night in bed. I have been brooding on the subject of your Christmas leave, & the results I have hatched are these|: I presume that HM Forces in uniform will not be issued with rail tickets & so will not be able to travel. But suppose one of HM Forces was in civvies, wouldn't he be able to travel as well as any wretched civilian? I don't see why not. I therefore intend to send you your plus fours & if you consider the whole idea useless &
[page break]
a washout, as I am rather afraid you will, there is nothing lost because you'll want your plus fours down there anyway when I come. I realise that there will be the question of getting out of the camp, but perhaps the station master at Heyford would co-operate or at least look the other way if you changed there & left your uniform to change back into when you return. But that's your wrinkle. It certainly would be marvellous to have you home for Christmas & I'm going to do all I can this end.
I enclose part of Mother's later letter on the subject of “allowances” in case you are interested.
[page break]
3.
I have given Helen Greenish my yellow taffeta evening dress. I don't think you've ever seen me in it, it wasn't my favourite & she looks very sweet in it & is thrilled to death, poor girl. I got the rest of the flower border dug over this afternoon, but there's still all the vegetable garden to finish. That fool of a gardener dug up all the parsnips which are quite a respectable size & left them in a pile on top of the soil, telling Mrs S (I was out when he left) that the frost would improve them. However he carefully left in the cauliflower
[page break]
plants from which I had just removed the flower!
I have arranged with the bank about drawing cheques at Bicester & have also seen the Food Office about getting Frances' fruit juice in advance. The woman was very reasonable & said she'd see what she could do next week. [underlined] Saturday [/underlined] Still no letter from you, my darling, & I shan't get one tomorrow, so maybe I shall try to phone you tomorrow evening. I hate these long gaps with no news, specially when its foggy as it has been these last days. But I expect it's the Christmas mail that upsets things. I have sent off your plus fours suit this morning in the small suitcase, & the shoes & mac in a separate parcel. The suitcase is locked & the key is attached to a shoelace in the other parcel. I do hope it is all some use, but if not, you'll need it down there eventually anyway.
All my love to you, dearest, Ursula
My darling Johnny, Just for a change I am writing to you when I am not in a tearing hurry, viz at 9 pm. In front of a nice cosy fire with the prospect of a hot bath & an early night in bed. I have been brooding on the subject of your Christmas leave, & the results I have hatched are these|: I presume that HM Forces in uniform will not be issued with rail tickets & so will not be able to travel. But suppose one of HM Forces was in civvies, wouldn't he be able to travel as well as any wretched civilian? I don't see why not. I therefore intend to send you your plus fours & if you consider the whole idea useless &
[page break]
a washout, as I am rather afraid you will, there is nothing lost because you'll want your plus fours down there anyway when I come. I realise that there will be the question of getting out of the camp, but perhaps the station master at Heyford would co-operate or at least look the other way if you changed there & left your uniform to change back into when you return. But that's your wrinkle. It certainly would be marvellous to have you home for Christmas & I'm going to do all I can this end.
I enclose part of Mother's later letter on the subject of “allowances” in case you are interested.
[page break]
3.
I have given Helen Greenish my yellow taffeta evening dress. I don't think you've ever seen me in it, it wasn't my favourite & she looks very sweet in it & is thrilled to death, poor girl. I got the rest of the flower border dug over this afternoon, but there's still all the vegetable garden to finish. That fool of a gardener dug up all the parsnips which are quite a respectable size & left them in a pile on top of the soil, telling Mrs S (I was out when he left) that the frost would improve them. However he carefully left in the cauliflower
[page break]
plants from which I had just removed the flower!
I have arranged with the bank about drawing cheques at Bicester & have also seen the Food Office about getting Frances' fruit juice in advance. The woman was very reasonable & said she'd see what she could do next week. [underlined] Saturday [/underlined] Still no letter from you, my darling, & I shan't get one tomorrow, so maybe I shall try to phone you tomorrow evening. I hate these long gaps with no news, specially when its foggy as it has been these last days. But I expect it's the Christmas mail that upsets things. I have sent off your plus fours suit this morning in the small suitcase, & the shoes & mac in a separate parcel. The suitcase is locked & the key is attached to a shoelace in the other parcel. I do hope it is all some use, but if not, you'll need it down there eventually anyway.
All my love to you, dearest, Ursula
Collection
Citation
Ursula Valentine, “Letter from Ursula Valentine to her husband John Valentine,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed April 26, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/19710.
Item Relations
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