Letter to Mrs Cahir from Jim Cahir
Title
Letter to Mrs Cahir from Jim Cahir
Description
Letter from Sergeant Jim Cahir to his mother. He writes that he is at sea after leaving New York, about his activities on board the ship including card games, jigsaw puzzles and competitions with his other shipmates. He also writes about the very cold weather.
Creator
Date
1943-08-25
Temporal Coverage
Language
Format
Two handwritten sheets
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
ECahirFSCahirM430825-0001, ECahirFSCahirM430825-0002
Transcription
Sgt. CAHIR. FS.
AUS419441
Postal No 272
R.A.A.F.
Overseas.
Aug. 25th 43.
[underlined] 1 [/underlined]
Dear Mum
Once again we are at sea & have now settled down to the last part of our journey, in the last letter which I will post with this one I told you about the wonderful time we had in New York. Did you get the packet containing stockings, and four letters that I posted in New York? I hope the letters were not cut about too much by the Censor.
At the moment we are once again experiencing the cold weather and have dragged out our Blue uniforms to wear. We are still doing the same old things on board as we did when we left Australia, cards are still the favourite past-time, [sic] numerous new games have been introduced since leaving New York. Jig-Saw puzzles have increased in popularity, one puzzle took a couple of chaps 17 1/2 hours solid work to get out, needless to say it has only been done the once so far.
The deck competitions have started again, and as usual “yours faithfully” manages to reach the semi finals and no further; this time we had a few allies to play against & it caused quite a bit of excitement as the Boys looked upon the Competitions as International Games, Australia came out as the Champions; if I had listened to Father Spillane a bit better at school I might have got on much better with one of my opponents, however I managed reasonably well
[page break]
[underlined] 2 [/underlined]
Today the 26th I did the usual which is precisely nothing, I slept in until 12 oclock [sic] getting up just in time for dinner; after dinner [deleted] we [/deleted] [inserted] I [/inserted] had a couple of hours watch, and I froze all the time even though I had two sweaters, a uniform jacket, a sheepskin vest and an overcoat on. At present the weather is bitterly cold with fogs & mists, I think we have said “Goodbye” to the sun for sometime.
Tonight a few of the Boys are arranging another Concert to be held in a few days time, if it is half as good as the first one, it ought to be a soaring success.
Yesterday I wrapped up a pile of papers, including the last Concert Programme to be sent home to you at the first opportunity, most of it might be rubbish but there might be something of interest amongst it.
The meals of late have been fair, to a newcomer they would be excellent, but to us after having the same old thing for weeks on end they are becoming quite tasteless; now and again we get a little fruit, I think that will be one thing I will miss most at our destination.
It’s taken me nine days to write this much Mum and I am sure it must be very uninteresting, every day we do the same old things and there is nothing new to write about so I had better sign off. This is the eleventh letter I have written to you, number ten is written on Air Force Club Paper about New York, let me know if you have received all letters up till date, if one is short I might be able to let you know what it is about as I have kept a note of letters & the approx time I wrote them.
Well Mum I will end this rot don’t worry your head over me! I am in the best of health and hope you & Vincent are too
Your loving Son & Brother
[underlined] Jim [/underlined]
[signature]
AUS419441
Postal No 272
R.A.A.F.
Overseas.
Aug. 25th 43.
[underlined] 1 [/underlined]
Dear Mum
Once again we are at sea & have now settled down to the last part of our journey, in the last letter which I will post with this one I told you about the wonderful time we had in New York. Did you get the packet containing stockings, and four letters that I posted in New York? I hope the letters were not cut about too much by the Censor.
At the moment we are once again experiencing the cold weather and have dragged out our Blue uniforms to wear. We are still doing the same old things on board as we did when we left Australia, cards are still the favourite past-time, [sic] numerous new games have been introduced since leaving New York. Jig-Saw puzzles have increased in popularity, one puzzle took a couple of chaps 17 1/2 hours solid work to get out, needless to say it has only been done the once so far.
The deck competitions have started again, and as usual “yours faithfully” manages to reach the semi finals and no further; this time we had a few allies to play against & it caused quite a bit of excitement as the Boys looked upon the Competitions as International Games, Australia came out as the Champions; if I had listened to Father Spillane a bit better at school I might have got on much better with one of my opponents, however I managed reasonably well
[page break]
[underlined] 2 [/underlined]
Today the 26th I did the usual which is precisely nothing, I slept in until 12 oclock [sic] getting up just in time for dinner; after dinner [deleted] we [/deleted] [inserted] I [/inserted] had a couple of hours watch, and I froze all the time even though I had two sweaters, a uniform jacket, a sheepskin vest and an overcoat on. At present the weather is bitterly cold with fogs & mists, I think we have said “Goodbye” to the sun for sometime.
Tonight a few of the Boys are arranging another Concert to be held in a few days time, if it is half as good as the first one, it ought to be a soaring success.
Yesterday I wrapped up a pile of papers, including the last Concert Programme to be sent home to you at the first opportunity, most of it might be rubbish but there might be something of interest amongst it.
The meals of late have been fair, to a newcomer they would be excellent, but to us after having the same old thing for weeks on end they are becoming quite tasteless; now and again we get a little fruit, I think that will be one thing I will miss most at our destination.
It’s taken me nine days to write this much Mum and I am sure it must be very uninteresting, every day we do the same old things and there is nothing new to write about so I had better sign off. This is the eleventh letter I have written to you, number ten is written on Air Force Club Paper about New York, let me know if you have received all letters up till date, if one is short I might be able to let you know what it is about as I have kept a note of letters & the approx time I wrote them.
Well Mum I will end this rot don’t worry your head over me! I am in the best of health and hope you & Vincent are too
Your loving Son & Brother
[underlined] Jim [/underlined]
[signature]
Collection
Citation
Jim Cahir, “Letter to Mrs Cahir from Jim Cahir,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed April 16, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/20039.
Item Relations
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