Letter to prisoner of war John Valentine from his wife Ursula

Letter to prisoner of war John Valentine from his wife Ursula

Notes little progress on house purchase and mentions arrangements his firm, Touches, has made for his pension fund. Notes shed has had two letters and is sorry change has not been for the better. Looks forward to moving into their new house and receiving coupons for utility furniture and a permit to purchase curtain material.

1943-10-06

Two page handwritten letter

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To Sgt JRM Valentine
British P/W No 480,
Stalag Luft VI via Stalag Luft III
Germany.
[inserted] R & A 10/11 [/inserted]
[stamp GEPRUFT 25]
From Mrs Valentine
Little Close, Devon Rd
Salcombe, Devon.
(Tel. Salcombe 229)
6th October 1943
My darling Johnnie,
I’m afraid my notepaper goes down & down in quality, but it is very difficult to get any pads of a reasonable size now, & since I may only send you one sheet I am certainly not going to be put off with a small note size. My nice blue typewriting paper is, of course, reposing safely with our furniture in store.
Nothing very much has happened about the house since last I wrote – they’re really a long-winded lot! The Temperance Building Society has sent me another questionnaire to fill in. I have also had a letter & booklet from Touche’s setting out their new pension fund for members of the permanent staff. This scheme seems a fixed amount of pension from age 65 (men) or 60 (women) for each year of service with the firm from 1st Oct. 1943 based on the salary in that year. There is a table of the benefits & contributions by members according to salary class. Thus class F (£350 – 420) get an annual pension of £4.12 0 for each complete year as a contributor in that salary class, for a monthly contribution of £1.4.11. Class G (£420 – 500) gets £6.0.0 & pays £1.12.6 monthly, H (£500 – 600) gets £8.0.0 & pays £2.3.4, J (£600 – 700) gets £10.0.0 & pays £2.14.2, & K (over £700) gets £12 & pays £3.5.0 monthly. Contribution of members will rank as expenses for Income Tax purposes. For those who joined up & are later taken on again, the period of
[page break]
service with the Forces will be counted as service with the firm. In the accompanying letter it says the firm is prepared to pay the contribution of members now in the Forces as well as its own – which is a [underlined] good [/underlined] thing! Mr Touche sent a kind personal letter saying they will assume provisionally that you wish to become a member of the fund & you will not lose any benefits by not being able to complete the card applying for membership which was also sent. Perhaps you ought to drop a line to George Touche for I expect you will want to join. For those who leave before normal pension age there is a choice of either taking a pension at normal pension age (65) for the amount secured by contributions paid, or receiving a return of all his contributions to The Fund. As far as I can see it is a very fair & generous scheme & I can only suppose they are suffering from EPT. I should like to have sent you the booklet but George T. wrote that he didn’t think it would be allowed through. I hope I’ve conveyed the gist of it anyway.
I have had 2 letters of yours, of 5th & 15 July, both heavily censored. I’m sorry the change hasn’t been for the better, but hope you will all manage to get things organised a bit before the winter sets in. I know how disturbing it is to be dug out of one’s rut, I often feel very much at a loose end with no house to run no real routine, leading this rather semi-detached life in other people’s houses. However once I get into our own home the yoke will be clamped down with a vengeance for living alone with Frances there will be no let-up till you come. May that be soon! Still I’m longing to get into our own little house, there will be such a lot to do to get it straight. I have been allotted 3 coupons for utility furniture which will buy one single bed & is damn all use to me. However they’ve given me a permit to buy curtain material [indecipherable word] clothing coupons so that is something. All my love, my darling. Ursula