Letter to prisoner of war John Valentine from his wife Ursula

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Title

Letter to prisoner of war John Valentine from his wife Ursula

Description

Writes that there was no mail from him that week and goes on to describe going up to town to sign mortgage and mentions other house buying financial matters dealt with at solicitors. Continues with further financial matters and mentions visiting his previous employers. Continues to write of her other activities and catching up with news of family and friends.

Date

1944-02-06

Temporal Coverage

Language

Format

Two page typewritten 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

EValentineUMValentineJRM440206

Transcription

To W/O J.R.M. Valentine,
British P/W No. 450,
Stalag Luft III, Lager A
[stamp GEPRUFT 25]
From Mrs. J.R.M. Valentine,
Felmersham, Bottrell’s Lane,
Chalfont St. Giles, Bucks.
Sunday 6th February 1944
[inserted] 13/5 [/inserted]
My darling Johnnie,
No mail from you this week. The main item of news was our expedition to town to sign (execute is, I believe, the correct expression) the Mortgage for the house. This had to be attested by a solicitor, so we went up to Burgis’s office and did the deed there. Mr. Blackman took this opportunity to present a slight bill for stamp duty and other oddments, amounting to £27! This has nothing to do with their fees, of course, which I understand, and fondly hope, are to be remitted in our case. The chief item was £15 for stamp duty on the Conveyance, plus the Building Society’s solicitor’s fees and so on. This has set the Establishment account back to just over £50, which is annoying because I wanted to keep that £50 (which you sent from your RAF pay) intact for repaying my parents in due course, but I shall have to find £21 in a couple of months to pay for the house-painting. I save at the rate of 30/- a week into Establishment account (i.e. RAF supplements of 24/6 and 6/6), so it will take me five months to make that up, unless, in Micawber fashion, something turns up. Soon now we shall actually start paying for our house, I haven’t heard from the Building Society yet but expect a letter tomorrow. I intend to give a Bankers Order for the payment (£6.16.4 per month or thereabouts), and I pop £2 from my RAF pay into the bank each week to cover it, and other kindred expenses. I am collecting data on the running expenses of the house which I will let you have when complete. While I was up at Burgis’s office I took the opportunity to ask him what had to be done to the Power of Attorney to make it legal. It has to have a 10/- [inserted] stamp [/inserted], as you thought, and he is having this done. It has to be stamped within 30 days of entering the country, which I didn’t know, so it was lucky I took it with me. A slight difficulty arose over the wording of the document, which is, as you may remember, to enable me to “execute all deeds”. Not having a lawyer’s brain I naturally thought this would cover such activities as selling up shares or savings certs (which is what you meant too, isn’t it?). However, Mr. Blackman pointed out that such things are “acts”, not “deeds” (!!) and that there might be some difficulty when it came to selling them, but said that probably in the circumstances the companies concerned would not quibble over this point. Anyway I am having the document stamped, since you have so kindly sent it and it might prove very useful in emergency. I haven’t yet heard from Freeman about the advisability of selling any or all of your shares, and as you have only got about 45/- in savings certs I won’t bother to pinch those off you! Anyway I hope I shan’t need to. Apart from repaying my parents, I am doing quite alright financially, thank you. My petty cash book is still kept up to date!
After our session at Burgis’s office, Frances and I popped across to Touche’s to pay a call. No one was in that I know except Miss Stock, so we chatted to her for a while. She looks older, I thought, but was as pleasant and cheerful as ever and sent kind regards, or love, or something of the sort to you. Take it or leave it! After that we continued the good work by calling on your father at his office. Last time I went up to the City in November, to see Burgis, I was mildly reproved by your people for not letting Grandpa know, as he would have taken me out to lunch. So this time Frances and I went, at about 12.15 p.m. but were [underlined] not [/underlined] invited out to lunch! Rather to my relief, actually, as I had shopping to do afterwards and am rather nervous of Frances’s behaviour in posh eating houses. Anyway we
[page break]
had a pleasant chat, exchanged family news, and parted on friendly terms, which was what I hoped for. Bunty is due to have her baby this week, I gathered. Rene is still at Barnet, no sign of moving. Ann is enjoying the Polytechnic, but owing to Rene and the baby finds to difficult to get away for a weekend to stay here with me. Rene is jolly lucky to have the services of such an experienced nursemaid for nothing! I repeated my invitation to your people to come out and see the house, which they will do when the evenings get a bit lighter – your Mother has still not been out in the blackout apparently. After we left your Father, Frances and I had lunch in a nearby Slaters, then went to the West End to search for lampshades for the sitting and dining-rooms. We found them eventually in Waring and Gillows, but what a price! In the end I bought a second-hand alabaster inverted bowl, quite plain but good [inserted] £3 [/inserted] for the sitting-room and a white buckram shade for the dining-room [inserted] 24/- [/inserted] or I may decide to hang them the other way round when I get them here. They are being delivered either this Tuesday or next. I have also heard from David Haes that our bookcase is ready. Apparently he hadn’t any decent wood, so instead of staining it has painted it cream, which should look very nice in the room. I don’t know what the price is yet, but I shall certainly be glad to have the books in their proper place instead of cluttering up every available drawer. I have nearly finished embroidering the hessian curtains for the sitting-room so it looks as though the room may be complete fairly soon. It’s really rather an attractive room, and the colours are easy to live with, cream, brick-red, sage green and n***** brown. Mother sprang another lovely surprise on me this week. She has been going to local auction sales and asked for sizes of rugs I needed in case she should see anything cheap. But nothing was cheap, even down there, and so this week she has sent me the white Kalimpong rug which used to be in our bedroom at Lido near the window, on Lend-Lease as she calls it, which I take to mean on loan till we can get one of our own. I have put it in the spare bedroom, which is getting to look quite nice, and now we are more or less fixed up for floor coverings. I should like a cork mat or something in the bathroom but shall just have to wait.
Yesterday Frances and I went out to tea. Mrs. Horswell’s elder daughter, Gwen Millener, who has a little girl Pemma aged 3 and a baby boy, has invited us to tea with her at Chalfont St. Peters at least three times and each time one or other of them has fallen ill and the visit has had to be postponed. But this time we brought it off. The party was actually not at her house but at the Dogs Home (don’t laugh). She is very friendly with the three girl veterinary surgeons who run the Dogs Home, just down her road two of them are married and have small girls too, and the whole house is run in the wildest Bohemian disorder, and smells vaguely of goats. The party took place in an upstairs room, which contained a beautiful radiogram and super-modern steel tube table and chairs, but a bare unstained floor, dirty walls and an old bed. However the children had a grand time, played noisy games and danced, and I enjoyed myself too, for the vets are intelligent and interesting, if slightly unusual in their housekeeping methods. In the midst of the uproar Mrs. Millener’s husband arrived home on short leave – some people have all the luck!
This morning was fine and frosty and Frances and I decided to rush through the work and go out for a walk. We explored in a new direction this time, and wandered through acres and acres of woodland, young birches, bracken and solitary old oaks, all looking like fairyland under the frost and sunlight. It will make a glorious place for picnics in the summer. I don’t know if it is really private but anyway there are public footpaths through it. The more I see of the countryside, the better pleased I am that we have come to live here. I’m sure you will like it too.
All my love to you, darling & a kiss from Frances,
Ursula

Collection

Citation

Ursula Valentine, “Letter to prisoner of war John Valentine from his wife Ursula,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed March 29, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/20189.

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