Letter to prisoner of war John Valentine from his wife Ursula
Title
Letter to prisoner of war John Valentine from his wife Ursula
Description
Reports arrival of letter and postcard posted in September and news that next of kin parcels had stared again but she had not got anything ready. Intends to post before she leaves for holiday in Devon and hopes Red Cross hurries with things she has ordered. Gathers from his letters that life in new camp leaves much to be desired but feels end of war is drawing closer. Writes of adventures with her bicycle and that she is thinking of stating daughter at school next summer.
Creator
Date
1944-12-05
Temporal Coverage
Spatial Coverage
Language
Format
Two page typewritten 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
EValentineUMValentineJRM441205
Transcription
Start of transcription
To. W/O J.R.M. Valentine,
British P/W 450,
Stalag Luft III, Germany
From Mrs. J.R.M. Valentine,
Felmersham, Bottrell’s Lane,
Chalfont St. Giles, Bucks.
December 5th 1944
My own darling Johnnie,
I have been having a very “Johnnie” day to-day. To start off with I dreamt about you very vividly, not a special home-coming dream but as though we had been together again for some time and we were blissfully happy. So that I woke up feeling pretty good. Then the postman brought me a letter and a postcard from you, dated 10th and 17th September, much the most recent I have had. He also brought the Prisoner of War Journal, from which I learnt that we can now start sending next-of-kin clothing parcels again. This threw me into an uproar because I hadn’t got anything ready for your parcel, supposing that we would not be allowed to send any more at all, so I had to get cracking about that. I am very undecided about what to send you, the parcel surely won’t arrive for several months, if at all, so it seemed to me that the best thing would be to send a clean shirt and pullover and socks for you to come home in! I must get the parcel posted before we leave here, on Thursday week 14th December, for our Christmas holiday in Devon, so I hope the Red Cross people hurry with the things I have ordered from them. To crown it all, I had sworn a big oath that I would get all your suits and woollies out on the very next fine windy day and hang them on the line for demothing, and as today was the ideal weather for it, out they all came after breakfast, and then there was an awful scramble to get them all in again after lunch before we left for the dancing class, so I just dumped them in the sitting-room, and have only now finished folding them and putting them away. It is always a very nostalgic job, they remind me so very vividly of you, such happy memories too cling round some of them, particularly your plus-four suit (remember that cycling holiday the first Easter we were married and our visit to Kew and in fact all our expeditions to the country when you wore that grand Harris tweed?) and your dress kilt with its priceless wee tartan pants, and your tails (remember our fling at the Mayfair when Jack Jackson played that haunting tune “All the things you are” which I always consider our special signature tune?)
Your letter of 10th September was rather a sad one. I gather that life in the new camp leaves much to be desired, and I can well imagine that now that the end of the war is drawing nearer the feeling of suspense and frustration weighs more heavily on you all than it did when there was no end in view and you all lived on blind faith. It is very hard to imagine the actual day of liberation and of reunion, to think that it will be just an ordinary day of 24 hours, probably not even fine weather and that most people’s lives will go on just as usual. I remember feeling like this about our wedding day, hardly believing that it would really dawn, yet it did, and we were safely married according to plan thereby starting an era of great happiness for us both. So too this other day will come eventually and our happiness will start all over again, even better than before and after a bit we shall look back on this separation as a bad dream, a shadow in our lives which accentuates the sunshine to come.
[page break]
I get quite hot and bothered when I read your generous praises of my home-making efforts. Really it is quite undeserved. It is natural for a woman to fuss around the house to make it as nice as possible, not only for her lord and master, mark you, but also for herself and children. Wait till you see the results, that will be the test, and sometimes I feel all cold inside lest you should be too disappointed. Of course it isn’t my ideal home any more that it will be yours, I think, and when our family and our income have grown sufficiently I hope very much that we shall be able to aim higher, best of all, of course, if we could build ourselves the house of our dreams as you suggested in one of the last letters I received. But this little house ought to do us fine for a good few years and we are very lucky indeed to have a house at all.
I have now got a seat fixed on the back of my bicycle for Frances. Peter got me the seat for my birthday present and I fixed it on the other day and we went for a pleasant spin together. Then I thought I had better have the brakes adjusted, as the back brake didn’t work at all and I didn’t like to trust to one with a double load on board. So I had the brakes done, but in the process the man must have loosened the screw which fastened the seat to the saddle pillar, so that when I got on to the bike with a bit of a jerk, the seat came loose and Frances was deposited on the road with a resounding thud. Poor kid, it shook her up a bit but she didn’t make much fuss, and I didn’t suggest her riding again till I could get the seat properly fixed. A few days later I went out alone to visit Gwen Milliner who is in hospital (Frances went to play with Phillip Sharpe and distinguished herself by eating 7 pieces of bread and butter!), and on the way back the chain came off, luckily quite near St. Peter’s, so I scooted back into the village and left the bike to be repaired. When I went to collect it the man was very gloomy about the method of fixing [deleted] it [/deleted] [inserted] the seat [/inserted] to the pillar said it wasn’t really strong enough, so I straightway [sic] took it into the local blacksmith and had it welded on, so now I think it is quite safe. We called for it on the way home from dancing this afternoon and rode home quite gaily. It will be a great asset to be able to get around on it, later on I may need to take Frances to school on it too. I had been thinking of starting her at school next summer term when she will be just four, but on second thoughts, in view of the fact that you will certainly be home then and we may want to be free to go about visiting relations and so on, I think I shall probably leave it till the autumn term. She will be four and a half then, which is in any case on the early side, and I feel sure she is bright enough to keep up with the rest. She is getting on quite well with her reading already, she spells out the letters and then the sounds they make and with three and four letter words she gets them quite quickly. We do a bit every evening, and afterwards I read her a story before bed. She really is a darling little girl. She talks about you such a lot and tells me all the things she is going to show you and tell you when you come home – I shan’t get a word in edgeways!
All my love to you, my darling, just keep going through this winter and afterwards life will really start again.
Yours always Ursula
X
To. W/O J.R.M. Valentine,
British P/W 450,
Stalag Luft III, Germany
From Mrs. J.R.M. Valentine,
Felmersham, Bottrell’s Lane,
Chalfont St. Giles, Bucks.
December 5th 1944
My own darling Johnnie,
I have been having a very “Johnnie” day to-day. To start off with I dreamt about you very vividly, not a special home-coming dream but as though we had been together again for some time and we were blissfully happy. So that I woke up feeling pretty good. Then the postman brought me a letter and a postcard from you, dated 10th and 17th September, much the most recent I have had. He also brought the Prisoner of War Journal, from which I learnt that we can now start sending next-of-kin clothing parcels again. This threw me into an uproar because I hadn’t got anything ready for your parcel, supposing that we would not be allowed to send any more at all, so I had to get cracking about that. I am very undecided about what to send you, the parcel surely won’t arrive for several months, if at all, so it seemed to me that the best thing would be to send a clean shirt and pullover and socks for you to come home in! I must get the parcel posted before we leave here, on Thursday week 14th December, for our Christmas holiday in Devon, so I hope the Red Cross people hurry with the things I have ordered from them. To crown it all, I had sworn a big oath that I would get all your suits and woollies out on the very next fine windy day and hang them on the line for demothing, and as today was the ideal weather for it, out they all came after breakfast, and then there was an awful scramble to get them all in again after lunch before we left for the dancing class, so I just dumped them in the sitting-room, and have only now finished folding them and putting them away. It is always a very nostalgic job, they remind me so very vividly of you, such happy memories too cling round some of them, particularly your plus-four suit (remember that cycling holiday the first Easter we were married and our visit to Kew and in fact all our expeditions to the country when you wore that grand Harris tweed?) and your dress kilt with its priceless wee tartan pants, and your tails (remember our fling at the Mayfair when Jack Jackson played that haunting tune “All the things you are” which I always consider our special signature tune?)
Your letter of 10th September was rather a sad one. I gather that life in the new camp leaves much to be desired, and I can well imagine that now that the end of the war is drawing nearer the feeling of suspense and frustration weighs more heavily on you all than it did when there was no end in view and you all lived on blind faith. It is very hard to imagine the actual day of liberation and of reunion, to think that it will be just an ordinary day of 24 hours, probably not even fine weather and that most people’s lives will go on just as usual. I remember feeling like this about our wedding day, hardly believing that it would really dawn, yet it did, and we were safely married according to plan thereby starting an era of great happiness for us both. So too this other day will come eventually and our happiness will start all over again, even better than before and after a bit we shall look back on this separation as a bad dream, a shadow in our lives which accentuates the sunshine to come.
[page break]
I get quite hot and bothered when I read your generous praises of my home-making efforts. Really it is quite undeserved. It is natural for a woman to fuss around the house to make it as nice as possible, not only for her lord and master, mark you, but also for herself and children. Wait till you see the results, that will be the test, and sometimes I feel all cold inside lest you should be too disappointed. Of course it isn’t my ideal home any more that it will be yours, I think, and when our family and our income have grown sufficiently I hope very much that we shall be able to aim higher, best of all, of course, if we could build ourselves the house of our dreams as you suggested in one of the last letters I received. But this little house ought to do us fine for a good few years and we are very lucky indeed to have a house at all.
I have now got a seat fixed on the back of my bicycle for Frances. Peter got me the seat for my birthday present and I fixed it on the other day and we went for a pleasant spin together. Then I thought I had better have the brakes adjusted, as the back brake didn’t work at all and I didn’t like to trust to one with a double load on board. So I had the brakes done, but in the process the man must have loosened the screw which fastened the seat to the saddle pillar, so that when I got on to the bike with a bit of a jerk, the seat came loose and Frances was deposited on the road with a resounding thud. Poor kid, it shook her up a bit but she didn’t make much fuss, and I didn’t suggest her riding again till I could get the seat properly fixed. A few days later I went out alone to visit Gwen Milliner who is in hospital (Frances went to play with Phillip Sharpe and distinguished herself by eating 7 pieces of bread and butter!), and on the way back the chain came off, luckily quite near St. Peter’s, so I scooted back into the village and left the bike to be repaired. When I went to collect it the man was very gloomy about the method of fixing [deleted] it [/deleted] [inserted] the seat [/inserted] to the pillar said it wasn’t really strong enough, so I straightway [sic] took it into the local blacksmith and had it welded on, so now I think it is quite safe. We called for it on the way home from dancing this afternoon and rode home quite gaily. It will be a great asset to be able to get around on it, later on I may need to take Frances to school on it too. I had been thinking of starting her at school next summer term when she will be just four, but on second thoughts, in view of the fact that you will certainly be home then and we may want to be free to go about visiting relations and so on, I think I shall probably leave it till the autumn term. She will be four and a half then, which is in any case on the early side, and I feel sure she is bright enough to keep up with the rest. She is getting on quite well with her reading already, she spells out the letters and then the sounds they make and with three and four letter words she gets them quite quickly. We do a bit every evening, and afterwards I read her a story before bed. She really is a darling little girl. She talks about you such a lot and tells me all the things she is going to show you and tell you when you come home – I shan’t get a word in edgeways!
All my love to you, my darling, just keep going through this winter and afterwards life will really start again.
Yours always Ursula
X
Collection
Citation
Ursula Valentine, “Letter to prisoner of war John Valentine from his wife Ursula,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed April 24, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/20408.
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