Letter to prisoner of war John Valentine from his wife Ursula
Title
Letter to prisoner of war John Valentine from his wife Ursula
Description
Wishes him happy returns on wedding anniversary and hopes her recent parcel has arrived. Mentions recent arrival of letter posted in October and receiving presents from her sister and his parents. Recounts recent activities of shopping and constructing a bookshelf. Mentions ambitions to own rabbits, cats, goat and dog.
Creator
Date
1945-01-06
Temporal Coverage
Language
Format
Two sided handwritten letter card
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
EValentineUMValentineJRM450106
Transcription
Start of transcription
DATE January 6th 1945
Little Close, Salcombe.
Johnnie my darling,
Many happy returns of our wedding day, my dear husband, and may all the future ones be celebrated together! I wonder if you have been able to make today in any way different & pleasanter than all the others, I hope that perhaps a letter or parcel may have arrived opportunely. I haven’t had a letter from you today, though one dated 18th Oct. came two days ago. I celebrated by having breakfast in bed, a great treat & rarity for me, & also by gladly receiving two gifts, a little book about dressmaking from Barbara, and one of those lovely carved lacquer vases from my people – do you remember, they stood on the mantelpiece at Lido? This one should look lovely in the sitting room too with its brick-red tones. Furthermore I took Frances down into the village & stood us both a swig – mine coffee hers cocoa, & had the good luck to find a consignment of lemons in the shops & was able to get 2 lbs which I hope to make into marmalade. I also found a Penguin on rabbit-keeping which I’d been looking for, so I was in luck. This afternoon I have been putting the finishing touches to a bookshelf which I have been making, under Daddy’s expert supervision, out of a packing case. It is to go in our diningroom [sic] in the small recess between fireplace & window, on top of the cupboard which is built in there. I am
[page break]
painting it cream to tone with the walls. I’m getting more & more ambitious ideas about the animals I want to keep after you’ve come home & we’ve settled down. I’d like to have Chinchilla rabbits, Siamese cats, a goat & of course a dog. But I’m not tying myself down with all that till we’ve had our fling & paid our visits on your return, & maybe you’ll have something to say about it! Keep well darling, these months must be the hardest of all for you. I love you so much. Yours always
Ursula.
[postmark]
[postage stamp]
RANK & NAME: W/O John R.M. VALENTINE
[stamp PASSED P.W. 2423]
PRISONER OF WAR No.: 450
CAMP NAME & No.: STALAG LUFT III
COUNTRY: GERMANY.
FROM
Mrs J.R.M. VALENTINE,
Felmersham,
Bottrell’s Lane,
Chalfont St Giles
Bucks
[stamp]
DATE January 6th 1945
Little Close, Salcombe.
Johnnie my darling,
Many happy returns of our wedding day, my dear husband, and may all the future ones be celebrated together! I wonder if you have been able to make today in any way different & pleasanter than all the others, I hope that perhaps a letter or parcel may have arrived opportunely. I haven’t had a letter from you today, though one dated 18th Oct. came two days ago. I celebrated by having breakfast in bed, a great treat & rarity for me, & also by gladly receiving two gifts, a little book about dressmaking from Barbara, and one of those lovely carved lacquer vases from my people – do you remember, they stood on the mantelpiece at Lido? This one should look lovely in the sitting room too with its brick-red tones. Furthermore I took Frances down into the village & stood us both a swig – mine coffee hers cocoa, & had the good luck to find a consignment of lemons in the shops & was able to get 2 lbs which I hope to make into marmalade. I also found a Penguin on rabbit-keeping which I’d been looking for, so I was in luck. This afternoon I have been putting the finishing touches to a bookshelf which I have been making, under Daddy’s expert supervision, out of a packing case. It is to go in our diningroom [sic] in the small recess between fireplace & window, on top of the cupboard which is built in there. I am
[page break]
painting it cream to tone with the walls. I’m getting more & more ambitious ideas about the animals I want to keep after you’ve come home & we’ve settled down. I’d like to have Chinchilla rabbits, Siamese cats, a goat & of course a dog. But I’m not tying myself down with all that till we’ve had our fling & paid our visits on your return, & maybe you’ll have something to say about it! Keep well darling, these months must be the hardest of all for you. I love you so much. Yours always
Ursula.
[postmark]
[postage stamp]
RANK & NAME: W/O John R.M. VALENTINE
[stamp PASSED P.W. 2423]
PRISONER OF WAR No.: 450
CAMP NAME & No.: STALAG LUFT III
COUNTRY: GERMANY.
FROM
Mrs J.R.M. VALENTINE,
Felmersham,
Bottrell’s Lane,
Chalfont St Giles
Bucks
[stamp]
Collection
Citation
Ursula Valentine, “Letter to prisoner of war John Valentine from his wife Ursula ,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed April 26, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/20412.
Item Relations
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