Letter to John Valentine from his wife Ursula
Title
Letter to John Valentine from his wife Ursula
Description
Reports arriving home and mentions activities while away. Glad she got home before he did due to state of the house and garden. Mentions daughter is happy to be home and that it will take six weeks to get all in order. Wonders if he has heard any news about his future moves. Concludes with more domestic gossip.
Creator
Date
1945-07-05
Temporal Coverage
Language
Format
Four page handwritten 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
EValentineUMValentineJRM450705
Transcription
Start of transcription
[inserted] [underlined] P.S. [/underlined] Please give my kind regards to the right people, (small ‘r’!!) [/inserted]
“FELMERSHAM,”
BOTTRELL’S LANE,
CHALFONT ST. GILES,
BUCKS.
July 5th
My darling Johnnie,
Frances & I arrived safely home again about two hours ago. The journey to Gable End passed off according to schedule & I received a rapturous welcome from Frances. All the kiddies were well, tho’ suffering from snuffles. Bunty spoke very gloomily about their future, saying Stewart has been making enquiries about jobs in Edinburgh, & there are none. We spent the evening playing cards – 2 new games for 2 people, one of which is quite fun, the other more or less rummy for 2. I rang up your people & delivered your message to Ann. I also rang up Leverett & arranged for him to meet me at Amersham. This morning we left at 8.15, duly arrived at Amersham but no sign of the car to meet us. So I rang him up, & of
[page break]fiu
2.
course he’d forgotten all about it, but came at once, so we were home about 11.30 am.
Thank goodness I came home before you! I wouldn’t have liked you to have seen the house & garden in their present state. The house is merely dusty & dead-looking, with parcels piles knee-deep in the hall. But the garden is in the wildest possible state. Old Palmer has obviously done nothing at all for the flower garden, & all my hard work in the herbaceous border is totally obliterated by weeds. Dandelions & grasses are peering in at the dining room window, & the herb-garden has luxuriated over the kitchen step. Altogether there’s plenty of work waiting for me. The raspberries are very plentiful. There seem to be quite a lot of apples coming, otherwise to my jaundiced gaze everything seems to be weeds & potatoes. However I got some peas & carrots & lettuce for our lunch, with raspberries & cream to follow. So I suppose I cant complain, specially as I have had a lazy
[page break]
3.
time for so long.
Frances seems to be overjoyed to be back home again, among all her own toys, tho’ from what I gathered from Bunty there was no real trouble there. I really think we did the right thing in deciding that I should come home now, it’ll take me the best part of [deleted] six [/deleted] three weeks to get the place straight. I wonder if you have had any more news yet about going to Hoylake, or elsewhere. Do send me a wire when its definite. This afternoon I must get a bit unpacked, beds made, go & vote (probably Liberal they tell me the Labour man looks like
[page break]
a burglar!) & generally try to organise things prior to a big battle tomorrow. The wireless refuses to function, I can’t imagine why as it was perfectly alright when I left, unless the neighbours have been making [indecipherable word] with it. I must ring up the invaluable Mr Hatchett. I miss the wireless so when I’m on my own. Miss McLeod came in & lit the fire for me before our arrival, & took in bread & milk, so everyone has been quite decent. Nevertheless I’m feeling very depressed & lonely without you, Johnnie darling, the three years I stood up to family well but these three weeks (or more) are going to be horrid. So do hurry up & come home. Yours always with all my love, Ursula
H A R Y X X X X X X
[inserted] [underlined] P.S. [/underlined] Please give my kind regards to the right people, (small ‘r’!!) [/inserted]
“FELMERSHAM,”
BOTTRELL’S LANE,
CHALFONT ST. GILES,
BUCKS.
July 5th
My darling Johnnie,
Frances & I arrived safely home again about two hours ago. The journey to Gable End passed off according to schedule & I received a rapturous welcome from Frances. All the kiddies were well, tho’ suffering from snuffles. Bunty spoke very gloomily about their future, saying Stewart has been making enquiries about jobs in Edinburgh, & there are none. We spent the evening playing cards – 2 new games for 2 people, one of which is quite fun, the other more or less rummy for 2. I rang up your people & delivered your message to Ann. I also rang up Leverett & arranged for him to meet me at Amersham. This morning we left at 8.15, duly arrived at Amersham but no sign of the car to meet us. So I rang him up, & of
[page break]fiu
2.
course he’d forgotten all about it, but came at once, so we were home about 11.30 am.
Thank goodness I came home before you! I wouldn’t have liked you to have seen the house & garden in their present state. The house is merely dusty & dead-looking, with parcels piles knee-deep in the hall. But the garden is in the wildest possible state. Old Palmer has obviously done nothing at all for the flower garden, & all my hard work in the herbaceous border is totally obliterated by weeds. Dandelions & grasses are peering in at the dining room window, & the herb-garden has luxuriated over the kitchen step. Altogether there’s plenty of work waiting for me. The raspberries are very plentiful. There seem to be quite a lot of apples coming, otherwise to my jaundiced gaze everything seems to be weeds & potatoes. However I got some peas & carrots & lettuce for our lunch, with raspberries & cream to follow. So I suppose I cant complain, specially as I have had a lazy
[page break]
3.
time for so long.
Frances seems to be overjoyed to be back home again, among all her own toys, tho’ from what I gathered from Bunty there was no real trouble there. I really think we did the right thing in deciding that I should come home now, it’ll take me the best part of [deleted] six [/deleted] three weeks to get the place straight. I wonder if you have had any more news yet about going to Hoylake, or elsewhere. Do send me a wire when its definite. This afternoon I must get a bit unpacked, beds made, go & vote (probably Liberal they tell me the Labour man looks like
[page break]
a burglar!) & generally try to organise things prior to a big battle tomorrow. The wireless refuses to function, I can’t imagine why as it was perfectly alright when I left, unless the neighbours have been making [indecipherable word] with it. I must ring up the invaluable Mr Hatchett. I miss the wireless so when I’m on my own. Miss McLeod came in & lit the fire for me before our arrival, & took in bread & milk, so everyone has been quite decent. Nevertheless I’m feeling very depressed & lonely without you, Johnnie darling, the three years I stood up to family well but these three weeks (or more) are going to be horrid. So do hurry up & come home. Yours always with all my love, Ursula
H A R Y X X X X X X
Collection
Citation
Ursula Valentine, “Letter to John Valentine from his wife Ursula,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed April 19, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/20418.
Item Relations
This item has no relations.