Letter to John Valentine from his wife Ursula
Title
Letter to John Valentine from his wife Ursula
Description
Thanks him for his letter and hopes cherries she sent have arrived and discussed sending chocolate. Mentions letter from income tax people writes of daughter's activities at dance display and upcoming fancy dress competition at local fete with required costume making. Encourages him to try and get home by 24 July, mentions other domestic activity and hopes treatments are working.
Creator
Date
1945-07-12
Temporal Coverage
Language
Format
Five 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
EValentineUMValentineJRM450712
Transcription
one indecipherable word]
July 12
My darling,
Thank you so much for your letter of 10th. I hope by now the cherries will have arrived, and that some at least of them were edible. The season is nearly over, there are not many more to be had here. Certainly we must avoid starting a “chocolate shuttle service”. We have got plenty here, so I suggest you keep & eat what you have, & I wont send you any more until you tell me you are short of it. A letter came from the Income Tax people today which I opened, read, re-sealed & sent off to you. I gather[?] we’ll have to pay up the [one indecipherable word] Damage contribution & smile.
Frances has let me know in no
[page break]
2.
uncertain terms that she does not like staying with Auntie Bunty, tho’ for no specific reasons. However she’s very busy & happy now, & her cold has practically gone. Yesterday we went over to see Mrs[?] Mawer[?] in Gerrards Cross, about the clothes for the dancing display, & found we were expected to stay to tea. The room was festooned with dresses & properties of various sorts, & Frances greatly admired the dragonflies wings. So Mrs Mawer very kindly produced a pair of silver[?] wings her small daughter had warn for a previous show, & then a wee blue ballet frock and a wand & a golden head-dress, & said Frances could have them all, and Frances
[page break]
3.
Nearly burst with joy because there’s to be a fancy-dress competition at the fete on Saturday & she was very keen to go & I had nothing to dress her up in – of course she togged herself up there & then as a fairy, and skipped happily round the garden for the rest of the afternoon. Mrs Mawer & I got our money’s worth of fun out of it too, for Frances was wearing a pair of rather thick knickers which hung down a good 3 inches below her diaphanous frock, and her headdress kept slipping to the most comical angles, but she was all unconscious and practically airborne with delight. You’ll certainly have to see the whole set-up when you come, if
[page break]
4.
it survives that long. I have now got to make her a leaf-dress for the display, & to this end have dyed green a discarded nightdress of mine & hope to stitch it this afternoon while out to tea with Joan[?] [one indecipherable word]. It appears Frances can only understudy for the role of Shetland pony in the display as they have the requisite 8 at the moment – I do hope someone falls out, so that she can be in it. Otherwise of course, she’ll be able to watch it, which will be quite fund. [underlined] Do [/underlined] try & come on leave by the 24th, Johnnie. Tell the Wing-Co your daughter is going to be a Shetland pony!
Mr Hatchett came this morning & took the wireless
[page break]
5.
away to try to make it work. I hope he succeeds. I certainly miss it for the news, tho’ I’m not in much in the evenings to listen, I’m gardening as long as it’s light. It’s beginning to look more respectable but there’s still plenty to be done. Mr Hatchett enquired tenderly after you, and asked if he might be allowed to present us with a duck when you come home! I hope he does.
I’m so glad the drops are doing your eyes good, I hope the M/O will cure the spots on your chest too - & DON’T FORGET THE DENTIST!!!
Lots of love from us both. I long for you all the time darling.
Yours always, Ursula.
[page break]
July 12
My darling,
Thank you so much for your letter of 10th. I hope by now the cherries will have arrived, and that some at least of them were edible. The season is nearly over, there are not many more to be had here. Certainly we must avoid starting a “chocolate shuttle service”. We have got plenty here, so I suggest you keep & eat what you have, & I wont send you any more until you tell me you are short of it. A letter came from the Income Tax people today which I opened, read, re-sealed & sent off to you. I gather[?] we’ll have to pay up the [one indecipherable word] Damage contribution & smile.
Frances has let me know in no
[page break]
2.
uncertain terms that she does not like staying with Auntie Bunty, tho’ for no specific reasons. However she’s very busy & happy now, & her cold has practically gone. Yesterday we went over to see Mrs[?] Mawer[?] in Gerrards Cross, about the clothes for the dancing display, & found we were expected to stay to tea. The room was festooned with dresses & properties of various sorts, & Frances greatly admired the dragonflies wings. So Mrs Mawer very kindly produced a pair of silver[?] wings her small daughter had warn for a previous show, & then a wee blue ballet frock and a wand & a golden head-dress, & said Frances could have them all, and Frances
[page break]
3.
Nearly burst with joy because there’s to be a fancy-dress competition at the fete on Saturday & she was very keen to go & I had nothing to dress her up in – of course she togged herself up there & then as a fairy, and skipped happily round the garden for the rest of the afternoon. Mrs Mawer & I got our money’s worth of fun out of it too, for Frances was wearing a pair of rather thick knickers which hung down a good 3 inches below her diaphanous frock, and her headdress kept slipping to the most comical angles, but she was all unconscious and practically airborne with delight. You’ll certainly have to see the whole set-up when you come, if
[page break]
4.
it survives that long. I have now got to make her a leaf-dress for the display, & to this end have dyed green a discarded nightdress of mine & hope to stitch it this afternoon while out to tea with Joan[?] [one indecipherable word]. It appears Frances can only understudy for the role of Shetland pony in the display as they have the requisite 8 at the moment – I do hope someone falls out, so that she can be in it. Otherwise of course, she’ll be able to watch it, which will be quite fund. [underlined] Do [/underlined] try & come on leave by the 24th, Johnnie. Tell the Wing-Co your daughter is going to be a Shetland pony!
Mr Hatchett came this morning & took the wireless
[page break]
5.
away to try to make it work. I hope he succeeds. I certainly miss it for the news, tho’ I’m not in much in the evenings to listen, I’m gardening as long as it’s light. It’s beginning to look more respectable but there’s still plenty to be done. Mr Hatchett enquired tenderly after you, and asked if he might be allowed to present us with a duck when you come home! I hope he does.
I’m so glad the drops are doing your eyes good, I hope the M/O will cure the spots on your chest too - & DON’T FORGET THE DENTIST!!!
Lots of love from us both. I long for you all the time darling.
Yours always, Ursula.
[page break]
Collection
Citation
Ursula Valentine, “Letter to John Valentine from his wife Ursula,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed July 23, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/20424.
Item Relations
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