Letter to John Valentine from his wife Ursula

Letter to John Valentine from his wife Ursula

Reports arrival of three letters and looks forward to activities in their upcoming weekend. She answers his queries in his letters about her bike and her sister. Mentions forwarding a letter from his father and her letter writing schedule. Continues with her activities, SSAFA business, and travel arrangements.

1945-08-28

Two page typewritten letter with enclosed drawing

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.

EValentineUMValentineJRM450828

Start of transcription
Felmersham,
Tuesday 28th Aug.
Darling Johnnie,
This morning I was well rewarded for my letterless day yesterday by getting no less than three from you. The idea of actually playing tennis with you and going swimming, as well as dancing, makes our coming week together seem extremely alluring, I will certainly bring tennis kit with me, but dread to think what sort of a game I shall give you – though I suppose you are just as out of practice as I am, if not more, so that can be no excuse.
To answer your outstanding queries first. 1) My bike is now very satisfactory, the tyre stays “hard as a brick” for two or three days at a stretch and only needs occasional topping-up. However, if you can get hold of a spare inner tube, I think it would be a good idea to do so.
2) Barbara did catch her train on that memorable Sunday, it was nearly 20 minutes late, so she had loads of time.
I am sending on your Father’s letter to you. He sent it here as he had forgotten your address! You will probably have received the padlock by now, as you don’t need it perhaps I could have it for my bike, which I sometimes would like to lock up when I have to leave it out.
I note what you say about writing to you in the evenings and know quite well what you mean. However, evenings are
[page break]
generally scheduled for practice as well as gardening, ironing, mending, etc, so I doubt whether you would come off much better then!
This afternoon Mrs. Kinsey is coming (I hope) to meet her husband, the erring soldier from Woking, here in the hope that it may be possible to effect a reconciliation between them. I am feeling extremely nervous and hope I don’t show it too much. SSAFA business is rather brisk just now and I want to get as much as poss. cleared up before Friday. I think on the whole I will come back here after seeing Frances off, otherwise I shall be very cluttered up with her luggage and mine. Even if they don’t get on to the 10.30, Barbara will be there, so I could come home in time to get the train you have usually taken from Amersham, which connects with a train at Aylesbury which I take to be the 3.30 from Marylebone which you mentioned over the phone. Mother is very keen for Frances to stay longer after making the long journey, we shall have to talk it over when we meet, it would probably mean my going down to [deleted] gq [/deleted] fetch her in the middle of a week.
I’m in a flat spin as to what clothes to bring with me, I am anxious to dazzle you but would like to limit my luggage to one trunk if possible!
All my love darling,
Yours always
Ursula.
Laski, have you still got him
P.S. In your reading list you didn’t mention/
[page break]
[child’s drawing]