Letter from Douglas Hudson to his parents
Title
Letter from Douglas Hudson to his parents
Description
Records mail he has received and those that are missing. Comments on weather and that it is getting hotter. Writes that they can see little from the new camp and mentions rationing at home and lack of items in his location. His food is mainly vegetables and he comments on new arrivals and increase in numbers. Writes they get an issue of half a litre of red wine a day and black coffee at breakfast. Adds further comment on availability of tea, his daily activities and what he feels about life in camp.
Creator
Date
1941-05-13
Temporal Coverage
Language
Format
Two 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
EHudsonJDHudsonP-HE410513
Transcription
Royal Air Force. 755052. Sgt. J. D. Hudson.
c/0 Consul Général des Etats Unis
Rue Michelet.
Alger. Algérie.
Afrique du Nord.
13-5-41
My Dear Mother & Dad
Yesterday, I received your letter dated March 18th, No. 27, and this was the first to arrive since Nos. 28 and 30 came on April 25th. The letters which have not arrived out of the first thirty you have written this year are Nos. 11, 22 & 29. I do wish you received my letters as well as I have been getting yours. I write two letters every week so a very large percentage are getting lost. You mention blizzards and thunderstorms on March 18th about which time we were having fairly hot weather. April was reasonably cool but the last few days have been hot especially after mid-day. All we can see from here is a sky which remains almost continually [deleted] broken [/deleted] blue and in the distance can be observed over the wall a ridge of completely barren hills, brown against the sky blue, over which is sometimes a haze caused by heat or minor sand storms. You also mention the inconvenience of further rationing. Such things as tea, butter, sugar etc are completely absent here. The food is about 80% vegetable, the kind depending upon the vegetable in season, which is at present the broad bean. I told you in my last letter that since the new arrivals came and our numbers were so enormously increased we have our cooks & staff who attend to our cooking. This has meant for us an improvement and we no longer find the bean pods with the beans. I told you before we get an issue of half a litre of red wine every day (just under a pint) and I suppose this is good for me, drunk with meals. It is the only drink we
[page break]
get apart from one cup of black coffee each morning. The real object of the wine is to mix it with water, the latter being a questionable drink on its own in this part of the world. We have been able to buy an occasional bottle of lemonade & best [indecipherable word] at is getting increasingly difficult to cater for our large numbers. Our Red Cross tea is reduced to the last two ounces & we make it ridiculously weak to try and spin it out. I think the chances of getting further supplies of this commodity in the future are remote I am still doing my morning P.T. for about twenty minutes. [inserted] each day [/inserted] I do wish I could be suddenly transplanted in England because at this time of the year we have benefited by the good weather and are looking pretty fit & brown. It is a waste of time to talk about the feeling of wishing [deleted] t [/deleted] we have, because this is commonly understood to be running as high as possible. I cannot imagine what it will be like to return home. I wonder if it will be sudden or if it will be brought about in easy stages. I cannot foresee anything at the moment. Tony has just unearthed a picture I cut out of a magazine at Kief. showing Selworthy Village. What a contrast with this place of sand and sun! When I think of a stream of cool clear water running over smooth pebbles I think of England. Where I think of England I imagine house & this stream of cool clear water. In other words England epitomises all that is good and fresh. I wonder if at some future date in the middle of a cold December fog in [indecipherable word] I shall sigh for the Laghaurat seen? Nay for the house fire-side. But thank God we are still in a position to sigh & grumble. May be it could be worse. As ever I send you both all my love, thoughts & wishes.
Douglas.
c/0 Consul Général des Etats Unis
Rue Michelet.
Alger. Algérie.
Afrique du Nord.
13-5-41
My Dear Mother & Dad
Yesterday, I received your letter dated March 18th, No. 27, and this was the first to arrive since Nos. 28 and 30 came on April 25th. The letters which have not arrived out of the first thirty you have written this year are Nos. 11, 22 & 29. I do wish you received my letters as well as I have been getting yours. I write two letters every week so a very large percentage are getting lost. You mention blizzards and thunderstorms on March 18th about which time we were having fairly hot weather. April was reasonably cool but the last few days have been hot especially after mid-day. All we can see from here is a sky which remains almost continually [deleted] broken [/deleted] blue and in the distance can be observed over the wall a ridge of completely barren hills, brown against the sky blue, over which is sometimes a haze caused by heat or minor sand storms. You also mention the inconvenience of further rationing. Such things as tea, butter, sugar etc are completely absent here. The food is about 80% vegetable, the kind depending upon the vegetable in season, which is at present the broad bean. I told you in my last letter that since the new arrivals came and our numbers were so enormously increased we have our cooks & staff who attend to our cooking. This has meant for us an improvement and we no longer find the bean pods with the beans. I told you before we get an issue of half a litre of red wine every day (just under a pint) and I suppose this is good for me, drunk with meals. It is the only drink we
[page break]
get apart from one cup of black coffee each morning. The real object of the wine is to mix it with water, the latter being a questionable drink on its own in this part of the world. We have been able to buy an occasional bottle of lemonade & best [indecipherable word] at is getting increasingly difficult to cater for our large numbers. Our Red Cross tea is reduced to the last two ounces & we make it ridiculously weak to try and spin it out. I think the chances of getting further supplies of this commodity in the future are remote I am still doing my morning P.T. for about twenty minutes. [inserted] each day [/inserted] I do wish I could be suddenly transplanted in England because at this time of the year we have benefited by the good weather and are looking pretty fit & brown. It is a waste of time to talk about the feeling of wishing [deleted] t [/deleted] we have, because this is commonly understood to be running as high as possible. I cannot imagine what it will be like to return home. I wonder if it will be sudden or if it will be brought about in easy stages. I cannot foresee anything at the moment. Tony has just unearthed a picture I cut out of a magazine at Kief. showing Selworthy Village. What a contrast with this place of sand and sun! When I think of a stream of cool clear water running over smooth pebbles I think of England. Where I think of England I imagine house & this stream of cool clear water. In other words England epitomises all that is good and fresh. I wonder if at some future date in the middle of a cold December fog in [indecipherable word] I shall sigh for the Laghaurat seen? Nay for the house fire-side. But thank God we are still in a position to sigh & grumble. May be it could be worse. As ever I send you both all my love, thoughts & wishes.
Douglas.
Collection
Citation
James Douglas Hudson, “Letter from Douglas Hudson to his parents,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed November 5, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/22521.
Item Relations
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