Letter from Douglas Hudson to his parents

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EHudsonJDHudsonP-HE410706-0002.jpg

Title

Letter from Douglas Hudson to his parents

Description

Writes to suggest that they post letters to him direct to the American consul in Algiers. Comments on letters he has received from friends and relatives. and that letters take 8 weeks to get to England and two or three weeks to get from there to him. Mentions some of his activities, what he is reading and what he sees on daily organised walks. Mentions weather and getting some fruit and vegetables. Closes with good wishes..

Date

1941-07-06

Temporal Coverage

Language

Format

Two page handwritten letter

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-HE410706

Transcription

755052 Sgt. J. D. Hudson.
c/o. American Consul.
Rue Michelet.
Algiers. Algerie.
Afrique du Nord.
6-7-41
My Dear Mother & Dad,
It is five days since I last wrote to you & since then I have not received any letters from you. Do not think from the above that I have changed my address again, this is not the Case, but letters addressed to me c/o the Consul will always, (or should) find me. Well I have very little news from anybody else other than yourselves. When I last wrote I said I had just received a letter from Dorothy, & when I finished my letter one arrived from Mary dated April 22nd sent by ordinary mail. I do hope you will be receiving letters regularly from me now because since April 25th I have been writing approximately twice a week, but I fear that even Air Mail letters from here take eight weeks to reach England & some of yours are arriving in just [deleted] under [/deleted] [inserted] over [/inserted] a fortnight. Tonight, as a means of a change we are holding a spelling Bee, & I am included in the N.C.O.s side. I shall see if my memory of my own language is suffering, although this is highly improbable because we have a fair selection of books here. At the moment I am plunging through the seven hundred pages of “The Stars Look Down” by Cronin. I find it good because the settings are so obviously parts of England I have known especially in my early youth. Another book I am
[page break]
eager to lay hands on is “Gone with the Wind” which we have here. I told you some time ago I read a light French novel. Well I have not done any French since & have decided it is hopeless not being able to mix with French people. Did I tell you before of the tortoises we see on our daily organised walks. They are quite big and lie in the sun on the banks of filthy water. They are so well camouflaged (got to watch this spelling) and look like stones at the side, but as soon as they are disturbed they shoot into the water at an alarming rate for tortoises. I never realised they could move so quickly. There are quite a number of lizards & small snakes up to about 3 feet in length in these parts. The country now is baked dry & dusty but the weather for some days has not been unbearably hot although quite warm really. As long as that South wind from the desert does not blow things are fairly pleasant. The air is dry & at night it is often quite cool. We have started making our own jam by saving the little green apples & plums with which we are issued. These we boil with a grape syrup which can be bought fairly reasonably (in place of sugar) for two hours on a wood fire & the result is quite passable. The tomatoes are in season again now & will last until November I expect. Well I must go to my spelling Bee now so will say goodbye until next letter. I am eagerly awaiting your news & hope you will both keep safe & well. With every best wish for a more settled and happier future, best wishes also for Dad’s birthday in case this letter takes 8 weeks. All my love,
Douglas
P.S. N.C.O.s beat Officers hands down at spelling.

Collection

Citation

James Douglas Hudson, “Letter from Douglas Hudson to his parents,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed March 29, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/22539.

Item Relations

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