Letter from Douglas Hudson to his parents

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Title

Letter from Douglas Hudson to his parents

Description

Reports arrival of latest mail as well as Christmas card and bookmark calendar. Answers their question comparing spring in North Africa to home. Mentions not receiving any clothes from Red Cross but had received considerable amount of food for which grateful especially cocoa, tea and powdered milk. Says they do not have padre and ensures them he will like their new house when he gets home. Catches up with family news. Says he has not played much bridge lately as he is tied up with production of weekly newspaper. Describes his day.

Date

1942-02-10

Temporal Coverage

Language

Format

Tow 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-HE420210

Transcription

Royal Air Force. 755052. Sgt. J. D. Hudson
c/o Consul Général des États Unis.
Rue Michelet.
Alger. Algérie.
Afrique du Nord.
10-2-42.

My Dear Mother & Dad,
I was very pleased to receive this afternoon three letters from you numbered 3, 5 & 6 and dated January 7th, 12th & 14th, also one from Auntie Maud Hudson dated November 3rd with Christmas, card came via ordinary mail. I received your Christmas card and bookmark Calendar a long time ago, so did Tony, but the large Calendar you mention has not yet come to hand. You ask if the spring-time here is anything like the English. No there is little comparison and as all around is desert we cannot observe the return to life of the green things. They only grow in gardens which are walled off. You also ask do I ever picture the home-coming. I do that every day. I suppose we shall notice differences in each other, but not basically. In that respect we shall always remain the same. What a day the home-coming will be – when it arrives! We did not receive any clothing from the Red X, but we have received quite an amount of food for which we have been thankful. More particularly for the drinks, ie, cocoa, tea and powdered milk. No, there is no Padre here. Mr Cummil came from Alger once before Christmas, and I sent you a ‘photo taken of the service group. You say that you do not think I shall care much for your small house. Have you imagined what it will feel like for me to be in a house again, with all the facilities and conveniences and everything that goes to make a home life? This should put your mind at rest in this respect. So you persuaded Dad

[page break]

to buy a pair of rubber boots. I can well picture the look on his face if he was not thrilled with them. I did not know Dad understood Bridge – but as he does he should give Mother lessons in preparation. It is a good game and in a letter recently received from John he told me he had taken it up as well. I have not played for some time, as we have been fairly busy publishing the “Camp Echo” which I explained in earlier letters. Also the primitive supplementary cooking we so often do takes up quite a lot of time in a pleasant manner. Yes we go to bed fairly early – generally between nine & ten. During the winter we have been getting up about 8.30. There is not much point in getting up earlier when the mornings are cold. In summer it will be different & we shall probably be up at 7am. We were at Aumale. It gets dark about 6-30pm & light about the same time in the morning now.. The summer [inserted] during [/inserted] the longest day [inserted] it [/inserted] is light from about 5am to 8-30pm. There is not the same difference here as in England. It makes me glad to understand that by reading my letters you are able to bridge the distance which separates us. I can say the same applies to me. I hope my letters will continue to reach you regularly again. R.A.F. is a mongrel terrier, & Wimpy is also. He is rather like Bunty used to be. Raf. is smaller & black and white. Wimpy was christened after the name of the aircraft Wellington which is so often referred to under that name. I am glad to hear that you do not have to queue for rationed articles. That is a saving of time and trouble. And now once more I will say good bye until next letter. As ever I send you both all my love, thoughts & best wishes.

[underlined] Douglas [/underlined].

Collection

Citation

James Douglas Hudson, “Letter from Douglas Hudson to his parents ,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed March 28, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/22590.

Item Relations

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