Letter from Douglas Hudson to his parents

Letter from Douglas Hudson to his parents

Was pleased to receive Easter greetings cable and that they had received more of his letters. Speculates on what they might be doing and mentions sunsets, nights and weather. Comments on visit by padre from Algiers a long and difficult journey by train and road. Writes that he was weighed for boxing team and that he would try and send photographs to show them he was okay. Writes of doing PT and sunbathing and that a new arrival was sharing their room. Mentions frequent Red Cross food parcels. He apologises for much repetition in letters and says he is well occupied with help on the camp newspaper.

1942-04-03

Two page handwritten letter

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EHudsonJDHudsonP-HE420403

Royal Air Force. 755052. Sgt. J.D. Hudson.
c/o Consul General des Etats Unis.
Rue Michelet.
Alger. Algerie.
Afrique du Nord.
3-4-42.
My Dear Mother & Dad,
To-day is Good Friday, & yesterday I was very pleased to receive your cable and greetings for Easter. I was also especially pleased to learn that you had received a further six letters from me. Your cable read as follows:- “Delighted six letters dates December nine January nine Whitworth Street eighty-one expect slight improvement Easter greetings all love.” I gather from this that the six letters you received were dated from Dec. 9th to and including Jan. 9th, & that the P.O. in [indecipherable word] hold out hope of better deliveries in future. This news all round is good and gives more encouragement to write. I too, am hoping that you will receive the mail quicker in future because the Consular route is available to us once again. This will be the fourth letter to go this way. I sent the following cabled reply to you yesterday:- “Delighted cable thirty first pleased six letters received by you Easter greetings reciprocated all love thoughts” I am enclosing two more photos of our previous show, of “Crazy Gang & Chorus”. These are the last: I hope the others arrived. To-day is just another day for us. I suppose Dad will have holiday and that you will be spending the time in the garden. I guess you are glad that summer is on its way. We have had more summer this year already than England gets in two years. Some of the nights have been marvellous and the sunsets magnificent. We are on the threshold of the hot weather, but the last
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month has been very nice. We were trying to guess the temperature yesterday and assumed it would be about 85° in the afternoon. Padre Cummins is visiting us on Monday. It is a long and extremely arduous journey from Alger. The railway finishes at Djelfa and the rest of the journey has to be done by road. I mentioned in my last letter – to set your mind at rest – that I was weighed with the boxing team about a fortnight ago and in shirt and shorts was 10 stones 1 lb. I said I should endeavour to have a few close up ‘photos taken in shorts to still further try & put your mind at rest. I have been doing P.T. every morning for 5 weeks, and doing a little sunbathing most days. I am beginning to get sunburned again. It is particularly noticeable when a new crowd arrives. Incidentally we have a Naval. Petty Officer sharing our two rooms with us now, and we prefer this arrangement. He is a “Geordie” and gets along quite well with us. Further supplies of Red Cross food have been received from Buenos Aires. Meat. Jam & Butter. The Argentine produce is by far the finest quality received. I envy [indecipherable word]. I fear that most of my letters are repetition and are not very interesting. I have received all except No.11. out of the first nineteen written by you. Another batch is due, in fact some letters are overdue, based on times of previous deliveries. I am fairly well occupied these days with typing the “Echo” and camp correspondence for the C.O. concerning general administration. We have received quite a number of Educational books from the Red Cross. What an organisation! Well it is lunchtime now (11-15 am) so I will say good-bye. I hope you will spend a happy weekend, my thoughts are always with you. All my love & wishes. Douglas.