Letter from Douglas Hudson to his parents
Title
Letter from Douglas Hudson to his parents
Description
Notes it was his birthday and reports arrival of letters and latest cable with birthday greetings. Long discussion of mail he has sent and what had arrived with them. Notes Christmas card that had just arrived after six months in transit. Catches up and comments on home news. Mentions that weather is very hot and during discussion about scotch notes it would fetch 800 francs there.
Creator
Date
1942-05-21
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-HE420521
Transcription
Sgt. J.D. Hudson. 755052.
c/o. Consul Général des Etats Unis.
Rue Michelet.
Alger. Algérie.
Afrique du Nord.
21-5-42.
My Dear Mother & Dad,
Today is my birthday, and I have been very pleased indeed to receive cables from you, Uncle Jim, Hill Côte, & Horsforth, all in time, not to mention your letter of March 6th which arrived the day before yesterday, and two letters from you dated April 17th and March 25th also one from E.W.7. dated April 9th which all arrived this morning. Your cable read as follows: - “Delighted seven letters to-day very special thoughts for Thursday hope parcels arrived happy birthday all love” To which I am replying this afternoon: - “Delighted your birthday cable yesterday also three from Calverley and three more letters to-day May twenty first well all love thoughts no parcel.” It is always very encouraging to receive your cables especially when they tell of my letters getting home. I realise what excitement it must be for you to receive seven all together after such a long lapse. You do not say what dates they are but as cables have been received here very recently acknowledging March letters, I suppose it must be an accumulation of Feb/March mail. Here are my own compiled rough statistics. Since my arrival at Laghouat I estimate having written to you about fifty five letters. According to your news you have received batches of six, eight, two, six & seven making a total of twenty–nine. The first six were from Aumale up to September 17th, that leaves twenty three from Laghouat. Assuming that the latest letter of the last batch was written about beginning of March,
[page break]
say ten weeks ago, it means that twenty three letters out of a possible thirty-five have actually reached you. (I assume having written twenty letters to you since early March). In other words two thirds of the mail is getting home, which, I suppose is not too bad. Your letters written to me this year up to No. 36 have arrived with the exception of the Nos. 11, 32 & 35. These last two I expect anytime. Did I tell you I received a few days ago a letter & Christmas card sent from Auntie Dorothy on November 9th? It had taken six months to get here. I was glad to hear that Ray Parkinson received his wireless set, I had certain doubts at the time whether it would arrive safely. I have not received the parcel of cigarettes yet or Mrs. Clayton’s book. This is not very surprising because delivery of parcels is most uncertain and times taken to arrive vary considerably. I hope Grandad benefited from his stay, but according to your letter he sounds to be getting a really old man. I hope you were not unduly tired after his visit. I can well imagine all the running up and down. Talking about the syphon of soda & bottle of Scotch. That would fetch 800 francs out here. The Scotch I mean. The soda maybe 6 francs. The weather has become ridiculously hot. We have closed all doors and windows & “blitzed” the flies. When we open the door it is like pouring water all over to see if the joint is done. Truly there is no joint, except the one we are in. I have one officer guard tonight. Whether we shall get any Muscatel, or Mausseuse is very uncertain. We are terribly rationed. But I shall think about you whatever happens. Once again thank you & all those who remembered my birthday. With as ever all my love & thoughts, good-bye until next letter.
[underlined] Douglas. [/underlined]
c/o. Consul Général des Etats Unis.
Rue Michelet.
Alger. Algérie.
Afrique du Nord.
21-5-42.
My Dear Mother & Dad,
Today is my birthday, and I have been very pleased indeed to receive cables from you, Uncle Jim, Hill Côte, & Horsforth, all in time, not to mention your letter of March 6th which arrived the day before yesterday, and two letters from you dated April 17th and March 25th also one from E.W.7. dated April 9th which all arrived this morning. Your cable read as follows: - “Delighted seven letters to-day very special thoughts for Thursday hope parcels arrived happy birthday all love” To which I am replying this afternoon: - “Delighted your birthday cable yesterday also three from Calverley and three more letters to-day May twenty first well all love thoughts no parcel.” It is always very encouraging to receive your cables especially when they tell of my letters getting home. I realise what excitement it must be for you to receive seven all together after such a long lapse. You do not say what dates they are but as cables have been received here very recently acknowledging March letters, I suppose it must be an accumulation of Feb/March mail. Here are my own compiled rough statistics. Since my arrival at Laghouat I estimate having written to you about fifty five letters. According to your news you have received batches of six, eight, two, six & seven making a total of twenty–nine. The first six were from Aumale up to September 17th, that leaves twenty three from Laghouat. Assuming that the latest letter of the last batch was written about beginning of March,
[page break]
say ten weeks ago, it means that twenty three letters out of a possible thirty-five have actually reached you. (I assume having written twenty letters to you since early March). In other words two thirds of the mail is getting home, which, I suppose is not too bad. Your letters written to me this year up to No. 36 have arrived with the exception of the Nos. 11, 32 & 35. These last two I expect anytime. Did I tell you I received a few days ago a letter & Christmas card sent from Auntie Dorothy on November 9th? It had taken six months to get here. I was glad to hear that Ray Parkinson received his wireless set, I had certain doubts at the time whether it would arrive safely. I have not received the parcel of cigarettes yet or Mrs. Clayton’s book. This is not very surprising because delivery of parcels is most uncertain and times taken to arrive vary considerably. I hope Grandad benefited from his stay, but according to your letter he sounds to be getting a really old man. I hope you were not unduly tired after his visit. I can well imagine all the running up and down. Talking about the syphon of soda & bottle of Scotch. That would fetch 800 francs out here. The Scotch I mean. The soda maybe 6 francs. The weather has become ridiculously hot. We have closed all doors and windows & “blitzed” the flies. When we open the door it is like pouring water all over to see if the joint is done. Truly there is no joint, except the one we are in. I have one officer guard tonight. Whether we shall get any Muscatel, or Mausseuse is very uncertain. We are terribly rationed. But I shall think about you whatever happens. Once again thank you & all those who remembered my birthday. With as ever all my love & thoughts, good-bye until next letter.
[underlined] Douglas. [/underlined]
Collection
Citation
James Douglas Hudson, “Letter from Douglas Hudson to his parents,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed April 26, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/22678.
Item Relations
This item has no relations.