Letter from Terry Ford to his family

Letter from Terry Ford to his family

Terry Ford writes to his family describing his new flying kit and mentions his forthcoming exams.

1942-05-18

Two handwritten sheets

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EFordTAFordAG-[Mrs]-M420526-0001,
EFordTAFordAG-[Mrs]-M420526-0002

1585520 AC2 Ford T.A. etc.
Tuesday 26-5-42

Dear Mum, Dad & Moira

Glad to receive your letter to-day & thanks very much for the parcel. The Fry’s Square meal was very delicious, & I was glad to have the cigarettes, although I received 60 from Auntie Cis as well. I had intended to give up cigarettes, but have now changed my mind.

Yes I have received my parcel from Mrs Noakes & have written a note of thanks. It was certainly good of them to send the stuff to me.

Re your parcel - there was no tie in it. I am sure of this as I examined it rather thoroughly, because I thought it would be in there. Are you sure you put it in? The parcel was quite firmly tied as far as I remember & I don’t think anyone could have taken the tie.

Well, you may or may not be pleased to hear that we received our flying kit yesterday. Its marvellous stuff. I’ll tell you about it. First there is a grand pair of flying boots. They are just like big editions of the boots you see Duchesses[??] etc. wearing at race meetings, & they are wonderfully comfortable. We have 3 pairs of gloves 1 silk, woollen &

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1 gauntlet. They are worn with silk next to skin. We also have RAF Battledress which is same as army only blue (Roy Hussey[?] was wearing it when we saw him) On top of this goes a big [indecipherable word] just like an eiderdown. On top of this goes a [deleted] suit of [/deleted] Sidcot suit. It is of heavy, canvas-linen material, & altogether it is pretty heavy. It has a detachable fur collar. Then there is a beautifully soft leather helmet with earphones & oxygen mask (detachable). I may bring the helmet home to show you. Altogether it made us feel that we really are getting somewhere, & we were prancing about the billets with it all on. We have a marvellous pair of goggles each too, the glass is composed of [indecipherable word] lenses and [deleted] it [/deleted] they are made so that there is no distortion however you look out of them.

Yes, I’ve been having a very good time lately, but the exams are coming on now. We have Armaments this week, Morse next & rest [deleted word] the week after. We go on leave as soon as we finish the navigation exam.

We have bought a mouse trap but have only caught one mouse so far.

I shall be glad to hear how you get on with your exam Moira & thank you very much for your long letter, It was very good & I enjoyed reading it. I must look round & see if I can

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