Letter from Mervyn Adder to his brother Alex
Title
Letter from Mervyn Adder to his brother Alex
Description
Letter and explanatory note. Writes of arriving at home and missing seeing his brother due to travel difficulties. Describes quiet evening with Mary and Sunday dinner. Comments of difficult journey back to base and finding out exam results on his return. Describes his activities including going to station cinema.
Creator
Date
1943-01-21
Temporal Coverage
Coverage
Language
Format
Four page handwritten letter and printed explanatory note
Conforms To
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
SAdderM175073v10052, SAdderM175073v10051
Transcription
1459790. L.A.C. Adder M.
Hut 65.
9, Flight, B Squadron
No 1 Wing
RAF. Station
Bridgnorth
Thursday.
Dear Alex,
I am very, very sorry I didn’t arrive home in time on Saturday as I would have liked to have seen you and intended doing so, and hope you werent [sic] too annoyed when I didn’t turn up. Mary couldn’t have any time off work on the Saturday morning so we had to travel in the afternoon, but would still have had time to reach home in time to see you if the confounded train hadn’t stood for nearly an hour outside Brough – was I annoyed – as it was we reached Paragon about ten minutes after your train had left.
Being late on Saturday night prevented us going to the pictures or to a dance so while Mary went to her Uncle’s I dashed home, collected my
[page break]
bike, and cycled over spending the evening with her father, uncle & aunt. It was a very quiet evening and I think we both needed one as we were both terribly tired, in fact I am only just recovering from sleepy sickness – and in a letter I had from Mary today she said she had been going to bed at about nine o’clock for the last few nights to get over it.
Mary came over to dinner on Sunday, after which I saw her off at the station and then dashed back home again as Fred was coming to tea, arriving just before he did. We spent most of the evening talking and drinking that lemonade stuff, we didn’t get drunk on it however, and I was jolly glad of his company, as I always feel ‘browned off’ at seeing Mary off until I eventually get over it.
It was a hell of a train journey to get back to this place, I set off at eleven o’clock in the morning and didn’t reach Camp until
[page break]
ten o’clock at night after numerous changes and periods of waiting for connections, however I travelled down with three other chaps from Hull so it wasn’t too ‘binding’. We had a couple of hours to wait in B’ham, it was around tea time so we went in search of a place where we could get something to eat and found a Services Club quite near to the Station. It was a very decent place, much ahead of anything we have in Hull, where you sat down at tables and your food was brought to you by voluntary helpers with about a minute to wait for it coming up.
When I eventually reached Camp I found the results of the Exam waiting for me and was relieved to see that I had passed, doing better than I thought I had. Our Flight did very well having the best average of any taking the Exam at the same time, and only had two failures as compared with seventeen in one of the other Flights. I also heard that it was likely that we would be posted fairly soon which is grand
[page break]
and as so many of our Flight have heard that they are going definitely in a few days time it looks as though the rest of us wont be long after them.
We don’t do too much work now that we are back, mostly plotting, and occaisonal [sic] visits to the cinema to see those films on Air Sea Rescue, Oxygen etc. and it’s a very pleasant change too, especially having all the nights free. Last night I went along to the Station Cinema to see ‘Hellzapoppin’ it was crazy but damned amusing and thoroughly [deleted] amusing [/deleted] [inserted] enjoyed it. [/inserted]
Well I hope the beer is still to your satisfaction and you are not having to work too hard down there, anyhow I will sign off now as I want to go for a drink myself so cheerio for the present.
Mervyn
P.S. Sorry about the writing towards the end almost asleep – these huts get damned stuffy with the two stoves going.
[page break]
21 January 1943
Mervyn describes a very difficult train journey from home back to base. He had also had problems travelling to Hull with Mary and had missed seeing Dad by ten minutes. Their trains must have passed each other in opposite directions on 16 January 1943. As usual, he had passed his exams. He describes seeing a film Hellzapoppin at the station cinema (see attached.)
Hut 65.
9, Flight, B Squadron
No 1 Wing
RAF. Station
Bridgnorth
Thursday.
Dear Alex,
I am very, very sorry I didn’t arrive home in time on Saturday as I would have liked to have seen you and intended doing so, and hope you werent [sic] too annoyed when I didn’t turn up. Mary couldn’t have any time off work on the Saturday morning so we had to travel in the afternoon, but would still have had time to reach home in time to see you if the confounded train hadn’t stood for nearly an hour outside Brough – was I annoyed – as it was we reached Paragon about ten minutes after your train had left.
Being late on Saturday night prevented us going to the pictures or to a dance so while Mary went to her Uncle’s I dashed home, collected my
[page break]
bike, and cycled over spending the evening with her father, uncle & aunt. It was a very quiet evening and I think we both needed one as we were both terribly tired, in fact I am only just recovering from sleepy sickness – and in a letter I had from Mary today she said she had been going to bed at about nine o’clock for the last few nights to get over it.
Mary came over to dinner on Sunday, after which I saw her off at the station and then dashed back home again as Fred was coming to tea, arriving just before he did. We spent most of the evening talking and drinking that lemonade stuff, we didn’t get drunk on it however, and I was jolly glad of his company, as I always feel ‘browned off’ at seeing Mary off until I eventually get over it.
It was a hell of a train journey to get back to this place, I set off at eleven o’clock in the morning and didn’t reach Camp until
[page break]
ten o’clock at night after numerous changes and periods of waiting for connections, however I travelled down with three other chaps from Hull so it wasn’t too ‘binding’. We had a couple of hours to wait in B’ham, it was around tea time so we went in search of a place where we could get something to eat and found a Services Club quite near to the Station. It was a very decent place, much ahead of anything we have in Hull, where you sat down at tables and your food was brought to you by voluntary helpers with about a minute to wait for it coming up.
When I eventually reached Camp I found the results of the Exam waiting for me and was relieved to see that I had passed, doing better than I thought I had. Our Flight did very well having the best average of any taking the Exam at the same time, and only had two failures as compared with seventeen in one of the other Flights. I also heard that it was likely that we would be posted fairly soon which is grand
[page break]
and as so many of our Flight have heard that they are going definitely in a few days time it looks as though the rest of us wont be long after them.
We don’t do too much work now that we are back, mostly plotting, and occaisonal [sic] visits to the cinema to see those films on Air Sea Rescue, Oxygen etc. and it’s a very pleasant change too, especially having all the nights free. Last night I went along to the Station Cinema to see ‘Hellzapoppin’ it was crazy but damned amusing and thoroughly [deleted] amusing [/deleted] [inserted] enjoyed it. [/inserted]
Well I hope the beer is still to your satisfaction and you are not having to work too hard down there, anyhow I will sign off now as I want to go for a drink myself so cheerio for the present.
Mervyn
P.S. Sorry about the writing towards the end almost asleep – these huts get damned stuffy with the two stoves going.
[page break]
21 January 1943
Mervyn describes a very difficult train journey from home back to base. He had also had problems travelling to Hull with Mary and had missed seeing Dad by ten minutes. Their trains must have passed each other in opposite directions on 16 January 1943. As usual, he had passed his exams. He describes seeing a film Hellzapoppin at the station cinema (see attached.)
Collection
Citation
M Adder, “Letter from Mervyn Adder to his brother Alex,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed April 20, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/33248.
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