Letter from Mervyn Adder to his family
Title
Letter from Mervyn Adder to his family
Description
Letter and explanatory note. Thanks him for parcel and was pleased with contents. Thanks his father for lending him his knife. Describes some activities and conditions but says he is behind in his correspondence. Catches up with news of friends and Alex's activities. Mentions going into town and poor weather. Writes of intention of going into Barrow next day and continues with description of visit to local town.
Creator
Date
1943-02-08
Temporal Coverage
Coverage
Language
Format
Six 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
SAdderM175073v10056, SAdderM175073v10055
Transcription
1459790 L.A.C. Adder. M
Hut 114
RAF Station
Millom
Cumberland.
Dear All,
Thank you very much for the parcel Mother I received it at lunch time today and as I had just sufficient time before the afternoon lectures I dashed back to the Hut and opened it. I hadn’t time however to discover all the nice things you sent me and picked up all the letters from the top leaving the unpacking until tonight.
I was very pleased with the large bottle of Ovaltine tablets which you sent me, they will come in very handy when we start flying as we seem to get very little chocolate at this place and as the usual length of flights is three hours you need something to chew on the way. Thank you very much Dad for lending me your knife I will look after it and let you have it back as soon as possible although we
[page break]
have very little opportunity to do any shopping in Millom, if that is possible – although I guess it must be, and as yet we haven’t had a day off but are expecting one on Friday.
The chocolate biscuits were very nice, we have just eaten them tonight over a cup of tea in the Salvation Army Canteen and the soap, well I guess it must have had some effect as I had a bath tonight as soon as we finished lectures. Don’t worry about our having to sleep between blankets, they are reasonabley [sic] clean and we should be issued with sheets very shortly.
It was very nice receiving all those letters which you sent me but I am miles behind with my correspondence, I owe Alex one so perhaps you could keep him quiet for a little while – it would help, and will have to get cracking with the old pen if I am going to answer all of them. The letter from America was from Marian, it was an amusing little
[page break]
Christmas Card, better late than never, I think I will drop her a line in the near future as she wanted to know whether I had joined the R.A.F. The other two letters were from Don and Louis, who is now taking a course at Fort William (Inverness) and complaining about having to stay at a place where it rains 25 hrs a day and 8 days a week for five weeks when we have to stay here for fourteen. They and Mary [deleted] all [/deleted] wish to be remembered to you all.
I was alarmed to hear of your mishap with the balloon barrage and hope that by now you have put things more or less shipshape again – it was very fortunate that nobody was hurt.
I went into Millom with two of the boys on Saturday night for the first time, it was dark so of course we couldn’t see much of it however we didn’t want to do as it was pouring with rain, the heaviest I have seen for some time. In this part of the country it’s always raining, it is as I am writing this
[page break]
letter and since we have been here we have only had about three days clear of rain which I believe is a record. On Sunday however it was a glorious day cold, clear and sunny and was one of the few occasions on which we could see the summit of our mountain (we call it a mountain it’s about 2000’ high and stretches on one side of the camp – the other side is the sea hidden from view by the sand dunes) which was covered with snow.
We are going into Barrow tomorrow afternoon for swimming, occasionally you get the chance and leave Camp about a quarter past four, catch the train into Barrow which arrives about half past five and swim at the baths until half past six, when you are given your return ticket and are free to have a look round Barrow until half past nine when you catch the last train back. I shall take this parcel with me to post as there isn’t a post office on the Camp and if you want to post anything you have to take a bus into town and catch
[page break]
the Post Office before it closes which is a rush and a dashed nuisance.
I believe I started telling you about our visit to Millom and then broke off to tell about the weather so I will continue from where I left off. We had decided to go to the only picture house in town, a very ancient affair too, and having an hour to wait found the nearest fish shop where we ate 6d of chips each before braving the elements again to find the picture house. We saw an old film, it was only to be expected, but it was very amusing and we enjoyed it very much it was called ‘My Favourite Blonde’. It had stopped raining [deleted] I am [/deleted] when we came out of the pictures, we caught the last bus home and arrived back at eleven o’clock and went straight in to supper – meals are served at nearly all hours of the day at this place.
I am enclosing my watch as they have given us Astro watches and I don’t want two, perhaps Dad would wear it for me so that it won’t
[page break]
go wrong for want of using, as they sometimes do.
I think I have about exhausted all the news so I will say cheerio for the present.
Love to All,
Mervyn.
P.S. Believe it or not I have grown a moustache.
P.P.S We had tripe for tea the other night.
[page break]
8 February 1943
Mervyn wrote this letter in response to a much-needed food parcel from home. He had just arrived at Millom. He saw My Favourite Blonde on 6 February 1943 – see attached information. The cinema was The Millom Palladium which has been bought by the local amateur operatic society and is used as a theatre today.
The hill he describes must have been Holborn Hill with Black Combe in the background – see picture.
Hut 114
RAF Station
Millom
Cumberland.
Dear All,
Thank you very much for the parcel Mother I received it at lunch time today and as I had just sufficient time before the afternoon lectures I dashed back to the Hut and opened it. I hadn’t time however to discover all the nice things you sent me and picked up all the letters from the top leaving the unpacking until tonight.
I was very pleased with the large bottle of Ovaltine tablets which you sent me, they will come in very handy when we start flying as we seem to get very little chocolate at this place and as the usual length of flights is three hours you need something to chew on the way. Thank you very much Dad for lending me your knife I will look after it and let you have it back as soon as possible although we
[page break]
have very little opportunity to do any shopping in Millom, if that is possible – although I guess it must be, and as yet we haven’t had a day off but are expecting one on Friday.
The chocolate biscuits were very nice, we have just eaten them tonight over a cup of tea in the Salvation Army Canteen and the soap, well I guess it must have had some effect as I had a bath tonight as soon as we finished lectures. Don’t worry about our having to sleep between blankets, they are reasonabley [sic] clean and we should be issued with sheets very shortly.
It was very nice receiving all those letters which you sent me but I am miles behind with my correspondence, I owe Alex one so perhaps you could keep him quiet for a little while – it would help, and will have to get cracking with the old pen if I am going to answer all of them. The letter from America was from Marian, it was an amusing little
[page break]
Christmas Card, better late than never, I think I will drop her a line in the near future as she wanted to know whether I had joined the R.A.F. The other two letters were from Don and Louis, who is now taking a course at Fort William (Inverness) and complaining about having to stay at a place where it rains 25 hrs a day and 8 days a week for five weeks when we have to stay here for fourteen. They and Mary [deleted] all [/deleted] wish to be remembered to you all.
I was alarmed to hear of your mishap with the balloon barrage and hope that by now you have put things more or less shipshape again – it was very fortunate that nobody was hurt.
I went into Millom with two of the boys on Saturday night for the first time, it was dark so of course we couldn’t see much of it however we didn’t want to do as it was pouring with rain, the heaviest I have seen for some time. In this part of the country it’s always raining, it is as I am writing this
[page break]
letter and since we have been here we have only had about three days clear of rain which I believe is a record. On Sunday however it was a glorious day cold, clear and sunny and was one of the few occasions on which we could see the summit of our mountain (we call it a mountain it’s about 2000’ high and stretches on one side of the camp – the other side is the sea hidden from view by the sand dunes) which was covered with snow.
We are going into Barrow tomorrow afternoon for swimming, occasionally you get the chance and leave Camp about a quarter past four, catch the train into Barrow which arrives about half past five and swim at the baths until half past six, when you are given your return ticket and are free to have a look round Barrow until half past nine when you catch the last train back. I shall take this parcel with me to post as there isn’t a post office on the Camp and if you want to post anything you have to take a bus into town and catch
[page break]
the Post Office before it closes which is a rush and a dashed nuisance.
I believe I started telling you about our visit to Millom and then broke off to tell about the weather so I will continue from where I left off. We had decided to go to the only picture house in town, a very ancient affair too, and having an hour to wait found the nearest fish shop where we ate 6d of chips each before braving the elements again to find the picture house. We saw an old film, it was only to be expected, but it was very amusing and we enjoyed it very much it was called ‘My Favourite Blonde’. It had stopped raining [deleted] I am [/deleted] when we came out of the pictures, we caught the last bus home and arrived back at eleven o’clock and went straight in to supper – meals are served at nearly all hours of the day at this place.
I am enclosing my watch as they have given us Astro watches and I don’t want two, perhaps Dad would wear it for me so that it won’t
[page break]
go wrong for want of using, as they sometimes do.
I think I have about exhausted all the news so I will say cheerio for the present.
Love to All,
Mervyn.
P.S. Believe it or not I have grown a moustache.
P.P.S We had tripe for tea the other night.
[page break]
8 February 1943
Mervyn wrote this letter in response to a much-needed food parcel from home. He had just arrived at Millom. He saw My Favourite Blonde on 6 February 1943 – see attached information. The cinema was The Millom Palladium which has been bought by the local amateur operatic society and is used as a theatre today.
The hill he describes must have been Holborn Hill with Black Combe in the background – see picture.
Collection
Citation
M Adder, “Letter from Mervyn Adder to his family,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed April 23, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/33249.
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