Letter from Jack Darby to his Wife

Letter from Jack Darby to his Wife

He thanks her for her two letters and parcel. He makes flippant comments about the length of her letters. His model Lancaster is progressing. He is expecting to be released from service and promises to get to work on their flat when he gets home.

1945-11-06

Three double sided handwritten sheets and envelope

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EDarbyCAHDarbyJ451106

[postage stamps] [postmark]

Mrs Darby,
7. Queens Drive
Surbiton
Surrey

[inserted] 6-11-45 [/inserted]

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Tuesday

F/O. C. Darby, 154676
R.A.F. Station
Acaster Malbis,
Nr York.
Yorks

My darling,

Am feeling somewhat overwhelmed by your two letters, they both arrived yesterday morning and I’m feeling as though I ought to start wearing glasses, [deleted word] or in answering of working out a filing system something like this, “your letter of Friday page 504 para 1600” if they got to much longer, you know

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2/

The second letter was so long that when I finished it I had grown a beard! Can expect some strong comments on the above when you next write, joking aside darling I do look forward to your letters and I do like to hear all the news.

The parcel arrived from you today so I shall be changing again and sending my other laundry home, if some of the pants are in holes just scrap them and I’ll get some fresh ones at home.

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3

Regarding the weekend I may be home but it won’t be until Saturday as our boss is having a few days off, I told Dad that if he could get the chap that was going to do the tiling to come in on Sunday morning I would come home anyway, however I shall probably ring up home on Friday if I don’t hear anything.

Expect you and Ivy did some overtime talking when you visited her, expect her poor husband went off to the local to get some peace and quiet

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4/

Thanks so much for ringing Winnie Hart, expect poor old Jack is pretty cheesed, hope we shall be hearing from him soon, by the way, are the wedding photos’ to hand yet?

The Lanc is making fair progress, does’nt look too bad and if I finish it I may bring it home this weekend, the chief difficulty is fixing it on a stand, however have thought out a scheme which might work, it takes hours of filing to reduce it to a somewhat smooth finish, we’ve used

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5/

plenty of emery paper and have now got to the final polishing stage, anyway if you don’t like it we can use the stand as an ashtray.

So its twelve months since we were engaged, as you say a lot has happened since then. I thought the war would have been over longer and I should have been released, however its not much longer now, shall have to face it and come back to that rolling pin, still I can always chop it up can’t I.? When I get out we can really get down to getting the flat organised, I think

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6/

it will take at least a month to set the kitchen right working all the time, shall have to teach you to paint, its quite easy somewhat like the lathering you gave my face the other weekend.

Bill and I went into York on Saturday, managed to get the rest of the bits for the Lanc, then went to the pictures, saw The Common Touch, an English film, quite worth seeing.

Well, my darling am nearly writing a book, hope Mum and Dad are O.K.

All my love, take care of yourself dearest,

Yours Jack.