Letter from Jack Darby to Jean

Letter from Jack Darby to Jean

He asks about her knitting and fire watching. The weather is less cold and he has been out drinking beer. He has visited Scarborough to watch films.

1944-03-12

Two double sided handwritten sheets

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EDarbyCAHWellandJ440312

P/O. Darby, J.
No. 2. Officers Mess,
R.A.F. Filey Camp,
Filey,
Yorks.

12-3-44.

Dear Jean,

Thanks so much for your welcome letter, its funny I always know theres a letter from you even before I look through the mail, it must be instinct, or some sixth sense.

Am glad to hear you still are going strong with the knitting and fire watching, they always seem to be mentioned in the same paragraph of your letter, I was wondering what would happen if an incendairy [sic] came down when you were in the middle

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of counting your stitches, would you continue or not? thats what they call a $64 question in America.

This last week seems to have gone quickly, we were out of doors most of the time, the weather is a little milder and I don't need to go to bed at night looking like an Arctic explorer. We've had plenty of drill, of course we each have to take the flight, you should see me shouting myself hoarse, boy, I swallowed pints that night, we made a tour of the locals, charted all that seemed O.K. One in particular seemed to be very popular, we soon discovered the reason, they have a real 1944 model barmaid, a real blue-eyed

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blonde, very attractive but not my type, I prefer brunettes – theyre more reliable, if thats possible, lets hear your comments, expect I shall be severely told off and described as a cynical young man.

Upon reading this through I mentioned charting all the locals that were O.K. well this applied to Filey, we did [deleted] the [/deleted] local village about a week ago. Later on we hope to explore further afield, theres bags of scope around here.

As usual we went into Scarborough on Saturday, had some tea and saw 'The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp', quite an interesting film, we had "Kings Row" at

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the camp cinema, have you seen it or read the book? its a strange film, but to see some of these small towns in America, well you can imagine it happening at any one of them.

Well, must close now, hope you are keeping well, please give my regards to Mother and Dad.

Take care of yourself

Yours Jack