Letter from Jack Darby to Jean

Letter from Jack Darby to Jean

He has moved to RAF Winthorpe. He is hoping to finish the course early and get some days leave. He has found beer in Lincoln. His PS expresses love for Jean.

1944-09-12

Two double sided handwritten sheets and envelope

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EDarbyCAHWellandJ440912

[postage stamp] [postmark]

Miss J. Welland,
7 Queens Drive
Surbiton
Surrey.

[inserted] 13-9-44 [/inserted]

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F/O Darby. C. 154676,
Officers Mess
R.A.F. Winthorpe
Nr. Newark
Notts

12.9.44.

My dear Jean,

Well, now I have got more or less settled I can get down and write you a few lines. My mail has’nt caught up with me yet but Scampton will soon send it on, anyway I should be here for a few weeks!

We have just started the course, its quite extensive and we shall be pretty busy, its pretty

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concentrated and we don’t get any time off at all, however we may wrangle an unofficial day, you see we have a certain amount of flying to do and if we finish to time we may get a few days leave so it may pay us to press on and finish.

We don’t start flying for a week, its just ground school day after day, quite a lot of new stuff to learn. Our flight engineer has arrived, he’s quite a good type, comes from Birmingham, so we are an all

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English crew, his name is Fred Evans, age 23 and seems a good steady type that likes his glass of beer. Talking of beer, I’ll slightly revise my opinion of Lincoln, there [underlined] is [/underlined] some beer, we had a night out last Saturday, think we had our fair share of what was going.

By the way I’ve looked through your letters and I can’t find those flints so I suppose they must have dropped out, still I’ve got about six months supply in hand with those two you bought me and my one in the lighter.

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Have you seen Mother & Dad lately? I have’nt heard from them but expect they are O.K. How are you getting on? Still toiling away at Eastwoods I suppose, one thing, fire watching should cease fairly soon.

I’m pretty fit, but miss you terribly, I doubt if I shall get home for another five weeks, but it won’t be for want of trying! Still I’ll make up for lost time then.

Well, darling, will say cheerio for the moment, take care of yourself, please remember me to Mother & Dad.

all the best

Yours Jack.

P.S. If I tell you how much I love you I shall run out of notepaper!