Letter from Peter Lamprey to W Gunton

ELampreyPGuntonW[Date]-55.pdf

Title

Letter from Peter Lamprey to W Gunton

Description

Peter Lamprey writes that he is leaving for Scotland where he has a four week course at Castle Kennedy and that he hopes to be home for Christmas. He mentions that he has not told his girlfriend that he is leaving.

Creator

Coverage

Language

Format

Envelope and six page handwritten letter

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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.

Identifier

ELampreyPGuntonW[Date]-55

Transcription

[postage stamp]

[inserted] 2 [/inserted]

Mr. W. Gunton
Machine Room.
Waterlow and Sons. Ltd.
Twyford Abbey Road.
Park Royal.
London. N.W.10.

[page break]

[reverse of envelope blank]

[page break]

1384535. LAC. Lamprey. P.
Hut. X35. A. Sqdn. [Squadron]
No 1 Air Crew Wing.
RAF. Yatesbury.
[underlined] Wiltshire. [/underlined]

Dear UNK Etc.

Once again I scrawl a brief note to say that my travels are again commencing. This time I am leaving for Scotland – for a change. By the time this bloody brawl has finished I shall have parked my fanny in almost every quarter of the British Isles. Just when I thought life had eased over and invited me to share a nice warm bed they rush a bleeding posting through in three days and

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decide to send us away Friday night. If they should put a sergeant in charge of us for the journey I can see him coming back with a baby under his belt, as the boys thought they were getting a week end off.

They do say – who in hell is meant by they I have never found out – that it is only a four week course at Castle Kennedy – the dump we are posted to. If this is so I should be able to look forward to a bit of leave before Christmas. Not that it makes a lot of difference. I have been looking forward
to a bit of leave for heavens knows how long. If they ever ask me to go in for anything else in the way of [corrected] a [/corrected] course I shall lose my nut and do about ten years detention

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for someone.

The mere fact that some bloody Claude Duval whipped my cigarettes off the bed, has failed to stir me is a real demonstration as to what depths I have sunk. They are pushing me around as if I was on casters. If much more happens to me I shall be a right subject for a maternity ward. Which reminds me.

So far I haven’t had the nerve to tell Cookie I am posted. From the performance the other night I think she will get my pants down for shooting her a horrible line. One thing – it will be a change.
She thinks I am a permanent fixture on this station and there are some big plans on if I read the signs alright. All the danger doesn’t come from Jerry.

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This is being penned four or so hours after the preceding pages. A very nice evening has just finished and this chicken feels more like an airman than I did before. The beer in town is pretty fair and everything is like that. The Duty N.C.O. is lying in his bunk with a skin full of whisky so the lights will be on all night. Cookie has finished her little show and I am once again the white-headed boy who will be writing to her every day – she hopes.

The only grouse I can think of is that some of the boys are going to Barrow in Furness. That would have suited me with every weekend in Blackpool. Still a month’s hard living might get me fit again. At present what with my shoulder

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and an inoculation in the other arm I feel a bit like the armless wonder.

Mr. Hunt will be glad to hear that I am turning over a new leaf after I get to my new station. The nearest town is seventeen miles away and that is Stranraer. The RAF are not exactly barred in there but not quite given the freedom of the town so I think I shall become a teetotaller for a while. If Mr. Hunt knows of any good Temperance canteens there he can keep his information.

I hope Bro. G. has taken my last letter to heart and given his boy the real gen. on this course. If I should ever happen to be in town when he is on leave I bet I’ll change his mind with my tales. For a nice comfortable job he wants to

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join anything but aircrew.

This - as I have so often said – must do until something big happens. If any body [sic] wants me to remember them they had better start saving up for my next leave. We leave tonight at 8 oclock [sic] for the next stage and will be travelling all night and from the sound of things all tomorrow so I am too brassed to write further. I shall write when I have parked me again.

Kiss the children. Best of luck.

Pete X.

Collection

Citation

Peter Lamprey, “Letter from Peter Lamprey to W Gunton,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed March 19, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/6565.

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