Letter from David Boldy to his mother and brother
Title
Letter from David Boldy to his mother and brother
Description
Letter from David Boldy to his mother and brother. States that he is on flight duty shifts and that his kit is all pack to leave Hastings; discusses the different women he met at the dance and the beach, whilst discussing the Royal Air Force leaving Hastings.
Creator
Date
1940-06-23
Temporal Coverage
Coverage
Language
Format
Four page handwritten letter
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
EBoldyDABoldyLM400623
Transcription
R.A.F.
St. Leonard's On Sea,
23rd June, 1940.
[inserted] from.
Boldy,
59, Bathurst Mews,
Lancaster Gate
London, W.2. [/inserted]
My darling Mum & Steve,
Just a line a [sic] I have a moment to spare. I have just come off duty from being flight orderly. One hour every three hours Till 4 oclock [sic] then I am free. We have sent off the last of our stuff including our beds. Only our Kit bags remain. We shall have to sleep on the floorboards tonight and will probably leave some Time tomorrow.
My date didn't come off last evening, Sylvia (her name is Sylvia) met me but would not go out as they were having a family party. I think her father is not too keen on trusting her with the speedy R.A.F. I may Take her out this evening.
I went to the dance last evening with Cecil. He got hold of a good dancer, but that was all. He
[page break]
had had a few and asked me what I thought of her, so I laughed like blazes & he joined in. It was a very good dance. I had a number of dances with a Blonde school Teacher, whose home is in Bournemouth - the latter was written or I should say spoken all over her. Another dance I had Which was very amusing was with a girl (fairly refined) who had had a couple. She Told me she did not like dancing with English people as they concentrated on the dancing, but liked dancing with the French because they concentrated on their partners. I promptly asked her to come & have a drink but her escort to the dance was one of the Sergeants & she couldn't make it.
The dance was quite amusing on the whole. Furthermore I lost Cecil.
The weather is not too good
[page break]
[inserted] [underlined] 2 [/underlined] [/inserted]
to-day but I shall go in for a dip a little later. When we went in yesterday it was incredibly rough. The waves were so enormous that we could only do the breast stroke. But there was no danger or anything like that. It was great fun. After that we amused ourselves by throwing pebbles at some girls on the beach. [deleted] We [/deleted] I managed to get to know them. One of them had a smashing figure.
Everybody is very sorry that the RAF are leaving Hastings. The army will probably Take over. All the girls said they prefer the boys in blue. Someone said Torquay is very quiet but added the R.A.F. will change that I am sure.
We had another undisturbed night last night. I can't imagine what the French are thinking about. How can they expect us to have the means
[page break]
to win if they surrender completely Fleet, Air Force etc. Anyway Hitler will have a damn - tough job beating us up. Red tape is killing this country somebody ought to clean up that sort of thing.
If I had had my name down for the interview a fortnight earlier I should probably have been a pilot I have just seen some of those Taken in on the first few days of the war. It amazes me how some of them were Taken in at all. One complacently told some girls yesterday that pilots were captain [sic] of the ship so I replied equally complacently quite but that is going to be changed in the near future. He was quite upset at the prospect.
No more To-day. God bless you both
[underlined] Love Dave [/underlined]
St. Leonard's On Sea,
23rd June, 1940.
[inserted] from.
Boldy,
59, Bathurst Mews,
Lancaster Gate
London, W.2. [/inserted]
My darling Mum & Steve,
Just a line a [sic] I have a moment to spare. I have just come off duty from being flight orderly. One hour every three hours Till 4 oclock [sic] then I am free. We have sent off the last of our stuff including our beds. Only our Kit bags remain. We shall have to sleep on the floorboards tonight and will probably leave some Time tomorrow.
My date didn't come off last evening, Sylvia (her name is Sylvia) met me but would not go out as they were having a family party. I think her father is not too keen on trusting her with the speedy R.A.F. I may Take her out this evening.
I went to the dance last evening with Cecil. He got hold of a good dancer, but that was all. He
[page break]
had had a few and asked me what I thought of her, so I laughed like blazes & he joined in. It was a very good dance. I had a number of dances with a Blonde school Teacher, whose home is in Bournemouth - the latter was written or I should say spoken all over her. Another dance I had Which was very amusing was with a girl (fairly refined) who had had a couple. She Told me she did not like dancing with English people as they concentrated on the dancing, but liked dancing with the French because they concentrated on their partners. I promptly asked her to come & have a drink but her escort to the dance was one of the Sergeants & she couldn't make it.
The dance was quite amusing on the whole. Furthermore I lost Cecil.
The weather is not too good
[page break]
[inserted] [underlined] 2 [/underlined] [/inserted]
to-day but I shall go in for a dip a little later. When we went in yesterday it was incredibly rough. The waves were so enormous that we could only do the breast stroke. But there was no danger or anything like that. It was great fun. After that we amused ourselves by throwing pebbles at some girls on the beach. [deleted] We [/deleted] I managed to get to know them. One of them had a smashing figure.
Everybody is very sorry that the RAF are leaving Hastings. The army will probably Take over. All the girls said they prefer the boys in blue. Someone said Torquay is very quiet but added the R.A.F. will change that I am sure.
We had another undisturbed night last night. I can't imagine what the French are thinking about. How can they expect us to have the means
[page break]
to win if they surrender completely Fleet, Air Force etc. Anyway Hitler will have a damn - tough job beating us up. Red tape is killing this country somebody ought to clean up that sort of thing.
If I had had my name down for the interview a fortnight earlier I should probably have been a pilot I have just seen some of those Taken in on the first few days of the war. It amazes me how some of them were Taken in at all. One complacently told some girls yesterday that pilots were captain [sic] of the ship so I replied equally complacently quite but that is going to be changed in the near future. He was quite upset at the prospect.
No more To-day. God bless you both
[underlined] Love Dave [/underlined]
Collection
Citation
David Boldy, “Letter from David Boldy to his mother and brother,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed May 11, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/677.
Item Relations
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