Letter from Harold Gorton to his wife
Title
Letter from Harold Gorton to his wife
Description
He writes of his first flight in a Wellington as a passenger and his journey back from Oxford to Turweston.
Creator
Date
1944-02-26
Temporal Coverage
Language
Format
Four handwritten sheets
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
EGortonHGortonLCM440226
Transcription
TEL. SILVERSTONE 252
OFFICERS’ MESS,
ROYAL AIR FORCE STATION,
[deleted] SILVERSTON, [/deleted] [inserted] Turweston, [/inserted]
[deleted] NR. TOWCESTER [/deleted] [inserted] Nr. Brackley [/inserted],
NORTHANTS.
[Royal Air Force crest]
Dearest,
I’m feeling more nearly content tonight than I have done for 3 weeks. I’ve had my first trip in a Wellington, a five minute circuit & bump as passenger!
This morning was very dull – sitting in a crew room listening to various people reading the Flight Order Book. This afternoon I went down to see what was happening & while the sergeants on the course were told to do some gardening, I was given the honour of being passenger on a weather test! Better still, I was able to go back to the Mess after we’d landed.
It wasn’t much of a success as trips go, as we had to go round the circuit at 3 – 400 ft. & the vis. was very poor, the aerodrome being invisible most of the way round. Still, I think it was very valuable experience, as it gave me something of an idea of how the Wimpey works. Tomorrow we are on lectures, so I
[page break]
2
shall have to wait until Tuesday for further adventures
Getting back from Oxford yesterday wasn’t too good, as I didn’t think it safe to risk hitching back The best I could do was to get the 2.0 p.m. bus to Buckingham – 2 hours to do about 20 miles, as it went round all the villages! I then had a poor tea in a somewhat miserable café & had half an hour to wait for the train to Brackley. I decided to see about hitching, and was lucky enough to find a car which took me within [deleted] [indecipherable letter] [/deleted] a mile of the camp.
Much to my disgust, there was a Mess dance on when I got back, & so I couldn’t get any dinner. Fortunately one of the fellows in the hut had some chocolate & biscuits, so I ate those and stayed in my room until bed time
One of the big snags about moving from camp to camp, is that it’s such ages before I can hope for a letter from you. I don’t suppose you’ll get my new address until
[page break]
3
[deleted] Wednesday [/deleted] Monday, and even if by some piece of good luck, you are able to post one the same day, I can’t expect it until [deleted] Thurs [/deleted] Wednesday. Anyway, I’ll tell myself that I’ll not expect to hear from you until Thursday at the earliest, so that I shan’t be disappointed!
I’ve been thinking a good deal about the question of your movements, and I don’t seem to be able to come to any conclusions. As far as I’m concerned, the nicest thing would be to have you always near whichever aerodrome I happen to be at. On that basis, I should say “Come to Brackley for a fortnight, & then to Towcester or Northampton until I’m posted,” and so on.
The trouble is that this seems to me to be a very selfish attitude on my part. Your life would be lousy, stranded in strange places & I couldn’t even guarantee to be able to
[page break]
see you every day, as I have so much less control over my movements while I am a pupil.
There are one or two nice hotels in Brackley, and if you’d like to come up & see what it is like, no one will be more delighted than I. But I do want you to think of yourself a bit, darling. I think it would be much better if you could find somewhere permanent to stay, preferably, though it doesn’t matter much, somewhere between York & London.
I am very keen to know your latest ideas on all this.
All my love,
Harold.
OFFICERS’ MESS,
ROYAL AIR FORCE STATION,
[deleted] SILVERSTON, [/deleted] [inserted] Turweston, [/inserted]
[deleted] NR. TOWCESTER [/deleted] [inserted] Nr. Brackley [/inserted],
NORTHANTS.
[Royal Air Force crest]
Dearest,
I’m feeling more nearly content tonight than I have done for 3 weeks. I’ve had my first trip in a Wellington, a five minute circuit & bump as passenger!
This morning was very dull – sitting in a crew room listening to various people reading the Flight Order Book. This afternoon I went down to see what was happening & while the sergeants on the course were told to do some gardening, I was given the honour of being passenger on a weather test! Better still, I was able to go back to the Mess after we’d landed.
It wasn’t much of a success as trips go, as we had to go round the circuit at 3 – 400 ft. & the vis. was very poor, the aerodrome being invisible most of the way round. Still, I think it was very valuable experience, as it gave me something of an idea of how the Wimpey works. Tomorrow we are on lectures, so I
[page break]
2
shall have to wait until Tuesday for further adventures
Getting back from Oxford yesterday wasn’t too good, as I didn’t think it safe to risk hitching back The best I could do was to get the 2.0 p.m. bus to Buckingham – 2 hours to do about 20 miles, as it went round all the villages! I then had a poor tea in a somewhat miserable café & had half an hour to wait for the train to Brackley. I decided to see about hitching, and was lucky enough to find a car which took me within [deleted] [indecipherable letter] [/deleted] a mile of the camp.
Much to my disgust, there was a Mess dance on when I got back, & so I couldn’t get any dinner. Fortunately one of the fellows in the hut had some chocolate & biscuits, so I ate those and stayed in my room until bed time
One of the big snags about moving from camp to camp, is that it’s such ages before I can hope for a letter from you. I don’t suppose you’ll get my new address until
[page break]
3
[deleted] Wednesday [/deleted] Monday, and even if by some piece of good luck, you are able to post one the same day, I can’t expect it until [deleted] Thurs [/deleted] Wednesday. Anyway, I’ll tell myself that I’ll not expect to hear from you until Thursday at the earliest, so that I shan’t be disappointed!
I’ve been thinking a good deal about the question of your movements, and I don’t seem to be able to come to any conclusions. As far as I’m concerned, the nicest thing would be to have you always near whichever aerodrome I happen to be at. On that basis, I should say “Come to Brackley for a fortnight, & then to Towcester or Northampton until I’m posted,” and so on.
The trouble is that this seems to me to be a very selfish attitude on my part. Your life would be lousy, stranded in strange places & I couldn’t even guarantee to be able to
[page break]
see you every day, as I have so much less control over my movements while I am a pupil.
There are one or two nice hotels in Brackley, and if you’d like to come up & see what it is like, no one will be more delighted than I. But I do want you to think of yourself a bit, darling. I think it would be much better if you could find somewhere permanent to stay, preferably, though it doesn’t matter much, somewhere between York & London.
I am very keen to know your latest ideas on all this.
All my love,
Harold.
Collection
Citation
Harold Gorton, “Letter from Harold Gorton to his wife,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed April 18, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/9209.
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