Letters to America

Friday, September 13th, 1940

My dear Joan,

Here is your next copy of “Sunny Stories”(1), and I hope you enjoy reading it very much. It looks ever so good to me. I do hope they can go on printing it so that I can send it to you every week until you come home again, but you know, paper is getting so scarce that they may stop printing it, which would be a great shame, wouldn’t it?

Now, what do you think? I have seen your picture in the paper. The one of you with a ball, and we think it is ever so good. But what we want to know more than anything, is just what you are doing, and so that you can write to us and tell us just what, we want to know most, I think it would be a good idea if I asked you one or two questions every time I write and you answer them when you reply. You think that is a good idea. Very well then, here are the questions.

We got a letter from you that you wrote and the big boat brought back and posted to us from Liverpool, the place that you went from. I think we have a lot to thank your lady escort for. Her name was Miss Crawford we see, for she sent a letter to us as well and said how good you had all been and how you had enjoyed the trip. We cannot write to thank her either because she did not send us her address. But she must have been a dear lady and we are very grateful to her for looking after you all. One day, Joan, you will realise what a good and brave lady she was to you all, and I hope you will grow up like her, to do the nasty jobs well as well as the nice ones.

Those two other babies are getting little tartars(3). Always up to mischief of some sort. They cannot quite understand where you have gone. They hardly ever talk of you but whenever we mention jour name, as we are always doing, they look up from their game and smile as much as to say “Yes, we remember Joan. Won’t it be lovely when she comes home again to play with us”.

Mummy and Nanny are very well and send their love to you. We are always thinking of you and wondering what you are doing. We have to put our clock back four hours to get your time and then we can say, “Joan is getting up now” or “Joan is going to bed now”. But we don’t really know for sure until you write and tell us just what you do all day. So don’t forget, when you are settled down we would so much like to hear from you once every week.

Heaps of love, Joan darling, and come back to us strong and safe. As soon as we know with whom you are living we want to write to them as well. Cheerio(4), from your loving
Daddy

Best love and kisses to dear Joan from Mummy
xxxxxxxxxx

  1. Sunny Stories was a children's magazine published in the United Kingdom in the first half of the 20th century.
  2. Baby Olive was Joan's doll.
  3. Tartars means formidable or a handful.
  4. People sometimes say 'cheerio' as a way of saying goodbye, especially in British English.