Friday, September 27th, 1940

Dear Little Joan,

You don’t know how very glad and relieved I was to get such a lovely letter from your Aunt Mary and you, and to know you were so comfortably settled. I know you will be very happy with her, she sounds such a dear lady and I can just picture you playing cards with Teddy. You like that, don’t you?

You are a very lucky girl to have such a pretty room and you will soon grow to love your new Auntie so much you won’t like to leave her. Although we miss you very much, you are much better where you are darling, because we only run down to the little shops nowadays as we get a lot of warnings, and it would be very boring for you. I know you can’t read this writing, but Auntie will read it to you if you ask her nicely.

I have several letters to write and want to catch the post. So goodbye darling, and be happy in your new home and it will make Mummy very happy indeed.

Best love and kisses from Nanny, Anne and John and

Mummy
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Darling Joan,

We have just received a letter from your Aunt Mary, and with it was a letter from you. Daddy and Mummy were sorry to hear that you have had a cold and a stye, and hope that by now you are quite well again. We think it was ever so nice of Aunt Mary to buy you such a lovely dolly. Have you thought of a name for her yet? I think Mary Diana Tomlin lovely, but isn’t it rather too long for a dolly?

You must be a lucky girl. Fancy having a bedroom with yellow walls and a green dressing table all for yourself. Try and keep it nice and be proud of your room and keep it tidy. And don’t do what you did to your bedroom over here. Do you remember? You drew pictures all around it. You must not do anything like that to Aunt Mary’s room. But I know that I can rely on my Joan to be a perfect little lady when she chooses.

By now you should have received the first letter that I wrote to you, and that was on the 4th of August. Since then I have written to you every weekend, so there are five letters all together before this one, and they were all sent to the Kodak⁽¹⁾ Works. This is the first letter to you at your new home and I will continue to write to you every weekend and if you write to Mummy and me at the same time we won’t expect anything further of you. But try if you can to write once every week, because we shall look forward so much new to hearing from you and we shall want to hear some little news every time. About your school and your friends and above all your two new brothers, Teddy and Sandy We hear that you and Teddy play at cards together and at Chinese Checkers⁽²⁾. Now I’ve never heard of Chinese Checkers so when you next write you must tell me how to play it so that we can play together when you come home again.

And Joan, the cars don’t run on the wrong side of the road in America they just run on the other side to us. You must not think that everything that you have to do differently in America is wrong, but must try to understand why it is different and try to make up your mind which you think is the better way. But in any case, while you are there you will have to do the same as the rest in most things. My goodness, but we shan’t know you when you return, you will be such a little lady, all grown up.

The rabbit is still with us and is a great pet with John and Anne. They spend most of the day feeding it, and with all sorts of food. The other day Anne gave it a toffee she had and he ate that and liked it very much. I have never heard of a rabbit eating toffee before, have you?

Well, Joan, good-bye for the present. I will write again next week, and we all send our love to you. Be a good brave girl, try hard at your schooling and write every week, if you can.

With heaps of love from your
Daddy