Letters to America

Tuesday, July 8th, 1941

My dear Joan,

Yesterday I posted a little pack of Snap Cards(1) that were sent to you for your birthday by Kiltie(2), the shoe people. I expect it will be some time before you get them though. Do you know, last week we had a letter which you had written on April 24th! But I can’t read the postmark to see when you posted it, but it was sometime in May. In it you said “It is Sandy’s birthday on Saturday” and underneath that you have written May 15th? (I would like to know) or perhaps you finished the letter on that day.

I have bought you a little snapshot album to keep your pictures in and will send it when I have fixed a picture in. I did buy a packet of gummed corners, but I noticed they come from the United States of America, so it would be cheaper if you bought them, dear. It seems silly to buy them here and then send them back to America, so I will use them myself. I’m going to get another album to keep the pictures you send me.

It has been very hot indeed here and we badly want some rain for the garden – everything is so dry. We heard some thunder in the distance at tea-time and had a few heavy rain spots, but it didn’t even wet the ground. John and Anne are very brown now. How do you like the Summer in America? Do you find it too hot? And do you have any sunbathes? The twins washed some dolly’s clothes this afternoon and Anne got very wet herself. They have just gone to sleep now and I expect you are doing your music practice. I hope you are getting on nicely, Joan. Janet Kemp is getting on very well with her music – she only started when she went to America and she was in a school concert a short time ago. I think she has her lessons at school. I am expecting the postman to bring me a letter any time now, telling me all about your birthday party, and also if you have received Nanny’s and Dora’s parcel.

On Saturday we picnicked again on the allotment(3), but Sunday was too hot to go up there and we stayed in the garden. Daddy put your tent up to amuse the twins, but very soon they were so hot they tired of it, and amused themselves by pulling it down again. I think we had better wait until you come home to play with them.

Goodbye darling, until next week. Be a good girl to Auntie Mary.

With love and kisses from Anne and John and Mummy
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

  1. Snap is a card game in which players deal cards and react quickly to spot pairs of cards of the same rank.
  2. Kiltie was a bespoke shoe company based in London that was established in about 1847. It developed the first loafer as a country house shoe for the landed gentry and the royal family.
  3. An allotment is a small area of land in a town which a person rents to grow plants and vegetables on.