Letters to America

Sunday, December 21st, 1941

Darling Joan,

This week we have had a delightful letter from Auntie Mary and you, and it told us how well you had done at school. I knew that you could do well when you really set your mind to it. You said in another letter that you were going to try very, very, very hard, and you certainly seem to have done so. Good for you, Joan, keep it up.

Did you see the film of Sergeant York(1)? I see that it is on in London and when it is released it will come to Harrow, and then I will try to see it and write and tell you what I thought of it.

What do you think? Last week Mummy and I had an afternoon out together and went to a theatre together. It is a very long time since we were able to do a thing like that and we enjoyed it very much.

Yesterday I dug the Christmas tree out of the garden and planted it in a pot and brought it into the house. Then I hung up the decorations and today Mummy dressed the tree up a little with some fairies and ornamental animals and things. The babies were greatly pleased with it all and I think we shall be able to give them some fun at Christmas somehow, despite the war. But the war makes it very difficult to get things for them.

Today Uncle Dick came and I have just come back from seeing him off on his bus to the station. He says that your cousins, Beryl and Hazel, are very well and looking forward to Christmas. Beryl is getting on well with her music and now plays the piano nicely. Your grandmother is also well and Uncle Dick said that they sent off some letters to you but thinks that they posted them too late for you to get in time for Christmas.

I am glad to hear that you all enjoy the “Sunny Stories”(2). Now and again we send you off some comics, but I think the Sunny Stories better for you than the comics, don’t you?

The twins will be starting school very soon now, and I don’t think it will be long before they will be writing you little notes. Tonight they wrote little letters to you, and Mummy is sending them with her air-mail letter. They wrote them all by themselves. But, of course, I had to tell them what letters to put down. Wasn’t that clever of them? After all they are only just five.

Well, cheerio(3), and lots of love from your
Daddy
xxxxxxxxx

  1. Sergeant York is a 1941 American biographical film about the life of Alvin C. York, one of the most decorated American soldiers of World War I. Directed by Howard Hawks and starring Gary Cooper in the title role, the film was a critical and commercial success, and became the highest-grossing film of 1941.
  2. Sunny Stories was a children's magazine published in the United Kingdom in the first half of the 20th century.
  3. People sometimes say 'cheerio' as a way of saying goodbye, especially in British English.