Letters to America

Saturday, December 4th, 1943

Darling Joan,

This week there is a “Sunny Stories”(1) as well as letters from John and Anne. I hope you will enjoy reading them all. Today the twins have been busy making paper chains, as they cannot be bought now. They first of all had to make their own coloured papers, which they did by cutting up scrap paper and colouring the pieces themselves. This kept them quiet and busy for a long time but I will ask you to guess the sort of mess that they made. There were snippings of paper everywhere.

It has been a lovely afternoon, cold but sunny and bright, so we have been for our favourite walk around the Common(2). We saw some young folk out horse riding and managed to find a little holly and berries which will do to decorate the Christmas pudding which Mummy has somehow managed to make. Both John and Anne had some holly but we found when we got near home that Anne had got tired of carrying hers and had dropped it by the wayside.

There has been a lot of illness about over here during the past few weeks and mostly everyone we know has been down with the ’flu but somehow we have managed to dodge it, for which we are very glad. The twins have had a cough, John first and now he is well again, and now Anne has a little but not so bad as John had, but she will soon recover because she is quite tough really.

Next Saturday is the Kodak(3) Children’s Christmas Party and the twins are looking forward to it. Of course, it is very difficult for the people who are running it to get things for them, and sweets being rationed(4) cannot be got at all. So, as they shouldn’t be disappointed, they asked the grown-ups at Kodak to give up their rations to the party and have gathered enough chocolate to give the children a bar each.

Also they have to start very early in the afternoon so that the children are not out after black-out time(5), just in case of an air-raid. So it starts at half past one, which is very early for a party, isn’t it?

Cheerio(6) Joan, darling. Love to all.
Daddy
xxxxxxxxxxx

  1. Sunny Stories was a children's magazine published in the United Kingdom in the first half of the 20th century.
  2. Common land is land which everyone is allowed to use.
  3. Kodak is an American company that produces various products related to its film photography. The company has its headquarters in Rochester, New York. Joan's father was an assistant superintendant at Kodak's factory in Harrow and she was evacuated to Rochester in 1940 as part of a scheme organised by the company.
  4. Most food, clothing and fuel was rationed and even things which were not rationed were often very difficult to find in the shops. Every man, woman and child was given a ration book with coupons. These were required before rationed goods could be purchased.
  5. Blackout regulations were imposed on 1 September 1939, before the declaration of war. These required that all windows and doors should be covered at night with suitable material such as heavy curtains, cardboard or paint, to prevent the escape of any glimmer of light that might aid enemy aircraft. External lights such as street lights were switched off, or dimmed.
  6. People sometimes say 'cheerio' as a way of saying goodbye, especially in British English.