Stan and Grace

General Hospital Annexe,                                                                        No. 11 Selston Notts. 2. 4. 43         My Own Darling, As I write this letter – number eleven – I am wondering how many of my previous letters you have received. According to the last letter I had from you, only two had reached you.   I sincerely hope that you have received one or two more or you might think that I have forgotten all about you. I know of course that you will not think that really as you know that is impossible – now – don’t you Darling? So far, I have received your first four letters so ...

2364226 Sergt S. Bristow                                                                                       8. Headquarters 9 Corps Signals (Rear) British North African Forces Friday April 2 nd . 1943 My Own Darling, I wrote a ten page letter to you a couple of nights ago and sent it by ordinary mail, so I thought just to let you get a letter pretty quickly, I would write this air letter as well.   By this method you will get the news that I am still missing you so much and looking forward to the time when we shall be together again, much quicker. ...

General Hospital Annexe                                                                         (10) Selston Notts. 30. 3. 43     My Own Darling, I attempted to write this letter yesterday but owing to the noise in the sitting room and the very poor light in my bedroom I gave it up as hopeless.   As things are quieter this morning I decided to try again. I had a lovely surprise this morning.   I received your second letter.   With receiving your 3 rd and 4 th one I thought that I might not receive No. 2.   However, No. 2 has turned up – all but the lines at the end. I must admit I had a good l...

Sergt. S. Bristow                                                                                                7. 2364226 Headquarters 9 Corps Signals (Rear) B.N.A.F. Monday 29 March 1943 My Own Darling Grace, I feel twice the man to-day as I felt a few days ago, my dear!   The reason?   Why, I received three letters from you yesterday!   You don’t realise what a thrill it gave me to read how you were & what you were doing.   I think the three weeks that have passed without a letter from you...

General Hospital Annexe                                                                                   (9) Selston Notts. 26. 3. 43        My Own Darling, As you will probably receive this letter before several of my previous ones I had better give you all the news in it. To begin with – I received your “Air Letter” on March 23 rd.   Good going was it not?   I hope this one reaches you as quickly. I had to send your last letter by ordinary mail – as yet there is no “Air Mail Service”.   However, we are quite lucky in being able to send th...

 What is the difference between 'air letters', 'air graphs' and the air mail forms? It seems that the 'air letters' are ordinary letters sent by air mail (and presumably charged by weight).  Increasingly as the weeks go by, more and more of Stan and Grace's letters are written on air mail forms such as those shown in this photograph. The first 'air graphs' between Stan and Grace make an appearance on 6 April and look like a small photocopied version of a brief letter written on a special airgraph form.  North Lincolnshire Museum's web site tells us that airgraphs were invented in the 1930's by Kodak Eastman and a service was set up in 1941 to transmit airgraphs between the Middle East and the UK.  (northlincolnshiremuseum.co.uk/discover/curators-choice-airgraphs/).  The airgraph forms were photographed on mircofilm in Cairo and the film flown back to the UK.  This took up less precious space than paper letters on the aircraft flying between t...