Stan and Grace

G.H.N.                                                                                          (92) 18-1-44 My Own Darling, This morning I received your air-letter dated Jan: 4th.   I was so pleased that you received mail from me on Christmas Day.   Your letter was the best Christmas box I had. Christmas seems so far away now, doesn’t it?   I wonder where we shall both be next Christmas? The other morning I saw a trade show and a newsreel was being shown of the country you are fighting in in Italy.   I must admit I did ...

G.H.N.                                                                                          (90) 9.30 a.m.   15-1-44 My Very Own Darling, This is the third time I have picked up my pen to write this letter to you.   The first time I tried I had to suddenly dash away to a patient that had collapsed – the second time the doctor arrived and just as I got rid of him I had to admit a new case so I decided that the only place I could write and not be disturbed was in my own bedroom – and now I am not so sure that Kit will not come dashing...

2364226 Sergt. S. Bristow, Headquarters 15 L of C Signals Cen Med Forces                                                                            102. 15 Jan 44 My Very Own Darling, Well, that couple of days in bed did the trick and here I am, back at work and feeling fine again. The spell in bed did one thing, anyway Darling, it gave me time to read that novel you sent me amongst my Christmas books – called “Counterfeit”.   It is quite good.   Beautifully written, it grips you, but it is so full of chaperones and shy young women who don’t know how many beans make five, that I found myself breath...

In Stan's letter to Grace written on 10 January, he says that in a recent letter his mother  mentioned that "she and my Father had had to dash over to Hull to see my Grandmother on Christmas Day.    Apparently she is very weak ..." Stan's maternal grandmother, Annie Lettice Spink, was born Annie Lettice Farr on 10 December, 1868, in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire.  She was the third daughter of John Farr, an ironmonger, and his wife Kate (nee Turney). By 1891, when she was 23 years old, Annie had moved with her older sister, Nellie, to become an asylum attendant at the Hull Borough Lunatic Asylum in Willerby, near Hull.  This may seem an unusual career choice for two young women until you know that, at that time, their father, John, had been for several years resident in the Three Counties Lunatic Asylum in Bedfordshire, suffering from insanity caused by syphilis.  He died in November, 1891, of paralysis, caused by the syphilis, and pneumonia. It would seem...

2364226 Sergt. S. Bristow, Headquarters 15 L of C Signals Cen Med Forces                                                                            100. 10 Jan 44 My Very Own Darling, I am sorry that I have kept you waiting four days since my last letter, but there has seemed to have been a sudden flood of extra work recently, & of course, that has meant but one thing – extra hours.   Still I have got rid of it all & here I am again. As you see from above, this is the 100 th letter I have written to you since that February morning when I said farewell to England (that is if my counting has been...

G.H.N.                                                                                                      (89?) 8.1.44 My Own Darling, Two letters from you this morning and they were only written on Dec: 26 th and 29 th .   Good going, isn’t it? I was pleased to hear that you had a reasonably good Christmas.   You did not manage to get drunk then?   Though I suppose you had nothing to get drunk on! So, you are jealous of me taking your brother out, are you?   Well, well, when you arrive b...