Stan and Grace

2364226 Sergt. S. Bristow, Headquarters 15 L of C Signals                                                                            165. Cen Med Forces 25 Jun 44 My Very Own Darling, Six days without a letter – things were beginning to get serious – but one turned up this morning to brighten up my Sunday!   Actually, your letter was written on the 16 th and I was just in the middle of a juicy speech about what they ought to do with the APO for taking so long to deliver your precious letters, when I noticed that it wasn’t posted until the 19 th !   Did you give it to someone to post for you, Dear? ...

Stan and Grace seem to have become synchronised with their letter-writing.  Here are yet another two letters written on the same day. G.H.N.                                                                      (141) 23-6-44 My Precious Darling, Only one more week and then my holiday, though I must admit I am not feeling very excited about it, as yet.   I feel ready for it but there is a difference in feeling ready for a holiday and in getting excited about one, isn’t there? I do not think I told you in my last letter that Kit and I are not going to Scotland after all.   Nan’s Mother is very ill.   We have not made up our...

2364226 Sergt. S. Bristow Headquarters                                                                       164. 15 L of C Signals Cen Med Forces 20 June 44 My Very Own Darling, Your letter written a week ago arrived to-day to shed a spot of brightness on to the proceedings.   However did you manage to write it with such opposition as that which must have been provided by three females all sitting on your bed and talking!!   I have written to you under difficulties, but none quite so bad as that! I am pleased to hear that at last you have got some soldiers to look after.   Now you have lots to do I suppose you have l...

2364226 Sergt. S. Bristow Headquarters                                                                       163. 15 L of C Signals Cen Med Forces 18 June 44 My Very Own Darling, Something has gone wrong with the organisation!   Sunday has come and almost gone & the Army Post Office haven’t delivered a letter from you.   It's the first Sunday for quite a long time that I haven’t had a letter from you and I have felt quite lonely. Its been a “muggy” sort of day today & has tried hard to rain once or twice.   Even now as it is getting dark there’s hardly a breath of fresh air and although I am sitting under my m...

G.H.N.                                                                                (139) 16-6-44    My Precious One, I would give anything at this moment to be sitting right beside you – wherever you may be.   Maybe it's the mood that I am in but I must admit – I am often in that mood. I love you and miss you so much my Darling.   Usually it is at night when I miss you the most. You said in one of your recent letters that sometimes you feel so alone.   Yes – I too often feel that way, even though I am in the midst of a large community.   I guess that i...

  Grace saved this press cutting, probably from the Nottingham Evening News, showing some of the soldiers being treated on Seely Ward in Nottingham General Hospital.  There is no date on the cutting but a Council notice on the back bears the date 12 June, 1944, so it is likely to be shortly after that date.  The wounded from the Normandy campaign are clearly being brought back to the UK and cascaded across the country where space has been made in hospitals to receive them. The nurse in the left-hand photo is the Ward Sister.  The nurse on the right is looking down and could, possibly, be Grace but I don't think it is. Can you imagine a nurse happily lighting a cigarette for you on a ward in hospital today? #1940snursinghistory   #1940snurse    #nursing1940s   #nursinghistory     #Nottingham1940s