Wednesday, 2 December, 1942

Usual address

Wednesday  2/12/42

My Very Own Darling,

Here I am back in the Army once more – no longer an individual, but just one of the cogs in the vast machine.

I will say that I feel a little better to-day after a good day's work than I did just hanging about Grimethorpe without you.  My thoughts have kept straying to a certain place to-day & at the moment I am thinking of you just getting up ready to start another night’s work, & wondering whether you will be writing one of you sweet letters to me, during the dark (knowing a nurse's life, I won’t say “still”) watches of the night.

The train journey down here was rather dreary.  I left home at 1 p.m. & got into the Mess at 10.30 p.m.  I whiled away the nine hours reading “Purposes of Love” & alternatively thinking of you - & me & how much like the story in the book our lives had been during the past week!  I wonder what would have happened if I had read the book before you came home!!  I wonder if we had known each other much longer whether we should have had adventures such as Vivian & Mic?  Believe me, the temptation would have taken some resisting, Angel, what do you say?

Perhaps you should not have given me the book to read, it has perhaps given me the wrong ideas about hospital life & nurses (all except one of course Darling, in whom all my faith is locked now).  However, I am about half way through the book & extremely interested in view of recent happenings.  Mic & I seem to have a lot in common.  How much like Vivian are you deep down inside towards me (or is that asking State Secrets?  Perhaps it is!!!)

Victor Sylvester is just playing a dreamy waltz Darling.  Remember last Wednesday at this time?  You were snuggling up to me in the big chair in Vera’s bedroom & we were both fully content – not saying a word, but just revelling in the close proximity of each other & perfectly happy.  Who could blame us if we were both looking forward to the solitude which we should share in front of the fire in your sitting room.

Forgotten at that time was the hospital & the army, which were to share in tearing us apart in a couple of days' time & place us miles away from each other.

We were quite happy just living for that moment & wishing it would never change.   Oh, Darling, how many times I wished during these five short days that time could stand still & we could just go on living in the happiness which was ours at that time!

Now back at Camp & surrounded by grim reality on all sides, one can do nothing but remember &, looking forward, hope very fervently, that it will not be long before we can relive these moments once more.

I can’t attempt to put into words, my Dear, how kind & thoughtful it was of you to send me the card today.  I can’t tell, either, how glad I am that you feel that way about things now.  Life is really worth living now Angel, now that you care.  Receiving that card at lunchtime put new life in me.

The Colonel was pulling my leg this morning & asking me if I had got married.  When I told him “No”, he said, “Well, I shall have to give you another leave to do the job.”  Wouldn’t it be grand if I did get another leave.  Things don’t seem so urgent & rushed now as they did before I came on leave, so one never knows, does one?  Don’t give up hoping, Precious!!

I called in at the office yesterday just to show them I was still alive & to sort of remind them that I shall still want my job back after the war.  Things are very quiet there nowadays & there are only two people there who were there before the war.  One of them is an old man of about 60 & the other a girl of about 28 who writes the Children's Corner & Women's Notes.  She told me the whereabouts of all the other Doncaster journalists in the Forces & I appear to be about the only one in the Army still remaining in England.

Well, my Dear, I think I shall have to finish, although I still feel like writing on & on & on ......

Don’t forget to send me some of those photographs as soon as possible, will you?

Goodnight my Sweet!  I wish you were here so that I could demonstrate my love for you, but you will have to use your imagination.

All my love for ever.  Yours, Stan  xxxxxx