Tuesday, 12 January, 1943 - Grace's letter

The Nurses Home
General Hospital
Nottingham

Tues: 1 a.m.    

My Precious Darling,

I received your letter this morning (sorry – it is yesterday now).  It is a beautiful letter Darling.  It brought back to me that feeling of – well I was going to say happiness but it is something more than that – it is something that goes right deep down inside  - something  that is undescribable.  Darling – just to be near you again, to be able to touch you and kiss you and for you to hold me in your arms again.  As you say – we shall have to apply ourselves to our jobs to the best of our ability and work for the day when we shall actually belong to each other.  Who knows, it might be sooner than we expect and in the meantime we both have plenty to do in preparation for the day when we shall stand at the altar together.

Kit got a good laugh when I told her about your fatherly letter.  Believe me Darling – it certainly went down well.

I had to go yesterday morning and see the dear Matron.  You see she does not hold “an office” on Sunday.  She was what I call “sickly sweet” with me.  She said that she nearly wrote and told me I could have my other five nights off if I wanted them.  However, she finally decided that as I had been running the home and looking after sick people for a week they would be more beneficial to me in about a week or a fortnights time, so I go home for five more nights on the 21st.

Sunday night I came on duty with all good intentions of writing you but a woman decided to have a Diabetic coma and as she was an old patient of Dr. Scott’s I had to admit her.

Do you remember standing on Grimethorpe Halt and listening to the conversation of those two women.  I can just hear you saying “how can I forget”.  If I remember rightly the woman they talked about was in a coma for around 3 or 4 days.  I am pleased to say that we managed to pull ours round in a few hours.

As soon as I heard what was wrong with her my thoughts flew back to that bitterly cold morning.  I would not mind repeating that again though, if I was with you.

I will have to finish this a little later on as there are one or two things requiring my attention.

It is now 4 a.m. In a few more hours you too will be leaving Grimethorpe.  I wish I could be there to “see you off”.  It makes the journey much easier but I will be thinking of you Precious.

Grimethorpe is the most unromantic place really but when we are there together it seems different.  I never realised that I would meet the person with whom I hope to spend the rest of my life, in Grimethorpe.

I intended putting the promised photographs in this letter but as I want it to go by first post and I shall not have time to go to my room first.  I will have to put them in the next one.  I do promise however to send you them in my next letter.  I don’t know how long the large one is going to be.  I ordered it before Christmas and was told it would be 10 – 12 weeks.  Considering my small photos were about a fortnight overdue I think I can recon they will be ready in 6 months.

Time is marching on Dear.  I could write pages more telling you how much I care for you and how much I am missing you, but I think Sister would not care for me if I did that and left my work undone.

Yours forever, Darling.  Grace  xxxxxxx

Readers note - both Stan and Grace wrote letters today.  To find Stan's letter, just scroll down on the main page of the blog.

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