Friday, 2 April, 1943 - Stan's letter

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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.  That’s not exactly red hot news, is it Darling; I’ve said it so often before, but if you get the same kick out of reading it as I do in reading it in your letters, it will never grow cold! !

As I said in my letter, the past two days have been very good as far as mail is concerned.  I had those nine from you and my Mother and then yesterday I had a nice surprise in that I got an airmail letter from Vera.  It was to wish me “Many Happy Returns” and I thought it was really very nice of her to remember me.  She mentioned that they were expecting you home for the week-end, and it made me a little sad to think that I should not be there to be with you.  I suppose you felt more or less the same being at home without me there to annoy you and keep you up until such very early hours of the morning.  From the letters you have written and from those written by my Mother, I gather that you would be home during the period that my Mother was at Cottingham*, so you would not see her I suppose.

Vera also mentioned that your Brother had left this country and was now back at his old base, hoping that was just a preliminary to his making a longer and much more looked forward to journey home.  I do hope for all your sakes that he manages to get home for his birthday.  It will certainly be a case of killing the fatted calf if that happens!

When we arrived here we were told that the rainy season had just finished, but judging by the happenings of the other night, I think that was a spot of wishful thinking.  We had a thunderstorm of the first water, which apart from causing a bit of discomfort, because of the torrential rain, it was well worth experiencing.  The lightening was magnificent.  It reminded me of the variety one gets as effects to some of the “thriller” films.  It certainly was most spectacular.

I don’t know if the papers mentioned it at home, but the Army out here has just started its own newspaper, the “Union Jack”.  It’s published thrice weekly and is quite a popular innovation.  It was quite an extraordinary happening and gave one a touch of “home comforts” to be able to sit down at the dinnertable on Monday and read the Saturday football results.  I miss having newspapers to read more than anything else in the materialistic line.  Mother was saying in her last letter that she had been posting copies of the “Times”** to me each week, but up to now I have not yet received one.  I suppose they will all turn up at once and I shall have enough reading to last me for several weeks!

The Airgraph system to England from this country has now come into operation, so I shall now be able to send airgraphs as well as this type of letter.  If the service keeps as it is now we shall not have room to grumble.  An ordinary letter from you appears to take three weeks, whilst an air letter takes only ten days and an airgraph a couple of days longer than that.

Well, my Darling, it is getting late and time I was in bed, I suppose.  I will say goodnight.  There are six Grace Skuses looking at me from a photo frame on my desk.  How I wish that just one of them could say “Goodnight” in return.  It would be simply grand to hear your voice again.

Remember me to all at No. 56 next time you go or when you write.  I shall be answering Vera’s letter at the first opportunity, but I am finding my time taken up with other things at the moment, and I’ve got very little time for correspondence, to people other than you and Mother.

I’ll write again soon, Angel.  Until next time keep thinking of me as I am always thinking of you, my Darling.

Yours Stan  xxxxx

* Stan's mother, Mabel, was born and grew up in Cottingham, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, and her mother still lives there.

** This would be the 'South Yorkshire Times', the local newspaper, not the national 'Times'.