Thursday, 8 July, 1943

2364226                                                                                                 36.
Sergt. S. Bristow
Unit Headquarters
15 L of C Signals
B.N.A.F.

Thursday, 8 July, 43

My Very Own Darling,

The Army Post Office certainly excelled itself this week!  I actually got your letter written on 28 June 43 last night.  Nine days isn’t bad going is it?  And as you remark in the letter, these Air letters are much better than airgraphs.  The latter means of correspondence does always seem so detached and impersonal.

So you too have discovered how much stimulant one can find by re-reading letters written by someone whom you love.  When I am feeling rather downhearted I often get your letters and read them once more and find solace in all the things you have written from time to time: things recalling happenings of last year, or hopes for our future.

Actually we are supposed to destroy all our letters when we go into the forward areas and there is an chance of getting run in by the enemy, but I am afraid that I (being a sentimentalist) hadn’t the heart to consign your letters to the flames, and so I am still carrying them around with me, although they are locked away in my kitbag, which we don’t actually carry forward with us!!

This is the third letter I have written to you since Monday, whilst I also wrote an airgraph to Vera last night.  It is the one I promised her two or three weeks ago.  I couldn’t let the 6^th of the month pass, Darling, without writing a few lines to you.  18 months have passed now since that dance at Grimethorpe.  Little did either of us realise what lay ahead when we danced together for the first time and then next day went off to Barnsley together.  I don’t think you thought so much would blossom forth from that chance meeting did you?

Looking back over the last 18 months I have only one regret – and that a purely selfish one!!  I always feel sorry that we had to part just when we had reached that marvellous understanding which existed between us for the last three months of my stay in England.  That was the happiest period of the lot.  Those short leaves we spent together, culminating in the last week’s leave (with its adventures of inventing illnesses to Mothers etc) were exceedingly happy, weren’t they.  Those evenings (or probably it would be better to say nights) spent together in front of the fire are certainly thrilling memories, and every time I think of them it makes me really anxious to get back to England so that we can both relive those moments.

Ah me!  I must be feeling sentimental to-day!!  I will say, however, that it’s an exceedingly nice feeling.

How’s the swotting – dare I ask during the midst of your holidays?  I hope you have got lots of confidence for this exam of yours.  I am looking forward to the day when I get a letter which tells me that Miss G. Skuse is now a fully-fledged nurse: just one of the stepping stones along the road we have planned for ourselves.  That obstacle passed, all that remains is for us to get this war over in the quickest possible time, so that all our efforts can be turned to fulfilling the promise we have made to each other.  I am always full of happiness when I think of the future, Darling, for instead of the grim foreboding outlook of the present-day world, it always promises so much happiness for us both.

And so, my Darling, once more I shall have to say “Au Revoir”.  When one is actually in a writing mood, these air letters seem much too inadequate, don’t they?

Still, what I have left unsaid you can fill in in your imagination, I am sure.  There’s one thing that doesn’t need much imagination on your part and that is how much I really love you.  You know that for a fact, Angel.

And so until later, keep my love.  I know that I have yours.  Ever yours, Stan  xxxxx