Friday, 18 August, 1944

G.H.N.                                                                                166

18.8.44

My Precious Darling,

Yesterday should have been my half-day and I did intend writing you yesterday but we unexpectedly admitted some patients so my half-day was cancelled and I was on duty until nearly ten o’clock.

However, it is my half-day today and here I am Darling writing to you.

Your letter enclosing the snap arrived this morning.  It is a lovely snap and very good of you.  Thank you for it my Dear.  Wish you were near enough for me to thank you in the proper way and that would be by giving you a nice l-o-n-g kiss.  Mmm-mm.  Would be thrilling that wouldn’t it Darling?

I was so pleased to read that your cold is much better.  I was quite worried about you, as you can pick up all sorts of diseases in “them furrin parts”.  Yes, I know that the Army take precautions by giving you inoculations against most diseases but you cannot be too careful.  There are still some diseases that we cannot inoculate against.

I do not want to scare you Darling but take great care of yourself – you mean a great deal to me.

By the way, I must mention this item.  I was out for an hour with another man this afternoon.  What was that your said? “Wait until you get hold of him”.  It is all right, Precious, you have no need to be jealous.  He is one of my patients.  The poor kid is quite young and has had one of his legs amputated.  The doctor will only allow him to sit in a chair as yet – he has not to walk on crutches.   I felt very sorry for him so I put him in a wheel chair and took him round the Castle grounds.

You know my Darling – as much as I long to have you home again – and God knows I do, I would rather you stayed where you are until the end of the war as long as you are safe and well.  When I look around at some of my patients I could weep for them if I wasn’t too busy nursing them and I breathe a prayer of thanks that you have come safely through so far and that you were not sent to the Second Front as you hoped at one time you might be.  No more space Darling so all my love. 

Your own Grace xxxxxx

This is the photograph that Grace has received.  Stan describes in his letter of 8 August where he says "It’s taken on the top of the Sergeants’ Mess.  You can see the sea & the masts of a couple of ships in the background.  The light was too strong & so its made us all look as though we are all tanned!  Not a very good one, is it?"

Although most of the men look dark, as the photo is over-exposed, I was wondering if the man standing next to Stan (back, right) is actually of African descent?

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