Stan and Grace

Stan and Grace seem to have become synchronised with their letter-writing.  Here are yet another two letters written on the same day. G.H.N.                                                                      (141) 23-6-44 My Precious Darling, Only one more week and then my holiday, though I must admit I am not feeling very excited about it, as yet.   I feel ready for it but there is a difference in feeling ready for a holiday and in getting excited about one, isn’t there? I do not think I told you in my last letter that Kit and I are not going to Scotland after all.   Nan’s Mother is very ill.   We have not made up our...

2364226 Sergt. S. Bristow Headquarters                                                                       164. 15 L of C Signals Cen Med Forces 20 June 44 My Very Own Darling, Your letter written a week ago arrived to-day to shed a spot of brightness on to the proceedings.   However did you manage to write it with such opposition as that which must have been provided by three females all sitting on your bed and talking!!   I have written to you under difficulties, but none quite so bad as that! I am pleased to hear that at last you have got some soldiers to look after.   Now you have lots to do I suppose you have l...

2364226 Sergt. S. Bristow Headquarters                                                                       163. 15 L of C Signals Cen Med Forces 18 June 44 My Very Own Darling, Something has gone wrong with the organisation!   Sunday has come and almost gone & the Army Post Office haven’t delivered a letter from you.   It's the first Sunday for quite a long time that I haven’t had a letter from you and I have felt quite lonely. Its been a “muggy” sort of day today & has tried hard to rain once or twice.   Even now as it is getting dark there’s hardly a breath of fresh air and although I am sitting under my m...

G.H.N.                                                                                (139) 16-6-44    My Precious One, I would give anything at this moment to be sitting right beside you – wherever you may be.   Maybe it's the mood that I am in but I must admit – I am often in that mood. I love you and miss you so much my Darling.   Usually it is at night when I miss you the most. You said in one of your recent letters that sometimes you feel so alone.   Yes – I too often feel that way, even though I am in the midst of a large community.   I guess that i...

  Grace saved this press cutting, probably from the Nottingham Evening News, showing some of the soldiers being treated on Seely Ward in Nottingham General Hospital.  There is no date on the cutting but a Council notice on the back bears the date 12 June, 1944, so it is likely to be shortly after that date.  The wounded from the Normandy campaign are clearly being brought back to the UK and cascaded across the country where space has been made in hospitals to receive them. The nurse in the left-hand photo is the Ward Sister.  The nurse on the right is looking down and could, possibly, be Grace but I don't think it is. Can you imagine a nurse happily lighting a cigarette for you on a ward in hospital today? #1940snursinghistory   #1940snurse    #nursing1940s   #nursinghistory     #Nottingham1940s  

2364226 Sergt. S. Bristow Headquarters,                                                                     161. 15 L of C Signals Cen Med Forces 13 June 44 My Very Own Darling, Just received your letter written on Invasion Day.   It was funny, you started your letter with exactly the same words as I did on mine to you.   Yes, it certainly was a momentous day, falling as it did on the 6 th . I knew you would be excited, Dear, for it brings the end of the war much closer.   Progress is a bit slow at the moment, but I think that it will speed up a bit once we get the better of the Jerries engaged in the immediate surroundings of ...

2364226 Sergt. S. Bristow Headquarters,                                                                     160. 15 L of C Signals Cen Med Forces 11 June 44 My Very Own Darling, It’s Sunday once more & feeling very energetic this afternoon I am spending the time swimming.   Wish you were here to join in the fun!    It's a pleasant little cove I am writing in with a short stretch of white sand – the only piece for miles along this rocky coast - & consequently it is quite crowded.   Quite a few civilian girls & members of the women’s services amongst the people, too.   If only you were here things would be qui...

Nurses Home General Hospital                                                                            (137) Nottingham              My Very Own Darling, I thought that I would write you a sea letter as I have not written you one for some time.   I am afraid that my sea letters are never as long as yours and that this one will not be an exception as I have not much news for you. It is quite cold today so the “powers that be” condescended to let us have a fire, so here am I, sitting at the front of a blazing fire, writing to you and listening to Victor Silvester on the wirel...

2364226 Sergt. S. Bristow, Headquarters 15 L of C Signals                                                                  159. Cen Med Forces 8 Jun 44 My Very Own Darling, So you didn’t go to London after all for your week-end.   Perhaps it was as well as things turned out for I suppose the trains would be very busy with invasion traffic.   As you say in your letter of 3 June which arrived today, however, the rest at home would do you some good - & besides I should imagine your Mother and Father & Vera were pleased you called off your London trip.   How are they all at 56 by the way?    Well, I hope. And talking about heal...

  The Belfast Telegraph must have been an evening newspaper to be carrying news of the D-Day landings on 6 June, 1944.  At last, this was the opening of the Second Front which Stan and Grace, and many people across Europe, had longed for. Both Stan and Grace wrote letters on this day. Stan's Letter 2364226 Sergt. S. Bristow Headquarters 15 L of C Signals Cen Med Forces                                                                  158. 6 Jun 44 My Very Own Darling, What an exciting and memorable day our anniversary has been this month!   At last one of the days we have both been waiting for, along with thousands more, has dawned. I’ve bee...

  The above cutting is from the Daily Mirror of 5 June, 1944.    On this day it was announced that American General Mark Clark's Fifth Army had routed the German Army from Rome.    This news was quickly superseded by the news the following day - 6 June, 1944.

  G.H.N.                                                                                 (134) 4-6-44 My Own Precious Darling, I have just returned from my week-end at home.   Usually I do not mind coming back but somehow I did not feel like coming back at all to-day. I always miss you more than ever when I am at home but I feel closer to you there than here.   I suppose that that is because most of the time we have spent together has been at Grimethorpe.   Whether I am walking down the road or in the house or wherever I may be at Grimethorpe I always feel that there is s...

2364226 Sergt. S. Bristow Headquarters 15 L of C Signals Cen Med Forces                                                                            157. 4 Jun 44 My Very Own Darling To-day’s Sunday and my half day off & I suppose I should really be out getting some fresh air.   I feel very lazy & am therefore lolling on my bed, for outside the sun is very hot. I’ve just been re-reading for the third or fourth time your letter of 26 May which arrived this morning to brighten up my day (almost rhymes that last bit!   Shows how I feel this afternoon!!) It encloses a telling off for my having ...