These are part of a collection of hundreds of letters sent by my mother, Rachel Haydon to her husband, Major Henry Haydon who was stationed in North Africa and later in Italy – and his letters to her. The correspondence started in May 1941 and continued until November 1945. The collection also includes letters from his mother, mother-in-law and small daughters as well as various other friends and relations. They include reference to my mother’s brother, Paul Cash, who was killed in France in July 1944.
This letter, the first page of a longer letter dictated to one of the nuns who taught them, and the Christmas telegram, are from my sister Anne, the eldest child in the family and her next sister Gaie. The birth of their youngest sister Kyra in 1943 is referred to in some of the early letters. She was not able to meet her father until 1945 when she was two years old. My brother and I were born after the war when life was very different.
