Although not strictly ‘letters’ these 2 imaginative writings are so expressive of the awkward realities of the ‘Home Front’ in probably 1943 that I thought the Museum should have them.
They were amongst my mother’s papers when she died in February 1989. We had to evacuate our house in fear of invasion because it was on a hill within sight of the sea at Cooden, East Sussex. When my mother looked out of the bedroom window and the sky was filled with the wing of a low-level aeroplane with a large black cross on it. We followed my father who had been posted to HMS St George in the Isle of Man as Surgeon Lieutenant RNVR, radiologist. My mother, brother and I remained there until early 1945. Our home had been damaged by a buzz-bomb or Doodle-bug V-1 that had destroyed a house a few hundred yards away.
I am also currently transcribing the almost illegible long diary of my Father’s of sailing from the Clyde on Combined Operation Husky for landings in Sicily, Salerno and North Africa as well as his posting in Malta. It is a unique and fascinating document. The SMO was responsible for censoring on board – so my father could keep quiet about it’s existence.
