Wartime Letters

April 1945

3.4.45 Cheetah 24.4.45	Clare to Lez (3)	Where are you? What are you doing? She has walked a lot this holiday. Joan, Frank and ‘baby’ are staying with them. She has pushed the pram round the park. ‘Baby’ is sitting up, chattering, and has reached the ‘throwing stage’. Spent the evening with Jim and Vee. Their damages claim has been set at £280 (payable after the war). As she was going up Shooters Hill on the bus she was thinking ‘ how well you must have known that road when you had your car’. Lez must have had a car pre-war
4.4.45	Clare to Lez (4)	It’s been a week since his last phone call, seems like an age. Before leaving Lez gave her a sewing machine, it’s been a godsend. She’s been busy altering and making clothes. No v-bombs for a week now, it seems to Clare that they sent over all they’d got ‘on our last night together’. How are the boys? Clare met the men in Lez’s mess, they must have been drafted out together. Was the sewing machine Lez’s mother’s. He wrote in Jan that he would ask for it. Is it the same one Clare used throughout her married life? This letter must have got through quickly, he refers to his pleasure at the stopping of V-bombs in his letter 5.
4.4.45 ( received)	Lez to Clare (3)	He’s on his way at last and considers this as his last draft of the war so can be positive about the future. They have been told to be very careful about particulars. Jim Fisher has banged his head and will have a ‘dungaree lamp’ (black eye). He asks Clare not to tell Muriel. His throat trouble is back, but trusts it will soon go, puts it down to shouting too much one evening. The letter has been censored: the date and name of the boat or port he was journeying to were cut out. Lez kept in contact with Jim Fisher after the war. Was that our Muriel that was not to be told? Not a brother anyway, her maiden name was Thomas.
5.4.45 ( received)	Lez to Clare (4)	life goes on smoothly, plenty of food, spare time and entertainment. ‘Edgar’s tribe’ are here. Describes very cramped accommodation. He feels Clare’s presence all the time.
6.4.45	Clare to Lez (5)	delighted to have received 2 letters, presumes that he is now away from Britain. They’ve had a sweep on the date of the end of the war in work! Jim phoned, he’d seen Len getting on a bus, no time to talk. They think that he must have been in the Rhine landings since he’s now on leave.
9.4.45	Lez to Clare (5)	can say nothing of where he is, and did not expect this letter to get home quickly, then heard that if he hurried he could get the letter off. Describes the fantastic time he’s having. Food includes eggs, the ship’s shop sells tobacco, ‘It’s fantastic’. It’s music, music all the way, he’s in his element.
10.4.45	Clare to Lez (6)	Delighted to get another letter, but worried that he talked of Guys and Gals. It’s Navy Week, so she’s been onboard an MTB moored in the Thames. Saw Harry coming aboard! He’s been ill and has been advised to have all his teeth out. ‘Jackie’ has had measles. Saw Muriel and Philip at Plumstead, my how he’s grown. Edgar is on ‘ops’ and has had no leave since Christmas. This envelope has been annotated ’cheetah’
10.4.45	Clare to Lez (7)	Wrote last night, but feels like writing some more! Had a long phone call from Hux. He has heard from Tom, who is in Belgium and says it’s 100% better than Italy
12.4.45	Clare to Lez (8)	Mr Paton has retired, and Clare acted as hostess for Mrs Paton. In the past she would have hated the task, but quite enjoyed it.
14.4.45	Clare to Lez (9)	Last night she was seated on the window sill drinking in the beauty of the night. Peaceful. Such a relief. Appalling news of Roosevelt’s death. Drink in all the beauties of the world, darling, and tell me about them one day, with awe.
17.4.45	Clare to Lez (10)	describes the lovely spring weather. went out to a pub with Jim and Vera, had stout, all the spirits are being kept for VE day. Visited Muriel Fisher, had long chat.
18.4.45	Clare to Lez (11)	beautiful weather. she has been reading Rudyard Kipling’s autobiography and quotes passages. Finds it very poetic. Has been sickened by sights of poor men liberated from prison camps. I wonder if these images are really concentration camps.
19.4.45	Peg (Mike’s wife) to Clare	a postcard. She is v. busy planting. Thanks Clare for her letter. Mike is on active service in Italian waters. MTB 710 was hit by a mine and sunk in the Adriatic on 10th April 1945. was Mike onboard, and Peg not yet told? This was one of several Coastal Forces boats to suffer a particularly large loss of life through a sudden and catastrophic sinking event
20.4.45	Lez to Clare (6)	‘En route!’ rough seas and rations back to basics. He is ‘missing you like hell’. Censor’s stamp dated 8.4.45
20.4.45 letter date, no envelope	Clare to Lez (12)	Delighted to have received no.6! noted the censor’s date! Tells him about peg’s letter, perhaps he could try to find out if his old flotilla is there, he could get news of his old gang. They are having a heat wave, and the gardens are looking a picture. ‘we are now completely free from raids of any kind. Wonderful to have peaceful nights. They are catching up on all the sleep lost since last June when the flying bombs started. They last met a month ago, ‘ah me’. As well as letters, people are sending newspapers and magazines. Clare hopes he doesn’t mind her doing some of his Times crossword, she thought it would be good to do it together, even if separated by ‘a few hundred miles’.
21.4.45	Lez to Clare (7)	Hasn’t had any of Clare’s letters yet. Is sunbathing whilst listening to ‘Sentimental Over You’ being played by a ‘smoky tenor sax with geetar’. Food is good again, but it is a ‘dry’ ship. Having ‘dhobying’ difficulties, wearing whites with fresh water rationed. Forced to use the ‘dhobey firms’. This letter, like the other, is going to be dropped off en route, so has to be completed ‘before they close the mailbag’. Censor’s stamp dated 11.4.45 talk of the sunbathing and ‘the---------- isn’t all it’s cracked up to be’ are clues surely to him now being in the Med
23.4.45	Clare to Lez(13)	Clare exhorts Lez to store up this fine life, ‘ like a peacetime holiday’ because when he arrives it will be a tough 4 months weather-wise. Has seen the ‘love birds’ Joyce and Tom, he is due for 3 months training, Clare thinks his fighting days are therefore over, ‘I am sure the German war will be cleaned up by the end of the summer. re-addressed: cheetah 24.4.45
24.4.45	Clare to Lez (14)	the second letter of the day. She has been thinking of him all day, and has blown a kiss to Orion, just incase he’s looking up at the same sky. She hopes he’s keeping a diary or memory book because one day she wants to hear all about it. She wishes that someday they will pack their little car with a primus and some goodies and a tent and go touring.
25.4.45	Lez to Clare (8)	he cannot say where he is, but they are moored, many have left, new people, including families, have embarked, and from now on it’s plain, if hot, sailing. Life aboard is beginning to bore. Sing-songs help. There’s a new moon tonight, he thinks ‘of the two of us under the same sky, thinking the same things, wishing the same wishes. Censor’s stamp dated 16.4.45
25.4.45	Clare to Lez (15)	written on a Forces Letter, really just a goodnight message. Now that there is no danger of blitz she’s got out all the treasured possessions, his pipes and tobacco jar. The room breathes an atmosphere of home.
26.4.45	Clare to Lez (16)	She guesses they were moored in Cairo or Alexandria, and that it was the 12th, because that was the new moon. ‘clever you!’ war news: the Russians have taken a large part of Berlin, and there are rumours of a link up between east and west. ‘Mum’ goes out more now the blackout has been lifted. Blitz-damaged houses are going to be repaired. Do we want to try for a refurbished flat in Blackheath?
27.4.45	Clare to Lez (17)	she wonders what his quarters are like, she is sure letter 8 was posted at the Suez canal, so they should have arrived by now. She has been consulting maps and calculating speeds and distances.
30.4.45	Lez to Clare (10)	written on an ‘airgraph’, therefore no space to expand thoughts. He’s now in a transit camp. ‘bloody hot and dusty’. Jim is in the same compartment. Food OK, plus plentiful fruit. Censor’s stamp 22.4.45
30.4.45	Clare to Lez (18)	In England they are shivering, it even snowed yesterday. She is very annoyed by the news that Germany offered unconditional surrender to the western allies, but not to Russia, so the war and killing goes on. ‘it makes me sick’. Joan, Frank and ‘your name-sake’ are staying. Leslie now stands and is never still for a moment. She is also very cuddly and soft. Has been reading ‘about your new home’, it has a university. Perhaps ‘you boys’ would be allowed into the reading room. This letter has been re-directed to cheetah

May 1945

1.5.45

Clare to Lez (19)

written on Monday 30th April
It is snowing!!! Everybody is talking about peace rumours. Later: ‘excitement in the office is at fever heat, we are all sure that tonight’s the night!’ ‘I only hope your canteen is well stocked with wallop’.

1.5.45

Lez to Clare (9)

Describes tonight on deck. The quarter moon, upside down. All sprawled on deck. Too hot below. Silently listening to ‘Welshmen singing their national songs’. Ethereal. Seems like a film. This is good. “This will be the last letter I shall write aboard this ship. We dock tomorrow. It has been a grand experience.”
This letter, written before he landed, arrived with no.11.

1.5.45

Lez to Clare (11)

Now writing in length from the transit camp. Describes the journey thro’ the town (Bombay presumably). “ ..there’s no beauty, glamour or picturesque qualities about these places, just dirt, squalor, poverty and people…” describes dhoby-wallas banging the soaped clothes again and again on concrete blocks, until clean “or there ain’t no cloth left”! He sleeps under a net, although this is not a malarial region. Went to town to find a swimming pool:’”lovely place- clear water, lawns, gardens, lounges, sun-bathing enclosures, teas, drink, meals- it knocks Danson Park into a cocked hat.”
Still no mail from Clare. Describes the meals, and fruit drinks

2.5.45

Lez to Clare (12)

At his permanent base. Has received 4 letters (up to no.16) from C, one from Mike and 1 from his father. Is C pregnant? He has yet to receive Clare’s letter saying they’ll have to wait for little Benjamin until Lez is home again. He is sitting on the verandah of his bungalow, at the extremity of the camp, with wooded hills rising behind. ‘I don’t go much on this country, sweetheart..’ describes his food
His address is now HMS Braganza, Coastal Forces, Bombay
this letter was written on 24.4.45, he was able to date it!

3.5.45

Claire to Lez (20)

Wonderful to read his news. How her mouth waters when she reads his description of tangerines! After the March heat wave and bitterly cold April ‘farmers have pretty nearly lost their livelihood this year’. News of the unconditional surrender of Italy has just come through, she wonders how that will affect Mike.
Tells him that both the airgraphs and other letters take 8 days to arrive.
she describes a long letter as ‘a budget’.

4.5.45

Lez to Clare (13)

Long letter: ‘this’ll be the second part of the Great Westaway saga’. Has received her no11. loves the descriptions of her clothes. There’s more vegetation and less dust in this camp. The heat is on a par with an English heatwave, quite bearable. Bungalow for 5, himself, George, Jim and 2 others. Water for showers plentiful. Feels very lonely at night, under the net with the hyenas howling. Describes awful conditions of people and homes ‘sack and bamboo hovels’ beside the roads. Intends to swim once a week and maybe join the local polo club. Next day: he is working with 2 Indian POs who speak perfect English, one says he could get Lez a camera more cheaply than in the shops. L is very hard up, so will accept this offer. His opinion of Indians is changing: he thought he and his navy colleagues were going to be teaching the locals, but “most of these blokes have been to university, have degrees and plenty of money and are , generally speaking, much better off than any of us.”
Censor’s stamp 28.4.45 (the last 3 letters had not been censor- checked)

4.5.45

Lez to Clare (14)

Three pages on love.

5.5.45

Clare to Lez (22)

Very short note to say that she cannot send money orders abroad, but can send £2 postal orders, so she will send him £10 in instalments.

5.5.45

Clare to Lez (21)

(Written 4th May) 5 years ago today that Lez first plucked up courage to ask her out, in the immortal words.. ’It’s about time….’
Everyone expects the news to come through at any moment. Floodlights are being erected in Whitehall. Houses of parliament being lit. Bus windows are clear again, the scrim and net is disappearing. “Fancy never hearing a siren again! Never again need one listen to a whistling bomb, or go into a shelter, or wait for a flying bomb to finish its dive.”
FLASH – the radio announced the surrender of all Germans in Holland, N>W> Germany and Denmark. That only leaves Norway and the centre bit around Czechoslavia. “Any moment now, darling, the bells will start ringing the peace in.”
Jim has cut his finger badly on a lawn mower. Also, whilst playing water polo for Rest of London (what an honour) he was kicked and suffered a perforated ear drum. Sue has to go into hospital for 3 weeks for an op on her navel.

7.5.45

Clare to Lez (23)

(written 5th May) Another German army has surrendered. Talks about winter clothes to buy and make. The housing position in London is still pretty grim, they are concentrating on getting all blitzed places back to their pre-war standard.

7.5.45 (7.15pm)

Clare to Lez (24)

(written on Monday 7th May) Such a long day, everyone so tense with excitement. Crowds are collected in Downing street and Whitehall. Aeroplanes have been circling all day. The weather is glorious. We will have a day off, then back to the grind until the real victory day comes, and the cease fire sounds the world over.

10.5.45

Clare to Lez (25)

written on ‘VE Day, Tuesday 8th May’ She has 2 days leave. Everyone else seems to too. Every house is displaying a flag or bunting. People are all wearing a red-white and –blue buttonhole. Mr Churchill’s proclamation was very stirring. She wonders how Lez will be celebrating. “I still can’t believe…..that the lights will come back.”
VE DAY +1: yesterday evening she found herself at the Piccadilly Hotel enjoying a dinner dance as the guest of an American doctor and friends! “never in my life have I seen such crowds….the scene that met my eyes at Charing X- is unbelievable!!” a wonderful experience. Every building was floodlit. People dancing around Eros. Cheering. Dancing in the street. Fireworks, hooters going off. She wishes that Lez will be home for VJ Day.

10.5.45

Lez to Clare (15)

written on 1st May. very quiet at the base. Saw an excellent show at the RAF base. They have a good sergeants’ mess. Visited the beach. Describes the scene. Describes the Indian women, always walking with an ’upright bearing’. He’s running for President of the Mess. No pay yet. ‘It’s May 1st today, Edgar’s birthday, I wonder how that son-of-a-gun is getting on’.

11.5.45

Clare to Lez (26)

All about Edgar’s illness. It started on Friday 20th (April). He was taken to hospital in Cambridgeshire with a severe headache. Was in the hospital for RAF nerve cases. Clare and Muriel went to visit on Sunday. He was on the danger list for a week, having X-rays and ‘tests galore’. Doctors did not know what it was, they described him as having a nerve in his forehead which had swollen. He’s been told it was a nervous breakdown.
They had great fun on VE Day in Plumstead. They went to town in the afternoon, came back and spent the evening in the Green Man. Came back merry at 10.30 and lit a bonfire in the road. ‘A piano and the Jazz-set was pushed into a window and everybody joined in the fun and dancing until 3am.
Now she is going to find them a flat.
Albert had so much ‘pig’s ear’ ( beer ) he didn’t know whether he was playing the piano or drums. So he must have been able to play piano.
Lez was told to write to 8 Hillcrest Close, Beckenham and Mu would forward a letter to Edgar. Was this their address?

11.5.45

Lez to Clare (16)

{written 3.5.45) So happy, Germany has surrendered, what matters most now is ‘the hope of release from enslavement and the chance at last to start a normal happy life with you.’ He knows it will be chaotic, that they will have to take their share of the work needed to put the world back on its feet again. They have the strength that outweighs any worries. ..’up to the last moment there was danger, yet we were spared to carry on’.

12.5.45

Clare to Lez (27)

Written Friday 11th May. Continuation of the description of VE Day and the following day. Very descriptive, poetic letter. Wishes Lez could have been there. Describes the train home “one of the many relief trains run by an over-worked and exhausted railway staff”; the bonfires: “remember that fateful night of September 7th when the blitz started? Well, there were almost as many bonfires glowing all along the route. Only this time people were not putting them out in fear, but dancing around them and piling on the bombed debris that was burnable”. There were fireworks hooters, buzzers and rattles. “Overhead I think every searchlight battery in London was doing its stuff. The long beams were weaving backwards and forwards over the sky..” At Welling there were crowds of people. An accordion was playing outside the Station Hotel, people were dancing, altho’ it was midnight.” Thursday saw her back at the office. “All day long aeroplanes swoop over at low altitudes, bringing p.o.ws home and letting them see good old London on the way.”

12.5.45

Capt. Leonard Bluestone, American doctor to Clare

A letter to Clare from the American Airforce doctor with whom she had spent VE Day evening, wishing her well, saying that he had spent VE day ”as nicely as ever I would have cared to”.
The letter is from a very erudite man, Clare chose her companions very well, or was just very lucky.

14.5.45

Clare to Lez (28)

Spent Sunday spring cleaning ‘our home’ (their room at the flat). Walked across the park in the sunshine. The pool’s open! The lake has been drained and all local bomb debris is being tipped in. Leslie is growing into “the sweetest little girl with sandy curls and violet eyes”. She mutters unintelligibly all the time. She can walk quite steadily now with little support, but has yet to walk alone. “…she was intensely interested in the trees, the grass and the roses..”

15.5.45

Clare to Lez (29)

‘The Navy has certainly been in the news for the past few days, escorting-in the U-boats and E-boats that are steadily surrendering and coming into Allied ports’. Pat and Hux have invited her to Shorncliffe for the weekend. Says: you certainly have some solid friends Lez, looking after me very well.

17.5.45

Lez to Clare (17)

long, detailed description of shopping in Bombay, and other activities that made up his weekend. Talks about health issues, staying safe. Is now Vice-President of the mess. Food has improved but mail position has worsened. Jim Fisher has had a troubling letter, would Clare please go and see Muriel? THE topic of conversation in the camp is demobilisation. He says nothing, and waits to see what will happen.

17.5.45

Lez to Clare (18)

written on V day. At 11am came the signal ‘Splice the mainbrace’, so he had 2 tots (1/4 of a pint) of rum and felt better. Describes Bombay in lights, and riding on a tram where he and his mates felt like pariahs, as space was left all round them. Describes his work as ‘doing our little bit to help the Japanese war along’. Dreams of being demobbed.
Talks about living in a world of their own where love and happiness is our creed and the philosophy of Jesus Christ our only rules

18.5.45

Clare to Lez (30)

glad to have received 2 letters. Had 2 very bad weeks, starting with the revelations of the concentration camps, followed by the sudden news of Edgar’s dangerous illness. Edgar is now getting well. Dreams of the time when he is home.

22.5.45

Lez to Clare (19)

Good to hear Edgar is recovering, says: next to you (Clare) Edgar’s the only person in the world I’ve any genuine affection for. Describes his journey out to India. Describes the Indians he sees; the indescribably filthy and wretched houses; the dreadful sanitation; the different classes; the persecution of one class by others; the Sikhs who consider themselves the aristocrats of India; and the fabled wealth of the Rajahs; the superstitiousness of Indians. Has decided to send carpets back home. For a demob present all he wants is to sit in front of his own fireplace, no matter how small the home.

22.5.45

Clare to Lez (31)

Description of her weekend with Pat and Hux who live near his barracks at Folkstone. Says that the office is busy at the moment, closing down factories and changing over the production in some places from war to peace goods. ‘the gang really hopes to be back to peacetime proportions by next summer, and fun will once more be had by all’.

24.5.45

Clare to Lez (32)

thrilled by the idea of carpets. Describes what could be bought.
At the end of this letter Clare says that she says her prayers each night before getting into bed. describes each room as having a fireplace and needing a hearth rug

25.5.45

Clare to Lez(33)

people at work are always stopping her to ask after Lez, she says: you’re quite a popular guy you know honey. Gives a précis of the news, as newspapers are not yet reaching India: 1) the election. She reads all the speeches and has yet to make up her mind. She is not sure about nationalisation, thinks that the civil service has a complete lack of competition, of inventiveness and new ideas, so progress may be cramped. 2) demobbing. She thinks he will be home by the end of the year. 3) prefabs. Are being built but most effort is in restoring bombed housing. 4) petrol ration restored, so people can get their cars out again. Jim’s car is hopelessly rusted up. 5) food cuts. Slightly less fat. 6) PLUTO THE STORY OF THE TWIN PIPELINES laid from Liverpool to Southampton and Dover, then across to Cherbourg and Calais, to supply the forces after D Day. She calls them ‘my twins’, and says she’s never been so proud to be English and a Londoner than in these last few weeks. She’s been busting to tell this story for the past 18 months.
Roger is now 4 months old. Joyce may be pregnant.
Mentions having ‘worked for Gordon at the War Office’. Was this the man who picked her out from the clerks’ office?

28.5.45

Clare to Lez (34)

Edgar is home! 4 weeks leave. According to the doctors he has made a remarkable recovery.

29.5.45

Lez to Clare (19A)

Homesick, rather rambling. Philosophises on the theme ‘I’m a lucky man’

29.5.45

Lez to Clare (20)

Tells Clare that his sisters had written to him of Edgar’s illness, stressing the worst aspects before her letter had arrived. He was very pleased to get an objective, optimistic view point. He says ‘Eggy’ always had high blood pressure, and puts it down to that. Tells Clare that she would not be able to visit him. Many reasons, most to do with filth and disease. Says Indian journalism is the worst in the world and longs to read “a rip-snorting, down-to-earth, thought provoking leading article by a British newspaper man who knows his stuff.”

30.5.45

Clare to Lez (35)

Demob: the navy will not commence demob til the end of the Japanese war. What a blow! Accommodation: impossible to find. Reconstruction is starting with damaged, occupied housing. Those bombed out of Lewisham and Blackheath are still living in shelters! Description of Cufley Towers: Susan playing on the floor and Roger becoming ‘a whopper’, weighs 1 stone. Long legs and arms and lovely to look at. Went to Garibaldi St, saw Nellie, Joyce and Tom. Joyce is pregnant. Doris says she’s very young. Blanche gave her some pills hoping they would ‘do the trick’. Clare thinks that is wicked. Blanche has also said that Joyce and Tom can not stay at her bungalow with a baby. Edgar is home and resting. There is a grave shortage of beer in London. Wishes she had read Pride and Prejudice as a school girl.

31.5.45

Capt Len, US Army Med. corps to Clare

a post card from the American she spent VE Day evening with, now at a US hospital in Verdun, France. Says he has had a most interesting time and hopes it continues. Wishes her well and ‘au revoir’

31.5.45

Lez to Clare (21)

Mike has written. It was the MTB Lez was on in Dover that was hit. His mm was killed. Philosophy on coping with loss. Has sent a snap. Now weighs 14stn 1lb, down 1½stones. Remembers the wonderful evenings at The Norfolk (in Bournemouth)

31.5.45

Clare to Lez (36)

has seen Blithe Spirit, and looks forward to going to the cinema with Lez again.

1.5.45	Clare to Lez (19)	written on Monday 30th April It is snowing!!! Everybody is talking about peace rumours. Later: ‘excitement in the office is at fever heat, we are all sure that tonight’s the night!’ ‘I only hope your canteen is well stocked with wallop’.
1.5.45	Lez to Clare (9)	Describes tonight on deck. The quarter moon, upside down. All sprawled on deck. Too hot below. Silently listening to ‘Welshmen singing their national songs’. Ethereal. Seems like a film. This is good. “This will be the last letter I shall write aboard this ship. We dock tomorrow. It has been a grand experience.” This letter, written before he landed, arrived with no.11.
1.5.45	Lez to Clare (11)	Now writing in length from the transit camp. Describes the journey thro’ the town (Bombay presumably). “ ..there’s no beauty, glamour or picturesque qualities about these places, just dirt, squalor, poverty and people…” describes dhoby-wallas banging the soaped clothes again and again on concrete blocks, until clean “or there ain’t no cloth left”! He sleeps under a net, although this is not a malarial region. Went to town to find a swimming pool:’”lovely place- clear water, lawns, gardens, lounges, sun-bathing enclosures, teas, drink, meals- it knocks Danson Park into a cocked hat.” Still no mail from Clare. Describes the meals, and fruit drinks
2.5.45	Lez to Clare (12)	At his permanent base. Has received 4 letters (up to no.16) from C, one from Mike and 1 from his father. Is C pregnant? He has yet to receive Clare’s letter saying they’ll have to wait for little Benjamin until Lez is home again. He is sitting on the verandah of his bungalow, at the extremity of the camp, with wooded hills rising behind. ‘I don’t go much on this country, sweetheart..’ describes his food His address is now HMS Braganza, Coastal Forces, Bombay this letter was written on 24.4.45, he was able to date it!
3.5.45	Claire to Lez (20)	Wonderful to read his news. How her mouth waters when she reads his description of tangerines! After the March heat wave and bitterly cold April ‘farmers have pretty nearly lost their livelihood this year’. News of the unconditional surrender of Italy has just come through, she wonders how that will affect Mike. Tells him that both the airgraphs and other letters take 8 days to arrive. she describes a long letter as ‘a budget’.
4.5.45	Lez to Clare (13)	Long letter: ‘this’ll be the second part of the Great Westaway saga’. Has received her no11. loves the descriptions of her clothes. There’s more vegetation and less dust in this camp. The heat is on a par with an English heatwave, quite bearable. Bungalow for 5, himself, George, Jim and 2 others. Water for showers plentiful. Feels very lonely at night, under the net with the hyenas howling. Describes awful conditions of people and homes ‘sack and bamboo hovels’ beside the roads. Intends to swim once a week and maybe join the local polo club. Next day: he is working with 2 Indian POs who speak perfect English, one says he could get Lez a camera more cheaply than in the shops. L is very hard up, so will accept this offer. His opinion of Indians is changing: he thought he and his navy colleagues were going to be teaching the locals, but “most of these blokes have been to university, have degrees and plenty of money and are , generally speaking, much better off than any of us.” Censor’s stamp 28.4.45 (the last 3 letters had not been censor- checked)
4.5.45	Lez to Clare (14)	Three pages on love.
5.5.45	Clare to Lez (22)	Very short note to say that she cannot send money orders abroad, but can send £2 postal orders, so she will send him £10 in instalments.
5.5.45	Clare to Lez (21)	(Written 4th May) 5 years ago today that Lez first plucked up courage to ask her out, in the immortal words.. ’It’s about time….’ Everyone expects the news to come through at any moment. Floodlights are being erected in Whitehall. Houses of parliament being lit. Bus windows are clear again, the scrim and net is disappearing. “Fancy never hearing a siren again! Never again need one listen to a whistling bomb, or go into a shelter, or wait for a flying bomb to finish its dive.” FLASH – the radio announced the surrender of all Germans in Holland, N>W> Germany and Denmark. That only leaves Norway and the centre bit around Czechoslavia. “Any moment now, darling, the bells will start ringing the peace in.” Jim has cut his finger badly on a lawn mower. Also, whilst playing water polo for Rest of London (what an honour) he was kicked and suffered a perforated ear drum. Sue has to go into hospital for 3 weeks for an op on her navel.
7.5.45	Clare to Lez (23)	(written 5th May) Another German army has surrendered. Talks about winter clothes to buy and make. The housing position in London is still pretty grim, they are concentrating on getting all blitzed places back to their pre-war standard.
7.5.45 (7.15pm)	Clare to Lez (24)	(written on Monday 7th May) Such a long day, everyone so tense with excitement. Crowds are collected in Downing street and Whitehall. Aeroplanes have been circling all day. The weather is glorious. We will have a day off, then back to the grind until the real victory day comes, and the cease fire sounds the world over.
10.5.45	Clare to Lez (25)	written on ‘VE Day, Tuesday 8th May’ She has 2 days leave. Everyone else seems to too. Every house is displaying a flag or bunting. People are all wearing a red-white and –blue buttonhole. Mr Churchill’s proclamation was very stirring. She wonders how Lez will be celebrating. “I still can’t believe…..that the lights will come back.” VE DAY +1: yesterday evening she found herself at the Piccadilly Hotel enjoying a dinner dance as the guest of an American doctor and friends! “never in my life have I seen such crowds….the scene that met my eyes at Charing X- is unbelievable!!” a wonderful experience. Every building was floodlit. People dancing around Eros. Cheering. Dancing in the street. Fireworks, hooters going off. She wishes that Lez will be home for VJ Day.
10.5.45	Lez to Clare (15)	written on 1st May. very quiet at the base. Saw an excellent show at the RAF base. They have a good sergeants’ mess. Visited the beach. Describes the scene. Describes the Indian women, always walking with an ’upright bearing’. He’s running for President of the Mess. No pay yet. ‘It’s May 1st today, Edgar’s birthday, I wonder how that son-of-a-gun is getting on’.
11.5.45	Clare to Lez (26)	All about Edgar’s illness. It started on Friday 20th (April). He was taken to hospital in Cambridgeshire with a severe headache. Was in the hospital for RAF nerve cases. Clare and Muriel went to visit on Sunday. He was on the danger list for a week, having X-rays and ‘tests galore’. Doctors did not know what it was, they described him as having a nerve in his forehead which had swollen. He’s been told it was a nervous breakdown. They had great fun on VE Day in Plumstead. They went to town in the afternoon, came back and spent the evening in the Green Man. Came back merry at 10.30 and lit a bonfire in the road. ‘A piano and the Jazz-set was pushed into a window and everybody joined in the fun and dancing until 3am. Now she is going to find them a flat. Albert had so much ‘pig’s ear’ ( beer ) he didn’t know whether he was playing the piano or drums. So he must have been able to play piano. Lez was told to write to 8 Hillcrest Close, Beckenham and Mu would forward a letter to Edgar. Was this their address?
11.5.45	Lez to Clare (16)	{written 3.5.45) So happy, Germany has surrendered, what matters most now is ‘the hope of release from enslavement and the chance at last to start a normal happy life with you.’ He knows it will be chaotic, that they will have to take their share of the work needed to put the world back on its feet again. They have the strength that outweighs any worries. ..’up to the last moment there was danger, yet we were spared to carry on’.
12.5.45	Clare to Lez (27)	Written Friday 11th May. Continuation of the description of VE Day and the following day. Very descriptive, poetic letter. Wishes Lez could have been there. Describes the train home “one of the many relief trains run by an over-worked and exhausted railway staff”; the bonfires: “remember that fateful night of September 7th when the blitz started? Well, there were almost as many bonfires glowing all along the route. Only this time people were not putting them out in fear, but dancing around them and piling on the bombed debris that was burnable”. There were fireworks hooters, buzzers and rattles. “Overhead I think every searchlight battery in London was doing its stuff. The long beams were weaving backwards and forwards over the sky..” At Welling there were crowds of people. An accordion was playing outside the Station Hotel, people were dancing, altho’ it was midnight.” Thursday saw her back at the office. “All day long aeroplanes swoop over at low altitudes, bringing p.o.ws home and letting them see good old London on the way.”
12.5.45	Capt. Leonard Bluestone, American doctor to Clare	A letter to Clare from the American Airforce doctor with whom she had spent VE Day evening, wishing her well, saying that he had spent VE day ”as nicely as ever I would have cared to”. The letter is from a very erudite man, Clare chose her companions very well, or was just very lucky.
14.5.45	Clare to Lez (28)	Spent Sunday spring cleaning ‘our home’ (their room at the flat). Walked across the park in the sunshine. The pool’s open! The lake has been drained and all local bomb debris is being tipped in. Leslie is growing into “the sweetest little girl with sandy curls and violet eyes”. She mutters unintelligibly all the time. She can walk quite steadily now with little support, but has yet to walk alone. “…she was intensely interested in the trees, the grass and the roses..”
15.5.45	Clare to Lez (29)	‘The Navy has certainly been in the news for the past few days, escorting-in the U-boats and E-boats that are steadily surrendering and coming into Allied ports’. Pat and Hux have invited her to Shorncliffe for the weekend. Says: you certainly have some solid friends Lez, looking after me very well.
17.5.45	Lez to Clare (17)	long, detailed description of shopping in Bombay, and other activities that made up his weekend. Talks about health issues, staying safe. Is now Vice-President of the mess. Food has improved but mail position has worsened. Jim Fisher has had a troubling letter, would Clare please go and see Muriel? THE topic of conversation in the camp is demobilisation. He says nothing, and waits to see what will happen.
17.5.45	Lez to Clare (18)	written on V day. At 11am came the signal ‘Splice the mainbrace’, so he had 2 tots (1/4 of a pint) of rum and felt better. Describes Bombay in lights, and riding on a tram where he and his mates felt like pariahs, as space was left all round them. Describes his work as ‘doing our little bit to help the Japanese war along’. Dreams of being demobbed. Talks about living in a world of their own where love and happiness is our creed and the philosophy of Jesus Christ our only rules
18.5.45	Clare to Lez (30)	glad to have received 2 letters. Had 2 very bad weeks, starting with the revelations of the concentration camps, followed by the sudden news of Edgar’s dangerous illness. Edgar is now getting well. Dreams of the time when he is home.
22.5.45	Lez to Clare (19)	Good to hear Edgar is recovering, says: next to you (Clare) Edgar’s the only person in the world I’ve any genuine affection for. Describes his journey out to India. Describes the Indians he sees; the indescribably filthy and wretched houses; the dreadful sanitation; the different classes; the persecution of one class by others; the Sikhs who consider themselves the aristocrats of India; and the fabled wealth of the Rajahs; the superstitiousness of Indians. Has decided to send carpets back home. For a demob present all he wants is to sit in front of his own fireplace, no matter how small the home.
22.5.45	Clare to Lez (31)	Description of her weekend with Pat and Hux who live near his barracks at Folkstone. Says that the office is busy at the moment, closing down factories and changing over the production in some places from war to peace goods. ‘the gang really hopes to be back to peacetime proportions by next summer, and fun will once more be had by all’.
24.5.45	Clare to Lez (32)	thrilled by the idea of carpets. Describes what could be bought. At the end of this letter Clare says that she says her prayers each night before getting into bed. describes each room as having a fireplace and needing a hearth rug
25.5.45	Clare to Lez(33)	people at work are always stopping her to ask after Lez, she says: you’re quite a popular guy you know honey. Gives a précis of the news, as newspapers are not yet reaching India: 1) the election. She reads all the speeches and has yet to make up her mind. She is not sure about nationalisation, thinks that the civil service has a complete lack of competition, of inventiveness and new ideas, so progress may be cramped. 2) demobbing. She thinks he will be home by the end of the year. 3) prefabs. Are being built but most effort is in restoring bombed housing. 4) petrol ration restored, so people can get their cars out again. Jim’s car is hopelessly rusted up. 5) food cuts. Slightly less fat. 6) PLUTO THE STORY OF THE TWIN PIPELINES laid from Liverpool to Southampton and Dover, then across to Cherbourg and Calais, to supply the forces after D Day. She calls them ‘my twins’, and says she’s never been so proud to be English and a Londoner than in these last few weeks. She’s been busting to tell this story for the past 18 months. Roger is now 4 months old. Joyce may be pregnant. Mentions having ‘worked for Gordon at the War Office’. Was this the man who picked her out from the clerks’ office?
28.5.45	Clare to Lez (34)	Edgar is home! 4 weeks leave. According to the doctors he has made a remarkable recovery.
29.5.45	Lez to Clare (19A)	Homesick, rather rambling. Philosophises on the theme ‘I’m a lucky man’
29.5.45	Lez to Clare (20)	Tells Clare that his sisters had written to him of Edgar’s illness, stressing the worst aspects before her letter had arrived. He was very pleased to get an objective, optimistic view point. He says ‘Eggy’ always had high blood pressure, and puts it down to that. Tells Clare that she would not be able to visit him. Many reasons, most to do with filth and disease. Says Indian journalism is the worst in the world and longs to read “a rip-snorting, down-to-earth, thought provoking leading article by a British newspaper man who knows his stuff.”
30.5.45	Clare to Lez (35)	Demob: the navy will not commence demob til the end of the Japanese war. What a blow! Accommodation: impossible to find. Reconstruction is starting with damaged, occupied housing. Those bombed out of Lewisham and Blackheath are still living in shelters! Description of Cufley Towers: Susan playing on the floor and Roger becoming ‘a whopper’, weighs 1 stone. Long legs and arms and lovely to look at. Went to Garibaldi St, saw Nellie, Joyce and Tom. Joyce is pregnant. Doris says she’s very young. Blanche gave her some pills hoping they would ‘do the trick’. Clare thinks that is wicked. Blanche has also said that Joyce and Tom can not stay at her bungalow with a baby. Edgar is home and resting. There is a grave shortage of beer in London. Wishes she had read Pride and Prejudice as a school girl.
31.5.45	Capt Len, US Army Med. corps to Clare	a post card from the American she spent VE Day evening with, now at a US hospital in Verdun, France. Says he has had a most interesting time and hopes it continues. Wishes her well and ‘au revoir’
31.5.45	Lez to Clare (21)	Mike has written. It was the MTB Lez was on in Dover that was hit. His mm was killed. Philosophy on coping with loss. Has sent a snap. Now weighs 14stn 1lb, down 1½stones. Remembers the wonderful evenings at The Norfolk (in Bournemouth)
31.5.45	Clare to Lez (36)	has seen Blithe Spirit, and looks forward to going to the cinema with Lez again.