Pick your Precious - September

An army kit bag - crammed full of letters.  Letters that start like this

 {My loving angel Val Darling! Thank you darling a million times for another lovely, loving letter, received with much delight this morning}

 

and end like this

 

 

{Always

With every ounce of love I have

from your devoted, adoring, ever loving husband}

 

Every single letter that was exchanged between my Mum and Dad during the war.  The letters tell a story of a chance meeting when my Dad was moved from London and stopped off in Essex en route to his new barracks.  A romance conducted over long distance; infrequent meetings dependent on where he was stationed; planning a wedding for when he was back on leave; waiting for the war to end to take their proper honeymoon.  Plans, hopes and dreams. Long letters; you can see how the ink has weakened in colour between first and last page as his pen emptied. Handwritten and saved for posterity.

 

I haven't read too many as they are clearly personal and I don't want to intrude into that.   But every now and again I will pull one out and read a few lines.  Glimpses into a world so very different to ours nowadays.

 

In a strange coincidence, the letter I picked out for this project was postmarked Edinburgh 1944 - whoever would have guessed that my son would end up living in the city where the grandfather he never met, and who he is named after, was stationed for a while almost 70 years ago?

This post is part of Sian's Storytelling Sunday series.  Pop over there and see what other precious items are being shared this month.