Family letters of the past…

I love reading all the stories on Starts at 60, and I have one which may be of interest to my fellow readers…

Jane is my mother, and she started her new married life in England and Scotland at the start of WWII. She used to write home to her parents in Australia about once a week, relating the happenings of the week.

I have compiled a small book of these letters, and here is an excerpt from Chapter 11 – Entertaining Tales. It is an interesting story that takes us back to a time of the past and I hope you all enjoy it…

In February 1940 Jane penned a letter to her sister Peggy in which she relates the story of the day her friend Mrs Barron took them on a trip to Paisley (in Glasgow) to visit a cotton mill that wove materials. It was a trip filled with high drama and I leave it to Jane to tell the story:

We had a helluva day when we went to the mill. It was just a couple of days after I got up, and the freeze was still on us, so we wore all the clothes we had, literally, and packed into Eric’s borrowed and decrepit car with a rug each and 3 hot water bottles. Mrs Barron was with us to find the mill, but we got lost in the snowy wastes just the same, and took hours to get there after a lot of messing about.

The roads had churned-up frozen snow all over them and were more bumpy than a newly ploughed field, and terribly uncomfortable, and I was not as happy as I could have been, I can tell you. We didn’t leave the mill until a quarter to five, and then one of the chains on the back wheels came adrift and banged unceasingly against the mudguard, so Eric tied it up with string, and it broke in a different place a few minutes later and nearly drove us demented, to say nothing of damaging the car, so we put in to a garage and had the chains removed.

When we left there it was dark, and we were famished and cold and longing for home, and rattled along in the old car until it suddenly died on us. Mrs Barron and I just sat for half an hour while Eric stirred up the bowels of the engine and cranked until he nearly died of it, and finally we had to abandon the car and get a tram.

Out we climbed, laden with rugs and water bottles and two huge parcels of materials, to say nowt about all the clothes we had on! We stood freezing in the snow for ten minutes and then a tram came along and we tried to board it, but the Glasgow trams and buses are hateful, hellish vehicles, and always start off before everyone is on, so Mrs Barron was safely aboard and I was half on when away we went.

I would have fallen out again but Eric gave me a hearty push and I was safe, but he was left running frantically behind. I pealed furiously on the bell until the car stopped, and out we got to walk the 20 yards back to the stop, cursing like fun, and me feeling rather shaken because I was terribly cold and my legs were still wobbly. Imagine our despair when Eric sailed happily past in another tram!

We shrieked in dismay and saw him dance up and down in a frenzy to try to stop the tram. Suddenly I lost control and burst into shrieks of wild laughter. There we were, tottering down the middle of the road, shedding water bags and rugs into the snow with traffic whirling about us and my husband being whisked away as fast as a Glasgow tram could manage it. All this in the pitchy and freezing blackout, on slippery and horrible roads. We were all safely united at last, back at the tram stop, but of course that was all the trams there were by then, so we stood again, getting awfully cold and finally took refuge for 15 minutes in the heated foyer of a cinema until a bus came along.

We got aboard — but only just — and were carried past our stop because we weren’t given time to get off. We had to get another tram home, and by that time I was so terrified of getting on and off the damnable Glasgow vehicles that I could scarcely bear to face the task. It was awful, I can tell you, because my legs were weak anyway, and my balance is all upset just now and the roads were slippery as blazes.

I was a nervous wreck by the time we got home and nearly in tears. The walk from the tram stop to the house was almost more than I could manage, uphill on pavements thick with frozen slush, and I slipped about giggling helplessly. My only comfort was to think of myself as a refugee more fortunate than any other in that I was struggling towards a home, and not away from it. I’ve never been in such a state in all my life, and Eric dosed me up with hot lemon and whisky when we got home — after eight o’clock — then I got hot soup and built up the fire again, and then fixed a hot meal, and oh boy, how we needed it.

After we had fed, I undid my parcel — so hardly won — and showed Eric the spoils and we were both comforted, and retired to bed feeling terribly exhausted but pleased with the shopping. Now I haven’t any more room except for two sentiments — I detest Glasgow and all its works, and I luvsha and will write you another piece soon.

Hope you like the stuffs.

Best love, Jane.

Have you found old family letters or documents before? Did they help you to better understand your family and your history? Tell us about them in the comments below…