"I suppose that in England things have been normal during the last few days but out here things have been looking very black"
On the death of my uncle, I found some letters from my grandad to my nanna. This is just one which I thought most pertinent re the war as he wrote it in April 1939.
My grandad died at the age of 47 in 1961 and I never met him.
Transcript:
My darling,
Since my last letter many things have happened out here, I suppose that in England things have been normal during the last few days but out here things have been looking very black.
On Sunday afternoon things started to move, a general recall for all services was proclaimed and in the evening all the machine gun posts around the camp were manned and at 10.30p.m we were all called out on parade and told to prepare for active service. The Fleet Air Arm were told to pack all their kits and go aboard their ships, I had to remain behind and fly to the ship the following morning.
Things have quietened down a bit now but we are still more or less prepared to go out at short notice an will not be allowed to disembark until some time next week.
We got on board at 7a.m. on Monday morning and at 7-15 the crane driver smashed the wing of my aeroplaine while hoisting in some shells so I had to work until 1a.m. the following morning repairing it, the previous night I had been up till 1.30a.m. getting the aeroplane ready to go on board so you can guess I was pretty tired by the time I had finished. To crown all this the same thing happened to the Devonshire yesterday and as they have a new inexperienced rigger I was asked to go over and give him a hand, that kept me busy until midnight last night (the rest of the time has been my own.) Tonight I shall turn in early to make up for lost time.
When this trouble dies down we shall probably go to Alexandria, this will be our last cruise before returning to England.
Only five more months to go darling before we are together again, every time we get a scare out here, I always dread the possibilities of it turning to war, the very thought of not seeing you again drives me frantic, I suppose that really we should get the safest job of all if we really did go to war because our job would be convoy work in the Atlantic. Anyway lets hope that there will be no war in our life time darling.
I hope that you liked the orange blossom perfume that I put in the last letter, or had it all gone when you opened it, this time I'll out some Voilet in.
I shall soon have another lot of photos to send you darling including the ones I took in the south of France, we were not allowed to take our cameras ashore in Italy but one of the officers took his and got some time ones, he has lent me the negatives and I am doing some for myself.
Well my darling I must finish now so until my next letter......... adieu.
Yours as ever, darling,
Pud
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English (UK)