1961, My 18th Summer
Darling,
Maureen you are an angel and I love you and those book-type letters of yours. Just you wait and be-jeebers I’ll be writing over 20 pages with a bit of luck.
Saw the Messing Officer this today. He called me over and explained his future servery plans in detail. After listening to what he had to say I congratulated him on his fine work these past few weeks. He went all shy like a small boy, saying it was good to receive praise at last.
Darling Alan,
I’ve got exactly twelve pages left in the pad, well, eleven now, minus of course two lines. So I can’t get carried away and write a book like the last one. I’ve got a list of things here to tell you about but I’ve got a funny (peculiar, not ha ha,) feeling that I’ve mentioned some of them before, so you have been warned.
Darling,
Have just finished yet another game of whist and I’m happy to say fortune has swollen by yet another shilling. With all this cash I’m raking in I will be able to buy myself a Comet so I can pop over to Dagenham every weekend. It was amusing tonight because the two guys we were playing with began to lose their tempers over each other’s play. Each blaming the other for the way the cards were going. We, meaning Paddy and myself are back as a team in this partner whist game and really going strong.
Hello Dear,
I think this letter is gonna be pretty hard to understand cos dad is sitting here watching television and he is definitely unnerving me, probably a guilty conscience.
Hope you got the parcel ok. Very unoriginal I know, but what can you do? Did you have to pay anything on it? After paying 4/- for that book, 1/6d didn’t seem quite right somehow. It was the same as last time in the post office, they all had to have a consultation then out came the dusty old volumes to see how much it cost.
