RAF Station
Lahore
1st January 1944
Molly My Very Dearest,
Here it is the first day of a new year & Oh! Thank God! I sincerely hope and trust my last in this country. Thank you very much my darling for your Christmas cables & especially please thank Shirley for her lovely wishes, apart from this I have had no mail for three weeks from you, your parcel or those from the family have not arrived as yet, expect that with all the Christmas mails lost at sea in early November a lot of troops will have lost all the many hard got parcels from their families.
I do hope that your Christmas was a happy one & that Shirley, I am sure, thanks to her wonderful mother, had a grand time, my parcel to you both may have arrived in time. My Christmas was quite quiet & enjoyable, plenty to eat & drink but with my cold (it’s still with me) I wasn’t fussy over either.
You will have heard that Ken and I have been together just before Christmas, we had four or five grand evenings in my quarters & one evening I took Ken into Lahore. I think he enjoyed himself, he was only here on temporary duty a few days but now any day I am expecting him back to stay. Yes! I managed it and I know Ken will like it here. He is much thinner than when I saw him last but quite fir & cheerful & full of the queer things in this country. I was able to get him beer & hot baths, both of which he hadn’t had for some time. Gosh! Molly it was good to see him, I could have cried. I think we talked through half the nights. I will write fuller in letters during the next few days & give you all my news. I get less free time to myself these days.
Darling I thought so very much of you and Shirley over Christmas. I’m sure you must have felt it. I’ve got lots of things to say to you in my next full letter. God Bless you both this year & Happier days for us three.
Your Ivor.
307 Unit
RAF
India
17th May 1944.
Hello My Plucky One,
Today I had the reply to my cable to Ivy, it appears to have been sent on the 13th May. Oh! my lovely wife I was overjoyed to read that you are making such a good recovery & on this point, if leaving hospital, it sounds too good to be true, you must really one heck of a constitution. Dearest, no one yet has really told what it actually was you know although I feel sure in my own mind that it must have been a fibroid tumour. Once you have got some strength back in your tummy muscles you will be tremendously relieved I should think. But you must not even try & go your old pace or anything like it. I don’t give a damn if the family get 5 days breakfast tomorrow. You must be fit from now on damn it, it ‘aint going to be long now you know before that boat should pull in & then Oh! Boy! Oh Boy! Yeh! I’m 38 and I don’t feel a day over 62. Ken insists he has never seen me looking so fit & will. I may look OK but Oh Boy I simply have no energy whatsoever, not half the energy I had at home which isn’t saying much is it. Write and tell me Molly all the funny things you said the anaesthetic was wearing off please. I have written to Shirley. She is such a Darling, as you say. Thank the Lord you have her at least you have something of me. (Does that sound silly?)
Now mind you take it easy. I shall be dreaming of there.
God Bless You Dearest
All Your Ivor.
307 MU
RAF
India
22nd May 1944
Molly My Lovely Wife
I do so wonder, as on this torrid, breathless, sticky, horrible night I write you, just how you are feeling, what you are doing & whether you are home yet, I imagine you are & do so very, very much hope that things are now appearing more in their normal light. I do hope your tummy is feeling stronger & the scar healing up good & proper & neatly. I did so want to send some money right away for you to go away with Dearest but honestly Darling, I just haven’t got it this month. Can you manage? I will send some on soon so that what you spend you can put back. I hope you go away Molly & try to forget all about the operation. You will take Shirley with you I expect, won’t you?
Ken and I had a most leisurely weekend, on Sat night, I went for an hour to the Sgts Mess Dance. I didn’t dance though. I have only had Oh half a dozen dances since I last went anywhere with you. All I want is to be able to for us to dance together. In fact I do very little, have only been into Lahore twice to the pictures in the last 9 weeks. I occasionally go to the local “Globe” usually with Ken. I’m usually worn out by the evening, you would be surprised, but my life for the greater part is very ordinary and very dull. In fact my life and thoughts evolve in next January, so much so that a month is usually got through in a fortnight & I’m always miscounting the time.
Have you heard the three good reasons why breast milk is best? 1) It’s fresh 2) It’s always the right temperature 3) The cat can’t get at it! I recently met the Maharaja of Kashmir (before he came to England) & the Viceroy, the latter for the third time. So glad to hear that Darling Shirley is so well. I love you both Oh! So much! Sleep tight and don’t worry. Ken sends his love. I’m always “living” with you.
All Yours Ivor.
307 MU
India
31st June 44
Hello Molly! My Darling,
Your letter of the 21st May received today cheered me immensely. Oh! I am so happy & relieved to know that although, naturally very weak you are going along much better. I was scared when you wrote that the wound had broken open again. I know that when this happens it can cause complications & difficulties, quite apart from often making the scar much worse, but thank God from your letter you sound much more cheerful. You are so brave. Dearest I feel Oh! so very proud of you. Poor old Shirley will have soon got over her disappointment & by this time be very excitedly & proudly fussing over you at home. I just can’t understand Dearest my letters and parcels not having reached you yet, the mail has slowed up a bit I know, witness your last letter took over a month to reach me. Ken also complains of poor mail lately. I wrote every day for a long time dearest & even now am writing four & five times a week. It must be a relief & pleasure to be slim again & now you must almost be that lovely slim & beautiful wife that I left Oh! so long ago but which I am banking on seeing again in rather less than nine months time.
Very glad that Arthur is OK. Ken quite recovered from his slight dose of Sand fly & like us all endeavouring to put up with this heat, the last week the temp has been up round 120 in the shade & even at night (now 11.30 pm) it doesn’t go much below 100. It’s bloody awful Molly, I doubt if you can read this, I’m literally sitting in my own sweat & am nearly on my “knees” as we put it. Still it’s all in a war.
Look after yourself my Lovely one.
All Your Ivor.
Don’t worry I’m quite OK, just India weary with this heat etc
Kiss Shirley for me.
307 MU
RAF
India
30th Sep 44
Molly My Dearest,
Try & forgive me for the break in my letters. I have been for some weeks now just frantically busy. 13 & 14 hours a day has been the regular thing & I feel absolutely worn out please forgive me.
I was so very glad indeed to get the news that Jack is a P of W. Not long now & he should be freed, isn’t the war news grand, things are finally cracking at long last. Just think five years ago today. Glad to hear that you and Shirley are keeping “teke-hai” and happy. My leave has been put off again, blast it! They are sending me to Air Command for a “Unit Commanders Staff Course”. Although I don’t want Ken to to keep putting off his leave he insists he will wait until the 28th of the month (the last hill party of the season) so that he will be in the hills after my course, I should with a bit of luck be able to join him for at least a week of it anyway. I know Ken is determined for us to have a few days together away from the station before my boat sounds it’s warning blast. Oh! my very Darling! time is rolling by just think of it, if things keep as they are, it is less, just a little than 5 FIVE months. Oh Molly my lovely wife, I know how you must feel, but if you knew what that means to me. Take great care of yourself & Darling Shirley. What a day there’s going to be. D Day will be nothing to it, they say the best view of India is from the ass end of a ship leaving Bombay. I won’t speak for India but I can think of much better views.
God Bless You,
Your Ivor.