My Grandfather's Letters

[RJGFox]

Yesterday (14 August) was the anniversary of my Taid - my maternal grandfather, dying. We sorted out his house and his papers soon after he died but we were moving house at the time so a lot of his things - particularly copies of his letters, ended up in tea chests and box files.

My parents are on holiday at the moment, so I visited their place yesterday to pick up the post and check everything was OK. I spent the morning eating the food they'd left in their cupboards and freezer, but in the afternoon went rooting around in some drawers.

I dragged out a box file full of my Taid's letters. I'm reading them all, but thought they might be of interest here! This is one of the first ones I found. Not quite sure what is going on here but that's why I've stayed up all night rooting through the boxes!

 

[RJGFox]

Here's another letter. I'm pretty sure that it is the 'seperate cover' [sic] that my Taid refers to in the first letter I posted. None of the documents he refers to in the letter are here - if they ever existed.

 

[The Professor]

Interesting. Was the correspondence format popular in fiction?

 

[RJGFox]

Interesting. Was the correspondence format popular in fiction?

Epistolary novels have been around for years and years - since the 15th century according to Wikipedia. Dracula is probably the most famous one.

In terms of these letters I've found a few more which I will scan in soon.

 

[RJGFox]

I said I would upload a few more letters a bit earlier on today but I found this folded up and tucked away in a old wallet in with some old papers. A few of his old cards, bus pass in there too! Forgive the slightly shoddy scanning, the paper, and it seems my parent's scanner, are a funny size. There's also some scribbled notes on the bottom of one page - looks like pencil in the original, but I can't make out what it says.

I think this text underpins the fact that they letters above are fictional but maybe built on his own experience both at home. They mention gasworks for eg, he worked in the gas industry for a while and when he was in the military during World War 2. Though as he constantly testified, he spent his service in the desert in a swimming costume eating bananas and his time in Germany sitting in a tent and driving trucks 100 miles behind the lines.

 

[The Professor]

Scribbles:

Tuesday
9.30
Dr V. Myddleton
C[Unclear]

Megan and Alison/Anna [?] 1.45
10 Chester Street [?] London
Manchester afterwards

1/-
3d [1 pound no shillings 3 pence]
[Bracket and arrow] pansy flowers

 

[RJGFox]

Scribbles:

Tuesday
9.30
Dr V. Myddleton
C[Unclear]

Megan and Alison/Anna [?] 1.45
10 Chester Street [?] London
Manchester afterwards

1/-
3d [1 pound no shillings 3 pence]
[Bracket and arrow] pansy flowers

Thanks for this deciphering work! Having looked again the C is Coedpoeth - a place close by where they lived
I think it says Chester then London, and I think the money is directed at 'Parry Thomas' - as 'Parry-Thomas' that's still in our family as a name. Looks intriguing but almost certainly just doodling and notes!

 

[RJGFox]

This is my favourite letter I've found so far - was going to post this yesterday but I have been distracted by the Test Match! Only getting around to it now because of rain stopping play.
Would love to know what he thought the Dreadnought looked like! Interestingly, in the industry I work in usually repeating the charges (I didn't mean to criticise...) is a sign of someone who really did mean to do exactly what they are claiming they didn't but have been told to apologise/correct the record.

 

[RJGFox]

I went rooting through a diary and a note book of his this evening. The first few pages of the notebook were an account of a holiday we went on to France that I had totally forgotten about! Worth remembering when I had an ice cream I couldn't finish and when my little brother started crying because he couldn't have a glass of beer! (I was 16, he'd have been just over 10!)

This was further back in the note book - and the most recent bit of fiction writing I've seen from him (I'm not sure when the letters were typed but he never had a typewriter that I saw)

I think it says:

And so it was. What historians since have described as the “…second, macabre act” of a worldwide struggle for supremacy began. But it wasn’t picked up where it had been left off: grand armies facing each other on the battlefields of western Europe. Instead, the policy of ‘proxy’ was the order of the day. Puppet states, lead by authoritarian strong men, convinced that the great powers had their best interests at heart in sending them shock troops, jet fighters and heavy tanks.

Of course, in harnessing the aggressive and expansionist nationalism of their respective strongmen, Britannia, Germania, Marianne, and beautiful Turrita had only their empires and narrow self interest at heart. Macabre is the perfect adjective.

 

[RJGFox]

More from my Taid...a doodle of the German imperial flag and what looks like a speech style bit of writing. He - like I, worked in communications so he would have been writing letters and speeches all the time - just not about geopolitics!

The notes I think say:

For Germany, growth is essential. Living Space. Growing our eastern colonies, supporting our allies and deepening our commitment to a new world order.

A new order where Germany leads Europe, defending our continent from the scourge of communism and socialism, our state, our church and our families marching towards a future of prosperity of liberty and of final victory in the great conflict of our age.

I can't decipher the notes on the torn out page, but it was inserted with the other so if anyone can read it - fantastic!

 

[RJGFox]

Almost a wikibox - this was inserted between a letter to the MCC regards umpiring and a supplement from the Sunday Times re the marriage of the century - Charles and Diana.

Interesting - not sure how this fits into anything/everything else though.

 

[The Professor]

Thanks for this deciphering work! Having looked again the C is Coedpoeth - a place close by where they lived
I think it says Chester then London, and I think the money is directed at 'Parry Thomas' - as 'Parry-Thomas' that's still in our family as a name. Looks intriguing but almost certainly just doodling and notes!

Ah "to Chester then London" works well.
Interestingly I did ponder "Parry Thomas" but didn't think Parry was a first name. Plus buying flowers fit if he was meeting the girls .

 

[RJGFox]

Ah "to Chester then London" works well.
Interestingly I did ponder "Parry Thomas" but didn't think Parry was a first name. Plus buying flowers fit if he was meeting the girls .

You're right - it's not. It's a surname of my mother's mother's sister - from her husband. And the surname was formed by the the surnames of his parents!

 

[RJGFox]

Here's another letter. I'd originally disregarded this one but now I've read more I realise this is his character - the main man at the centre of his writings. It's a letter and a drawn map - fountain pen it looks like on paper. Tucked into a wallet that otherwise was filled with notes on the purchase of a house!

Interestingly while my family have never owned a stately home I can remember when I was very young visiting a great uncle's house that was L shaped with steps at the back - very similar to what is depicted in this drawing.

 

[RJGFox]

Took another one of his notebooks home with me, and fitted in between quasi diary entries, notes to himself, was this....

 

[Cheer]

Took another one of his notebooks home with me, and fitted in between quasi diary entries, notes to himself, was this....

View attachment 342490 View attachment 342491 View attachment 342492 View attachment 342493 View attachment 342494

What does it say, just like a tl;dr. I'm having trouble reading any of it but I'm really curious.