Letters from a Jersey Mother 1956-61

1 April 1958 My dear Len and Margaret This is Tuesday eve and I’m making a start on your letter. I am not sure if it will go as usual on Friday (Good Friday). I think we will have to mail it on Thursday eve. We have been to St Peter this afternoon, this was our second visit this year. Uncle John is about the same. The only thing he is trying to stay in bed all day. Aunty has trouble to have him to get up, it would be a bad thing if he started not to get up. The weather has been colder today. There was a fog this morning which made it feel cold. Now that we are in April we will expect to have some nice sunny weather. On Good Friday afternoon Kay, Arthur, Jean and little Jane will call in time for afternoon tea. Jean and Jane go back to England on Tuesday and won’t return here before they go to Canada next month. Well now, I did not finish answering the news on your letter last week, but then I don’t really know on what I spoke, very likely I am going to say thin...

Started on 31.12.1957 My dear Len and Margaret Many thanks for both your most welcome letters received this AM. Dad is all by himself in the front room looking at TV. He has had the paraffin stove to keep him warm. The reason we have not lit a fire there this eve is because both girls are out and of course I did not want to see TV, we have enough of it every evening, really too much of it. I don’t know how long Dad is going to be there. He wanted to see ‘What is my Life’ but I think that’s finished long ago, he must have found something else of interest, the girls said there was nothing special, but you know Dad. Everything is always lovely in the garden. We are pleased you had a lovely Christmas, the same as we did. Your gifts were also plentiful which meant lots of paper all over the place. I have nothing to report about our Christmas. I told you all on my last letter. We are pleased that Margaret was able to change her stockings, sorry we sent a size too small, we must ...

Sadly I can’t find any letters from 23 March 1956 until now. During that time my father had another promotion and we moved from Whitley Bay to Oxford. My dear Len and Margaret At last we were very pleased to receive that promised letter from Len (although a little delayed). Well yes there is some truth in what Len says about me thinking that he was out most evenings. So long as you don’t overdo it Len. Margaret needs company in the evenings after being alone all day long. According to what you say you seem to be getting on alright with your golf, and also that you have had your golf stick repaired, will you use it in the proper way now so as not to break it again! You must throw an over strong drive to break it, whatever you do don’t throw the ball across anyone’s head. That would be a very bad throw wouldn’t it? Susan, John, Paul, Roselle I notice Mrs B [1] has now left you, that means your little pleasures are now over, still we are pleased you both enjoyed yoursel...

18 July 1957 My dear Len and Margaret This is Thursday am and Dad is getting ready to go and see if the town is still standing up also to see if his friends are all well. This is a wintry a.m., cold, windy, cloudy and I’m almost certain rain will come very soon now. I’m hoping the boys will have better weather to fly over on Tuesday [1] . However it’s not a very long journey from Southampton. Are both boys getting excited? We are all looking forward to seeing them. They are lucky to be coming just in time to see the Queen and the Battle of Flowers. If the weather is good they will enjoy both fetes. We hope the Queen will have better weather on Thursday than what it is today.  Otherwise the poor soul will have to fly, she being such a bad traveller I don’t think she would risk to come on the boat this rough weather. Some say according to the weather she might land at Bouley Bay. If so she will find herself at the pier, also if she comes by air.   They are no...

There are few paragraphs in these letters and almost no full stops. I’ve put some of both in as an aid for the reader.                                                                                       3 Yaralla Villas First Tower 26 March 1956 My dear Len and Margaret To speak the truth I have been thinking of you all most of the day – when we were having breakfast I told Dad that probably the furniture remover had arrived at your home and you were all very busy, I wondered if you were having good weather for the big event, here it was a grand morni...

28/10 2020 I recently uncovered some letters from my father to my brother John who died 2 years ago. In one of them dated 29/11/1990, John had obviously asked about the family, so below my descriptions of how I recollect them, I've copied out Dad's thumbnail sketches. Granny - Ada Mary du Feu (nee Trachy) - meek, mild, looked like everyone's idea of a granny. Good household manager, mother of seven children. Would not cross her cantankerous husband I thought, but actually the letters reveal she was made of sterner stuff. When i used to go for my lunch, if the phone rang, (in the hall of course) she would not allow me to answer it. Only Papa could answer it. Dad said - From a long line of farmers, their farm was at Les Augerez, St Peter. From a large family Mother was a sweet, fairly reserved person and aspired to a level of gentility that Father didn't even understand. He was a down to earth sort of man without any pretensions and Mother used to despair of his salty lan...

When my mother died suddenly in 1979 at the age of 57 we were shocked, upset and didn't know what to do. It fell to me and one of my brothers, Paul, to empty her flat. Furniture and household equipment was easy but what to do with 'stuff'? Letters, photos and other ephemera went into a suitcase which I have carried around Britain with me ever since.  This year, 2017, has been a horrible year for our family. Both my brothers, John and Paul, got prostate cancer and while they were both very ill Paul asked to see some family photos, so for the first time in 38 years I opened the suitcase. Amongst the papers and photos, I kept coming across letters from my grandmother to (mainly) her son, my father, her favourite. She never did approve of my mother who was Catholic, and was horrified that my father had changed his religion to marry Mum. My aunts used to tell me how spoiled he was, his 3 older sisters had to wait on him, clean his shoes and put up with it when he stole their...