Letters from a Jersey Mother 1956-61

15 August 1960 My dear Len & Margaret Monday 4.45. The weather did not look too promising this A.M. but the day has turned out fine. Only it's windy but dry & sunshine.  Many thanks for your very nice letter received this A.M. Margaret. Oh yes we had a card from Susan when they went to Blackpool. They seemed to be having a very nice time & no doubt their holiday will have done them good. Well Margaret as you say you miss the children, it's only natural isn't it? You don't say when they will be back, but guess that will be soon. Fancy little Roselle going to school next month. Will it be at the same school as Susan? I guess it is, she will be able to take care of her, because she is too young to go on her own. I quite believe she will like going to school. Oh before I go further Margaret & also before I forget I must say how very sorry I feel about not having mentioned the surprise we were to have when we went to Doreen some time back. I rea...

8 August 1960 Dear Len and Margaret Than you very much for your nice gift and good wishes. It was very kind of you. I have bought a nice pipe and a Barling as for cigars. I smoke very few. I prefer my pipe and a lighter,   I find you taste the petrol. I am fixed up for a while. I had a nice small cake that Barry’s daughter made for me when I went down to the Club this morning. He presented it to me so we had a few drinks. I treated 7 or 8 of the chaps, they were all pleased. We have the family coming this evening for a drink. I wish you were with us. I am lucky so far, I buy my whisky by the dozen at a time. I have a pal who gets it wholesale for me. It costs 19/2 a bottle instead of 23/- around your way, where it is much more expensive. We were lucky to have had fine weather for the Battle of Flowers last Thursday. They are always lucky. I don’t know if it will take place again after the trouble at the end with these teddy boys and others. People are a bit dissatisfie...

1 st August 1960 My dear Len and Margaret Just to think this is the 1st of August, the summer will soon be gone and the autumn will be with us before we know it. The weather is very unsettled , showery and little sun, also windy. This is not nice weather to go on a picnic. This is rather disappointing for those who had planned to have a day out. You can’t sit on the grass this kind of weather. For us we have part of the family coming in to tea – they are Doreen and her family, Margaret and Charles, so you see we will be busy. Not me so much but Roselle is the one who will have more to do. It is nearly time for lunch. Roselle is getting it ready , bacon and egg, with chips. I am not having this, I will just have a cold sausage and maybe just a spoonful of chips. You see we had breakfast late – 10:30. Dad had 3 slices of toast. I, the greedy one, had 4 slices, so you can well understand that I don’t feel very hungry. I don’t suppose Dad does either. We won’t take our usual...

12 June 1960 My dear Len & Margaret Sunday evening. It has been a dull & sunless day, it is now raining. I don't know if Margaret & Charles will come.  I don't really know what to start saying. There is not much to say. Effie & Philip Le Brun spent the evening here on Friday. They phoned about 5.30 to say that they would like to come that evening. Well we didn't mind really, we were pleased to see them. But we would perhaps have preferred another evening as Kay & Arthur were coming & Friday is their evening. However we spent a nice evening all together. Effie wanted us to go to them on a Sunday, but as usual Father told her he doesn't want to go out, therefore it was decided that we would go one afternoon for afternoon tea. When Kay takes us out, we are to let Effie know when that will be. We must not leave it too long, because Effie will think we don't want to go at all. On Friday evening we had some English people visiting us w...

16 May 1960 My dear Len and Margaret Monday eve. We are now having fine and warm weather, we had two thunderstorms and quite a lot of rain a few days ago. The rain has done a lot of good, everything is now fresh looking and growing is noticed. Last Friday evening when Kay and Arthur came for the evening they brought a few tomato plants for Roselle. I thought she would put them in pots as she did last year, but instead Arthur put them in for her and if you please he put them in my flower borders, and without asking my permission. Of course I could not say anything. I guess they will do better in the open ground, so if it’s not cabbages it’s tomatoes in my garden. On Friday I dug a narrow trench about a foot and a half deep between my border and the house. There is a long time that there is some dampness in the dining room where the ground was touching the house. I told Father that we must make a little trench. A few years ago we had placed some stones against the hou...

9 May 1960 My dear Len & Margaret This is Monday evening & Liberation Day which is a holiday. Margaret & Charles are here. They came to tea. It's now gone 9 'o clock but no one speaks, all eyes on T.V. or others reading. So I thought I could just write a few lines instead of being like a mute, not saying any thing & not interested in T.V. I guess you would do the same if you were in my place, oh maybe you would not though because I don't think writing is much in your line. It has been a lovely day. This morning was fine & dry, but no sun. The afternoon has been sunny & warm. I had a very busy time this A.M. Roselle being home I thought she did not want me to fuss around her, I decided to wash the flower pots. I had hinted at Father some time back that it was time they were washed & put away, but Father did not seem to want to hear what I was saying. So today my holiday was to wash the flower pots. I erected a place to put my washing t...

18 April 1960 My dear Len and Margaret This is Easter Monday afternoon. It’s a nice sunny day but there is a cold wind. Yesterday was fine and sunny also but again a cold wind. On the whole it’s been a lovely Easter. I don’t like these holidays for the reason that, we get no Evening Post or no mail. There has been no mail since Saturday. I find that too long. Margaret and Charles were having tea here yesterday. Doreen and her family were supposed to have tea with us on Good Friday but they only came for the afternoon. Doreen said if they remained to tea they would have to go back early on account of the twins who have to go to bed early, it would have meant coming back to a cold house and again too late to settle down to an evening. They decided it better not to stay here, they went back at 6 o’clock.   Kay and Arthur came during the evening. It was a wet evening, it started to rain during the afternoon, which spoilt it for people who were out. We are invited to a...

28 March 1960 My dear Len & Margaret Monday A.M. This is a miserable wet & cold morning, yesterday it rained all day, worse in the afternoon. This bad weather has come with the moon, those easterly winds we are having are not very nice. They can keep on for a long time. No use grumbling we can't do anything about it.  As you know Russ Conway has now arrived at Yaralla. You know I never thought I would have that picture of him. It's a lovely photo, with his best face on, his charming smile & lovely set of teeth. Well you know I did not really know what to say or do with it when I got it on Friday, it was an unsealed envelope. I nearly did not open it thinking it was from some firm advertising their firm. Then I noticed it had the post mark of St. Johns Wood, this made me open it, but when I saw the lovely face coming out if the envelope, I first could not make it out. I felt so surprised, then I saw it was Russ, I had a good laugh to myself. Now I don'...

13 March 1960 My dear Len & Margaret Although this is only Sunday eve I will start a few lines on this letter. I have no news today, but the little I know now I can just as well put it down. That will be less for later on. Today has been dull weather. It rained a little this afternoon.  I guess Len. remembers Mr. Le Brun from Bond Street? He passed away on Friday. The funeral is tomorrow, the service is to be at Grove Place. Father hopes to go to the funeral service. He had not been well for some time. On Friday evening Father & I went to the hospital to see my cousin Clarence Trachy who is there. He has a bleeding ulcer, he has been pretty bad. He had not been well for some time, but like many others he would not see a doctor. In the end he had to call a doctor in, he found him quite bloodless. The doctor told him that is was high time he was seen to. He could not have lived much longer. In fact after he had been in hospital they were very worried about h...

6 March 1960 My dear Len and Margaret Sunday evening. Just a little start on this letter. Margaret and Charles will soon be here, but until then I will do a bit of office work. My Canadian letters are just finished. Dad is passing them over to find the mistakes and he finds a few, not surprising at my age, but then I think I do very well considering, don’t you? It’s been a lovely day. It’s kind of frosty this evening. Today about 200 people are walking round the island, they have to take the coast road all round. They left the Weighbridge at 8 o’clock and they must be back at 10 pm. After that they will be disqualified. I quite believe that quite a number of them have backed out before half the day. The youngest in this crowd is 10 years old. I doubt whether this one will go round. If he has backed out I don’t know how he will find his way back to his home. I think some of the older ones are over 60 years old, this is a new craze, they are doing it in England, so Jersey ...

28 February 1960 My dear Len and Margaret Sunday 4:10. Again making a start on this letter. It has been a beautiful day. Lovely sunshine, but a change seems to be working up. It’s doubtful if it will be so fine tomorrow. What a surprise that has leaked out. The engagement of Princess Margaret, no-one expected this bit of joyful news to come over the TV on Friday. We were very lucky to hear the first announcement when they interrupted the programme to give out this news. It happened that Kay and Arthur were here having supper with us and we were just listening and watching a programme about gardening in which Arthur was interested. This was just before supper, in fact we were all having a glass of sherry before the meal (except me), I had orange, then all of a sudden the programme was stopped and the good news came out. We just did not know what to say. Roselle was not in the room at the moment which was a pity, she was seeing to the supper. Kay quickly told her and Rose...