Postmarked YORK 6.15pm 4 NOV 1939
addressed to 1/6th Bn. The D.W.R., The Officers’ Mess, Jaffa Lines, Catterick Camp. Yorks
The Yorkshire Farm Institute of Agriculture.
My dearest Ronald,
I was very pleased to receive a letter from you yesterday, and I have a definite feeling that you are not going to have to move from Catterick.
I forgot it was weekend, or I should certainly have found time to scrawl a short note to you yesterday. Now you wont get this till Monday, but I shall post it in York this afternoon, so as you will be sure to get it at the first post.
I asked the exact date of going home, and thrill of thrills – it is Saturday 24th – that’s 24. That’s three weeks today. So can you D.V. arrange to have your leave then. I am simply longing to see you honey.
I’m afraid my last few letters have been a little overpowering, and I’m overcoming it a bit. I have had to keep so well controlled here that I simply had to burst forth to you. Hope you haven’t minded, but I do love you.
The first week of work is over now. We have just come in from the cow shed, and are waiting for the dinner. This afternoon I am going with two other girls to York – just to look round and have tea. We may go to a flick.
Tomorrow I have volunteered for dairy duty. We have to do a Saturday and a Sunday out of the month. I’ve split mine up. This Sunday and probably the third Saturday. I’d like to go to a service in the Minster are Sunday. Next perhaps. York reminds me of you now. But then, most things do.
Elizabeth Marshall cycled over from York to see me as Mum had written to say I was here. We will probably be meeting each other next Saturday – so I’m looking forward to the change of company.
There is a very nice wee girl of seventeen here – from Huddersfield, and she knows quite a number of people who were at Penrhos.
Did I tell you that the girl who went to the Middelton dance with Colin Marshall was here. She remembers me dancing all evening with the Same boy. “And what a boy” says I to myself, “I’d dance all my life with him.”
We are working very hard, but I am wearing quite well. I am very fond of the cows, and manage to squeeze a little milk out now – although we haven’t yet started milking proper.
There goes the dinner bell.
…. Not a bad lunch, but it could have been better. The food here is just so, and with butter being rationed, we get very little each.
I have just changed, and shall be popping off for a bus err long. I can’t get my nails clean. The dirt is well imbedded.
We were paid yesterday and I got 17/11 which included my travelling expenses. Even those who came by car were paid. I feel quite wealthy; and all I have to buy is some soap, blotting paper and some tea. We’re to be in at ten o’clock which isn’t too bad.
Curse; it is wet, and I haven’t any thick shoes to wear.
Well dear, I wish you were here, but the thought of seeing you three weeks today cheers my soul.
So it’s the 24th, not the 29th.
How I love you,
Yours ever, Kay
P.S. I’ve been wearing your KME brooch, and it has been greatly admired.