G Branch
HQ I Corps
B.W.E.F.
5 July 44
My dearest Maz,
So very many thanks for your long and sweet letter of the 20th which I received at tea-time today. Yes, I knew you wouldn’t write about Eileen until you had heard from me that she had told me – I am so very grateful for all the many many things you have done for her and she writes so often to say how sweet you’ve been to her. By the time this reaches you she should be home and I hope you have some jolly times together – the platitude uttered at most weddings ‘we’ve not lost a son but gained a daughter’ has been very true, hasn’t it, and that thought, besides relieving my anxieties gives me untold pleasure. You have all been so very good to Eileen and to me and I shall be eternally grateful. Yes one takes a lot of comfort from the knowledge that all is set fair for the production of a family in due course – as you know there were doubts at one time, now all those doubts are dispelled. Many thanks for forwarding Jack’s letter on to me – I had, oddly enough, written to him about a week ago. A couple of days ago I started working at nights for a week – midnight ‘til 8 am so I now sleep during the day. The weather, which has been more like April than July this last week, has now taken a turn for the good and today, on what little I’ve seen of the day, has been warm and sunny. I had a very nice letter from Bill the other day and was so glad to hear from you that Dorothy had received my letter. The news from Russia is most encouraging isn’t it? Yes, I’m still extremely optimistic about our bet. Maz dear I think it would be advisable to keep my present until we meet again, though on second thoughts how about changing it (if it was a cheque) into something material – the things I am most in need of are baccy, writing paper and envelopes and Ever Ready Razor blades. Also I should be most grateful if you could let me have a few magazine type books – World Digest, Readers Digest etc. otherwise I have everything I need – if you could let me have a cake it would be too good for words and I could send the tin back with a cheese or two in it! on looking this through I seem to want an awful lot.
The day before yesterday I went over and had dinner with Robin Dunn and Co and found them in excellent form, they have, touching wood, been extremely lucky so far and were in great heart, otherwise by way of news from here I have very little to offer. Please thank Elli very much for his long and interesting letter to which I hope to reply tomorrow evening. Yes, you might just about now to have been coming up to Uppingham, they were good days, days which one only lives once. I can honestly say that my younger days must have been as happy as anyone could have had, made so entirely by the fact that you and Pari did so very much for me – but the thing which I shall remember always was the encouragement you gave me in the small things I did and the interest you showed, and then the way you took to Eileen – she is one in a million and I marvel sometimes at my great good fortune at so early an age. Maz dear I must close. I do so hope all goes well with you and live only for the day when I see Jumbo and the Town Hall from the carriage window. Much love – God bless you.
Yours as ever
very affectionately
Peter
Illustration (that’s what I long to see again!)
In envelope headed ‘On Active Service’ addressed to Mrs Gerald C Benham, 5 Oxford Road Colchester Essex.
Postmarked FIELD POST OFFICE 439 dated 6 JY 44. Passed by censor No 15487 and signed P.C. Benham Capt.
On front of envelope Written July 5th 1944 rec July 18th1944. (16)
The Bay Museum & Research Facility 