This was written by my father, Roger Lines, to his sister Jennifer, who was – for some reason – not with the rest of the family in, I would guess 1939.
Dear Jennifer, I have not gone back to school yet but all the others have. Are you lonely yet? and are you having nice suet puddings. Our air- raid shelter is nearly finished, the men have come everyday and the concrete has just been put on the roof today and on Saturday Daddy got some wood and made it into a step ladder which I have been creosoting today. We are staying up late tonight as it is nearly 10.15 p.m. now. Michael has got half the table covered with his Meccano, Mummy is knitting and Daddy is asleep, Rufus is biting his leg. Jeremy is settling down to Chinthurst and he had carpentry to-day in which he learnt how to chisel and how to saw and his headmaster gave him cider for dinner Love from Roger
Jeremy remembers going to Chinthurst, but has no recollection of cider for lunch. He does remember that there were a lot of damson trees so they had damson this and damson that for weeks!
I also remember the swimming pool had been converted into an air-raid shelter by covering it with metre thick bales of horsehair so it was pretty awful in there so we took it in turns to get air at the entrance and I remember seeing one of Goerings special yellow nosed Messerschmidt 109’s being shot down and the pilot coming down by parachute.