Letters from the front line
WW2 stash of 1,500 found in attic
A HEARTWARMING cache of 1,500 letters written by a soldier to his wife during the Second World War has been unearthed 70 years later.
Lieutenant David Dawson’s many messages to his wife Blanche include one written on May 9, 1945 – the day after the war in Europe was won.
The well-preserved letters were collecting dust up in Ruth Walker’s attic, in David’s home town of Scarborough, North Yorks.
Her family had been taking care of them as David and Blanche were good friends with her grandparents – and her mother was the executor of the Dawsons’ wills.
Ruth said: “Finally sorting through them was my lockdown project. It’s very apparent from the letters that David was very much a Scarborough man. He loved the town, and a running theme of the letters was his wish to come home.”
In his note written the day after VE Day, he told his dearest Blanche that the “day we have been waiting for so long [h]as arrived.
“It seems hard to realise. The main topic now is when will they be starting demobilisation and let us get back to civvy street. There was very little in the way of celebration here yesterday…
“According to the wireless there was much merrymaking in Britain yesterday – I suppose the people were glad of the opportunity of letting themselves go.”
Five years earlier – on May 7, 1940 – he wrote from Hastings in East Sussex: “I am sat on a seat on the front in a small shelter – something like the North Side at Scarborough, but not as good.” David, who was a lieutenant in the Royal Army Pay Corps, was stationed in London, France, Scotland, the Netherlands, and Germany.
The letters have now been donated to the Scarborough Museums Trust. Its collections manager Jim Middleton says they “offer a rare personal insight into the everyday plight of ordinary people during extraordinary times”