Star Letter

During the summer of 1946, I spent a week of my school summer holidays with my aunt and uncle and my cousin Sara. Sara was six months younger than me. I was ten-and-a-half.

On one very hot day of the week, Sara wore her new sundress. It was white with a sailor collar and red belt. I thought it was wonderful and wished that I could have one, but I knew that money was scarce.

After I returned home, I told Mother all about Sara’s new sundress and she realised how much I wanted one.

She must have mentioned it to a neighbour who worked in the flour mill near our home, as next evening the neighbour, flour-covered and ghostlike, called at our house. She produced two flour sacks, each emblazoned with the miller’s name in large black letters.

That evening, my mother brushed the flour off the sacks before washing them. Then she placed them in a bath of bleach overnight. The following day the two sacks were washed again and dried, leaving her with two pieces of finely woven white material.

By the following day she had made me a beautiful sundress with two rows of bright red bias binding circling the hem.

When my cousin Sara came to stay with us later that week, we spent a lot of time on the beach and here we are, modelling our dresses. Who would have guessed that mine had been a flour sack a few days earlier! Mrs J.H., London.

Our Star Letter will receive a Dean’s all-butter shortbread tin worth £13.69 RRP.

All other printed UK letters will win one of our famous tea caddies and a pack of loose tea. Our friends from overseas will receive an alternative prize.