Capt. R. J. Meddings,

O.C., Div. Pro. Unit.

Quetta,

Baluchistan,

India.

8 December, 1941

Dearest Mother and All,

The Army here has given the British service people in India the chance to send home one letter by air, which they say will reach home for Christmas Day, so I am hastening to write to you. You will probably get this before some of the others. I have written about eight letters to you previously, and hope that you have got them all. 

This is to wish you all a good Christmas and a Happy New Year. We cannot be all together for it, but we can think of each other, and on Christmas Day I will think of each one of you, and drink to the day when we will all be together for Christmas again, and that that day may be soon. And this is also to send each one of you my best love – to Dad, Marjorie, Kitty, Myrtle, Kay, Christine Anne, Gran, the Aunts, Uncles and Cousins, and to send my regards and Christmas Greetings to Jackie and his people, Mrs. Preston, and the rest.

We are having wintry weather just now. It is raining, there is snow on the hills, and it is bitterly cold. I am sitting in front of a comfortable fire in my bungalow. I am well enough, and content enough, so have no worries for me. And don’t let the Japs scare you. I think they will be looked after all right. So, for 1942, as for 1940 and 1941 let your motto be “Don’t worry, it may never happen”. And I would add to that – “and don’t grieve, even if it should” because I think, and Dad will bear me out, that being in the Army is nothing to worry about. If we sometimes have danger and unpleasantness, well, we are young, and we have friends to share it with, and we can have good times. You have the worst end, so don’t waste time in wondering what danger I am in – when, if you could only see, I am probably, as now, comfortably ensconced in front of a pleasant fire.

I have received your letter with the Christmas Card – I sent you one, which I hope you have received in time. I have also received some letters from Todmorden very recently.

Christmas will not be very good here, I think. Still, no Christmas away from home could be that. There is, I think, a childrens’ party in the Battalion – Just as there was way back when we were small. I remember going to a cinema at Tidworth when we got presents – mine was a box of bricks, I think. Do you remember our little aeroplanes at Bury – and my fort at Todmorden. It probably does not seem so long ago to you – time goes so fast. And now Christine is growing up, and I hear from Lena that Sheila and Elizabeth both go to school. And I am 24.

I have had letters from the T.C., Kathleen Fielden, Raymond Horsfall (who is in the R.A.F) and Stanley Lancaster, as well as the Matron and Joe and Lena Schofield, all for Christmas, and am now settling down to reply to them. Apparently Anne Sutcliffe’s husband is in Singapore. Stanley Lancaster is joining the R.A.F. (? why is everyone in the R.A.F. – it must be the uniform, I think). Todmorden is rapidly becoming a town of old people, from what I hear. When are you going up there for a visit?

I wonder what sort of Christmas Dinner you will get this year. Are you getting my parcels of sugar etc.? One of them may arrive in time to help make cakes etc. Anyway, Turkey or no Turkey, I shall expect you to keep up the family tradition of Christmas merriment, and not to let the thought of the exiles spoil the fun. 

I know what you will really be thinking about and remembering this Christmas and that you are bound to be bad about Frank. But he would not have wanted you to be and he would prefer that you were all gay, and that Dad had one for him this Christmas. In fact, tell Dad that he must have one to each of us – but not too many over the ration, mind. And tell him I will have one to him here, and to the time when he and I can visit the pub with the tankards again. You might tell him also that his middle son is beginning to feel quite the veteran soldier – two years service completed in four days time. A very different figure, from the outside, at any rate, from the civilian who left Spring Bank carrying a small suitcase one dull December morning.

Keep your fingers crossed. One very early morning, without any warning at all, because I like to spring surprises, you will be knocked up, and, going to the door, you will see the traveller from eastern climes, who, after garaging his elephant in the backyard, will demand a cup of tea, and drink five, and explain to you that he is your long-lost son, one Ronald Jack, whom you may distantly remember as a very tall and very bad-tempered nuisance about the house, whose favourite trick is knocking on the door with his head (remember). And he, for his part, will be very glad to be home – and to a world where everyone is free to come and go as he pleases, and Hitlers and Mussolinis are back where they belong, as subjects for music-hall jokes, and where Christmas can be spent as it ought to be spent – around a family table, with four generations pulling crackers and wearing funny hats, and eating more than is good for them, and may be having a private fight or two, and saying “Do you remember when etc. etc.”

Well, keep your fingers crossed, and it will all come true.

And that is all for now. Have a merry Christmas, and then lets see what we can do about the New Year.

All my love,

Ronald

xxxxxx