Dear Boy
I wonder how things are going on with you. I have stopped looking at the paper every day for the casualty lists because it made me down-hearted. I know I will hear soon enough because bad news travels fast.
Yesterday I saw the telegraph boy riding his bicycle up the street and I hid behind the curtain. I didn’t dare come out for half an hour. I heard later it was Mrs Granger’s son, Terence.
The Woods have asked me up for tea on Sunday because it’s their anniversary, thirty years. Then next Saturday is the mayor’s Easter show. I don’t know if you want to hear this tittle-tattle, but I think it’s best I just talk normal. When you were on leave I could see you found it a strain, what with that friend of Tom’s asking you silly questions. You looked like you wanted to be back with your pals.
In the evenings I look through my scrapbooks. When I was your age I’d started working at the factory and all the other girls talked about was men. I thought there must be more to life than family. Then when it seemed we couldn’t have children, I changed my mind. Nothing else seemed to matter. So when you decided to surprise us ten years later, it was like a miracle to me. No one could have known how hard it had been for us, not from the way you ran and played, you were the fittest of them all.
When your father was taken, I think it knocked you back. I felt sorry for you, coming home to find he wasn’t there. I knew when we married that he had a weak heart, so I’d been expecting the worst one day. Now it feels like that again, never knowing which day it might come.
“Come on, Ma!” I can see you say. “Don’t talk like that.” So I will be merry and bright today. The daffodils are out in the park and the blackbirds and the thrushes are singing. Your aunt May is taking me to the pictures and we are going to have tea afterwards. I wish I was over there to hold you in my arms like when you were small. The sun’s out and next door’s dog is sniffing the air, hoping someone’s going to take him for a run.
Keep safe. I pray to God we meet again, in this world or a better one.
From your loving Ma
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Letter To An Unknown Soldier
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