Description
Object description
Interesting collection of 65, mainly airgraph, letters (August 1942-1945) written to her son at boarding school in England, whilst she was living in Bingiriya, Ceylon [Sri Lanka], where her husband ran a tea plantation. Chatty and informal, the letters are mainly concerned with domestic issues and mention high prices paid on the black market for food and the fact that vegetables are scarce and expensive, the difficulty of obtaining petrol coupons and purchasing a bicycle (possibly in response to the major Japanese air raid on Ceylon on 9 April 1942 and the predicted threat of invasion) and visiting a display of anti-aircraft guns in Colombo (1942); recurring bouts of malaria, some details of leisure activities such as cinema visits, salary cuts and the problems of transferring money to England, the difficulty of retaining servants when the wages offered by the army are so high, and requesting her son not to volunteer for the armed services (her elder son was killed whilst serving in the RAF), but to enlist for the Home Guard (1943); the problems of thieves on the plantation, sending tea and margarine to England as well as clothes, and the necessity of obtaining a permit to do so, some discussion of the benefits of going to university, the fact that her friend is suffering from dengue fever and arrangements for their eventual return to England (1945). The collection is accompanied by a War Certificate, issued to her son, Hugh Williams Symons on his passing the examination for "War Certificate A" on 30 October 1942, at Denstone College, Staffordshire, a copy of a pamphlet entitled "Rifle Shooting for Cadets", depicting a photograph of Hugh on the cover, and 8 contemporaneous family photographs.
Content description
Interesting collection of 65, mainly airgraph, letters (August 1942-1945) written to her son at boarding school in England, whilst she was living in Bingiriya, Ceylon [Sri Lanka], where her husband ran a tea plantation. Chatty and informal, the letters are mainly concerned with domestic issues and mention high prices paid on the black market for food and the fact that vegetables are scarce and expensive, the difficulty of obtaining petrol coupons and purchasing a bicycle (possibly in response to the major Japanese air raid on Ceylon on 9 April 1942 and the predicted threat of invasion) and visiting a display of anti-aircraft guns in Colombo (1942); recurring bouts of malaria, some details of leisure activities such as cinema visits, salary cuts and the problems of transferring money to England, the difficulty of retaining servants when the wages offered by the army are so high, and requesting her son not to volunteer for the armed services (her elder son was killed whilst serving in the RAF), but to enlist for the Home Guard (1943); the problems of thieves on the plantation, sending tea and margarine to England as well as clothes, and the necessity of obtaining a permit to do so, some discussion of the benefits of going to university, the fact that her friend is suffering from dengue fever and arrangements for their eventual return to England (1945). The collection is accompanied by a War Certificate, issued to her son, Hugh Williams Symons on his passing the examination for "War Certificate A" on 30 October 1942, at Denstone College, Staffordshire, a copy of a pamphlet entitled "Rifle Shooting for Cadets", depicting a photograph of Hugh on the cover, and 8 contemporaneous family photographs.
History note
Cataloguer EP
