This article is slightly different to our others! It’s a blog about a blog…..Barnsley Museums volunteer Liz Whitehouse has recently launched her own blog sharing a series of letters sent by her parents during the Second World War. Liz tells the story of how the blog came into existence.
February, 1942
February, 1942. The Second World War had been raging for more than two years. In Grimethorpe, two young people were spending their leave with their families. Stan Bristow was a Corporal in the Royal Signals, having been conscripted in November, 1939. Grace Skuse was a trainee nurse working in Nottingham. Grace had just celebrated her 21st birthday and Stan was a month short of his 23rd
Their fathers, George Bristow and William Skuse, were both on the committee of Grimethorpe’s Nursing Association, which raised funds for nursing services in the area at a time when there was no National Health Service. A fundraising dance had been arranged at the Welfare Hall and their fathers persuaded Stan and Grace to turn out on a cold February night to attend the dance.
After the dance, Stan walked Grace home and asked if he could write to her. Grace was not, at first, impressed with Stan, but said that he could write if he wanted to.
April, 2001
My sister, Susan, and I were tackling the difficult task of clearing our Mum’s home. Dad had died back in 1989. Mum had been suffering with dementia for several years and we had eventually had to make the decision to let her be cared for in a residential home.
We opened the wardrobe and took out the large, old cardboard box that we found there. We opened it up and found hundreds of letters. It was the (almost) complete correspondence between our parents, Stan and Grace, from February, 1942 to April, 1946. We had no idea that the letters existed.
January, 2010
I started a new job in York and I began renting a house-share in York with another woman, who was also starting a new job. Convinced this would not be a long-term arrangement we furnished the house with the basics and did not bother with a television. I decided to fill the evenings by beginning to type up my parents’ letters.
The letters documented not only a developing love story, but also the affect of a world war on Stan and Grace’s everyday lives. Grace’s letters paint a picture of nursing in the 1940’s and life on the ‘home front’ with the challenges of rationing and the other inconveniences of living in a country under siege. Stan’s letters, although limited by writing under Army censorship, tell of his day-to-day life in the Army, of tedium interspersed with playing a part in momentous events.
Typing up the letters took rather longer than the 18 months I lived in that rented house. There were over 420,000 words. When I finished, life was busy and the letters were put to one side.
January, 2024
Having reached the age of 69, I became increasingly conscious that the time available to me to ‘do something’ with the letters was becoming limited. I realized that I did not have the time nor the skills to turn them into a book or a radio serial (both ideas that I had previously). Then I realized that they would work incredibly well as a blog. I would post each letter on the date that it was written over the next four years.
The first letter was dated 12 February, 1942. I had never even followed a blog, never mind designing one – and I had three weeks to do it in. However, the blog was ready for the first letter to be posted on 12 February, 2024.
The early letters were only Grace’s side of the correspondence and rather ‘slow’ to get going. However, Stan and Grace managed to spend a few days in each other’s company towards the end of March and after that Grace began to save Stan’s letters and their relationship developed.
Why not follow Stan and Grace through the Second World War? Letters will come from many places: from Grimethorpe, Nottingham and Barnsley to Tunis, Sicily and Rome. Their lives are both exciting and mundane, full of hope, frustration and above all, longing.
You can find the blog here
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