Alec to his parents:

Dear Mum and Dad

Thank you very much for your letters and the Mercurys received today. Glad to know you got home okay and that as a result of being home you are now feeling a little better. I hope this has been maintained and that you are now well on the way to recovery.

Well for speed of dispatch of a holiday I think that one takes the biscuit. In fact you can say “That Was The Week That Was”. Probably due to the fact that I was working in the week it seemed all that much shorter. However although I was not able to have as much time with you as I would have liked I am glad that you are now feeling better. You certainly loaded us with things this time and no mistake, what with fruit and veg, plants, books and toys for the children, shirt, thermometer, heater and not forgetting the sparking plug. I must say they were all very acceptable, and mostly what we should not have got around to buying for ourselves for some time. I am sorry you were not well enough to get up into loft to see the present state of things there, but must look forward to showing you another time. 

Your trip home was a good one then, which is just as well in the circumstances. Some lunch then on that day with a pasty and shandy each. I must say we enjoyed the chicken, you made a poor exchange there. Glad you were able to smell it cooking anyway.

Susan has had a cold which is now on the wane and Carol has had very sore throat and complained that her neck was painful to the touch on either side. June thought it was swollen, but she is now all right and is back to school. I am afraid I have got your cold. It started in a mild way around Tuesday or Wednesday, and yesterday in the office it really got me down so have taken off today to clear it up. The lack of air in the City is really depressing at times. I had a short walk this morning and as a result I feel a lot better already.

By the way the new sparking plug did the trick all right. I have put the car in for steering adjustments now. Yes I thought you must have the wrong idea about the Vanguard at least before you saw ours.

Those Tradescantia cuttings would have made several plants. I thought you might be able to split them up into at least two each. Hope that by this time you have unloaded the boot of the car and sorted yourself out. Glad Mr Bushell has been able to cut your lawns for you. That is a great help I wish he could come and do mine.

Have heard a bit of news on the grapevine which is a bit of a shaker for those concerned. It seems that the staff in the two Line Managers’ Offices from the Line Manager downward will be handed their redundancy notices on January 29th next, and the two Offices will cease to exist from July 29th 1964. There is also a strong rumour that from 29th January onwards, there will be no advertising or vacancies for management staff (Out Of Categories). Persons will be called up or interviewed for jobs for which it is deemed they are suitable, and the selection then made. It seems that the arrangements for the redundant staff are that each will be offered one job on their own or next lower level, and will be expected to accept or leave the service. If they accept they will continue to receive the salary and increments they were getting at the time of the redundancy.

As I say this is all “leaked” information. There has been nothing more said about the Avalon*, and I gather that the course at Watford will not be for a little while yet. One cannot grumble about being moved about I suppose especially as you do not lose any pay as a result. It could be that you could be sent to some point that you do not like, but on the other hand you could be lucky.

During the morning we got the heater out and filled up with paraffin**. I have lit it up for a short while to see what sort of show it makes. With the wick turned down very low it puts out quite an appreciable heat, and I am keeping an eye on the thermometer to see what effect it has. After about two hours I intend to turn it off, but that period should be enough to see how warm it can make the greenhouse.

It is Great Grandma Baker’s 90th birthday today and Grandma Baker has gone down to Westcliff to spend a few days there***.

Have not seen or heard from Peter since his trip to Cornelly last weekend, but we know he got back safely****. I fetched Susan and Carol from school at lunchtime and they have just gone back a few minutes ago.

I telephoned Geoff shortly after you left on Sunday to tell Amy you would not be able to ring him as promised and he said he would be writing you. No doubt you will have heard from him by now.

I see several references to the proposed new University of Technology at Clevedon in the Mercurys, and see that the Council are all for it. I wonder what the golfing fraternity have to say though*****.

Heels are just about halfway through their holiday now then by the sound of it. It will be almost a holiday to get home to them. How about all the invalids your end, Messrs Palmer, Hewitt and Aston? Are they making any progress? What is the state of the veg-cum-fruit situation at Devonia? Note you are having trouble with your chrysanths and will put a bomb behind the mites causing it. I have had a half promise of some cuttings of pom-pom chrysanths but so far they have not turned up. The little ice plants you brought up some time ago are in flower and as a result of being in the greenhouse they are also putting out a lot of new shoots.

It has not been a bad day here so far. The sun has been trying to come out and it has been balmy and warm out. This is by way of a change from the earlier days of the week when we had a lot of rain, and umbrella well in evidence.

One of the things you notice about being home during the week is how quiet it is compared with the weekend. A few cars pass down the road, but apart from that hardly a noise is heard.

As you know our efforts to paper one end of the greenhouse did not completely cut out the view from either side so June is going to get some lace curtaining and put up in addition. Les has been very busy in his garden and has dug practically all of it except the lawns. He has cut a lot of the bushes from the bottom and certainly thinned them out a bit. It looks as though he means to do things there. This will be the first time for over 10 years that anyone has done any real gardening there. Hope he keeps the slugs out.

Quite a lot of work so far has been done on the new Methodist Church. I gather that there is to be a built-in car park. This will be beneficial as the number of cars that line up on Sundays to deliver and pick up Sunday School children pretty well congests that road.

Have not been over to number 17 since you went there, and not likely to for another week of course.

Well I think June wants to go out and do some shopping so had better close now and get ready. I must say I feel a lot better of day off, and wish I had had it a few days earlier. Love from  us all once again. 

*No idea what this refers to. Nowadays it could be a dining pub in London or a hotel at Tintagel, according to Wikipedia, but I suspect it may have been the name of either a building or a club somewhere in London or Bristol (I know, vague, sorry!) which was so familiar to both that no further information was needed.

**If all you’re familiar with is the modern (safe) type of electric or gas heater, you may have no conception of just how terrifying it was to share your space with a paraffin stove. I think the one referred to here is probably the one we had for use in the bathroom – very few people had central heating at that time – which would otherwise have been icy, especially as we had to ‘take turns’ in the water. Paraffin stoves were smoky and smelly, and the notion that they could be knocked over and spill burning fuel all over the floor was ever-present. There were also complications with being able to get the ‘right’ paraffin – both blue (Esso) and pink (Aladdin) varieties were delivered door to door, but they had different qualities and people had their preferences: I believe we always had pink. Then there was the fun business of trimming the wick and cleaning out the soot deposits which built up if the flame wasn’t adjusted exactly right. Sometimes, in retrospect, the 1960s seem very much like the Dark Ages!

***This is an error on Alec’s part: 18 October 1963 was in fact the 90th birthday of Sara Mullinger, nee Beech, who was Edith Baker’s mother (and therefore technically Great Grandma Mullinger). Sara died in 1967 and is clearly the origin of the ‘gene for longevity’ which certainly transmitted itself to June. Great Grandma Baker, nee Alice Daniel, died in 1928 – when Alec would only have been three years old!

****This is the first substantive mention of Peter visiting Bridgend, where he lived for many years and where he eventually died in 2021. He had a job there in the Council Transport Depot, which he ended up managing, and also married a woman from Bridgend. Which came first, though – the job or the relationship – is unclear, although it would make sense that it was the relationship. Peter was originally a lovely man, although a bit of a ‘lad’, until a nasty head injury from a parachuting accident seemed to change his personality completely. After that he became unpleasant and defensive, and was cut out of my life after he threatened me with violence. The young, fun Peter would never have done that. Peter after his accident was a very different person, and gradually he became impossible to be around.

*****Presumably ‘no’, as it seems to have gone no further than the ‘speculation’ stage and the golf course is still in existence.