Christmas Cards and Letters from LCpl Albert 'Tim' French

Born in Guildford in 1936, Susan, when her father (Albert French) was deployed to France with the Royal Corps of Signals, moved with her mother to live with her grandparents. Throughout the war, her grandfather worked at Stoughton Barracks, a reception and training centre for infantry recruits. He had previously deployed with the Royal Army Service Corps during the First World War but, like many from that period, never spoke of his service.

Her memories of the Second World War primarily stem from her time at Westborough School in Guildford. Although she recalls the terror of relentless doodlebug (another term for the German V-1 flying bomb) attacks, this too is in relation to her education with sirens blaring on her walk home. In one instance, Susan says her grandfather "came tearing over [to the school] from his side of Guildford" where they were worried a V-1 had landed. In all the commotion, her mother purportedly fell over in the cabbage patch in the garden. Luckily, the doodlebug missed her school by approximately a mile.

Susan recalls often having to go without. She remembers going shopping with her mother and their ration book. To make meals go further, their family grew vegetables in their garden, including carrots, Brussels sprouts, and tomatoes. Her mother would take a large basket on the bus to Dunsfold to collect day-old chicks for eggs. When the chickens stopped laying, they would wring their necks and eat the meat.

Speaking of Christmas: "During the war, you were grateful if you had one book. You certainly never had an orange or anything like that in the bottom of your stocking. We had a neighbour who was in the military police and very occasionally he would come home with bananas. I got one but immediately lost it. Turns out, I'm allergic to bananas."

One item she did receive for Christmas, however, was a postcard from her father. Whilst deployed, Susan's father maintained a remarkable level of correspondence with his wife and young child. Albert (though more affectionately known as Tim) sent colourful, threaded Christmas cards and letters detailing the conditions he was facing. In one, written whilst on guard duty, he explains how the weather was "bitterly cold" and that the wind was turning to "gales." The envelopes in which the letters were received show how they were checked by the censors.

Susan's most vivid memory was the return of her father at the conclusion of the war. She recalls standing on the stairs and, as he came through the door, jumping straight into his arms. "I nearly knocked him out," she said.