Cpl Edwin Donovan's letter home 29 August 1944

A letter from my father to my mother in 1944, one of over 350 letters in my possession. My father was a dental mechanic with the RADC. He had crossed to France in July and was probably in Caen when this letter was written. My mother was in rural Essex, staying at a house my grandmother had rented to get her large family out of the East End of London and away from the bombing.

My parents were married in 1940 when my father was already in the army, so they had never lived together as he was in barracks in Aldershot and saw each other only when he had leave or a weekend pass, apart from a brief time in 1941 in married quarters. She was in Bethnal Green until she became pregnant. My brother was born in March 1943. From April 1944, leave was restricted, and they could not go further than 25 miles from barracks.

The letter shows the normal mundane pattern of ordinary life against a background of historical events.