Letters from the London Blitz

The contributor discussed the objects she had brought for digitisation, including photographs and letters. There was a photograph of the mother of the contributor's husband, Elizabeth McNeil (née Wilson), who was born in Whitehead and worked as a domestic science teacher. There were also letters from the contributor's grandparents, Mary and William Dunham, who were based in southeast London. William was a shoemaker who made army boots during the Second World War. The contributor noted that the couple lived in a semi-detached house that had its windows blasted out by a bomb.

Another letter from William described a privacy rule, a soldier helping his business, extra leather being given, food parcels from the USA, and cleaning up their house after it was bombed. The contributor noted that other letters described Christmas and rationing, with bones being made into soup that had to last for a week, snow on the ground on 23 February 1944, and heavier raids that destroyed their worldly goods.