Peggy's Letters

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Peggy's Letters Page 6

by Jacqueline Halsey


  “Looks like a bomb hit it,” says Spud with a laugh. Mrs. Mashman scowls at him but can’t keep a straight face and clamps her hand over her mouth to keep a laugh in.

  Grandad and I stare at the disaster.

  “On no! We’ve wasted all that fruit. What’s Mum going to say about us using up all the egg and milk rations?”

  “She’ll skin us alive,” says Grandad.

  We look at each other and splutter into laughter. It does look a funny sight.

  “You must have got your proportions all wrong,” says Mrs. Mashman. “Never mind, get me a basin and a sixpenny piece.”

  Grandad frowns but gives her what she needs. She breaks up the warm cake with a fork, pops the sixpence in the middle and pats it firmly into the basin. You might not have a Christmas cake this year, but you will have a Christmas pudding.”

  “Bravo, Mrs. Mashman,” says Grandad.

  “Everyone makes mistakes,” she declares, wiping her hands on the dishcloth. “The important thing is putting things right again.”

  She gives me a wink and hands me a dish of warm curranty cake crumbs to share with Spud.

  “I have the best adventures when I’m with you,” mumbles Spud through a mouth full of crumbs.

  I roll my eyes and smile. “I just seem to get into trouble when I’m with you.”

  Dear Dad

  Our first Christmas without you is over.

  Grandad said we’d be having roast pigeon for Christmas dinner, but he was teasing. He bought us a turkey, although we weren’t allowed to ask any questions. Tommy found a beautiful wooden train (made by Grandad) by his bed on Christmas morning, and I found a skipping rope - no trousers though. I also won the sixpence in the Christmas pudding, so I’m in for a lucky year. I had another treat too. Nora came to visit for a whole day.

  The best surprise of all was from Mum. She gave me a parcel, tied with a big red bow, just before I went to bed on Christmas night. Inside was my battered old biscuit tin full of your last letters. I had left it on the doorstep at Mrs. Jones’s house that terrible afternoon. It didn’t get destroyed with the pram after all. I was so happy we both cried.

  It’s nearly a year since Mum got the telegram telling us that a torpedo sank your ship. I used to imagine you swimming home to us, getting a little nearer every day, but I know you will never come home.

  I tell Tommy all about you. Especially how much you love the sea and ships.

  I didn’t believe that this little house by the railway would ever feel like home, but it does. I didn’t believe that Grandad, Mum, Tommy and I could make a family, but we do.

  I don’t need to write to you anymore, but I’m going to anyway. Even when my hair is as white as Mrs. Bottomly’s.

  Mum’s calling. I’ve got to run.

  Keddy’s has sausages.

  Lots of love always,

  Peggy

  Jacqueline Halsey grew up in England. As a young adult she lived for five years on a sugar mill in Natal, South Africa. In recent years, as she watched images of war on television, she realized that her mother and older brother were living in a war zone in London back in the ’40s. Peggy’s Letters is her way of weaving her mother’s wartime memories into a book for today’s children. Jacqueline lives in Beaver Bank, Nova Scotia.

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