kitten he is blak so auntie dora says we call him lucky.

i love to you from your ellen x.

Dear mummy and daddy. I have a cof and auntie dora

has a cof too so we stay at home. a bomb droppt near us

but we were not hurt. I played on a hay stak with Gerard

but next time it had barbed wire round it and the ladder

was taking away. I cried in bed on monday for you.

Dear Mummy and daddy. Thankyou for your letter.

I read it by myself and I liked it. We had a good bit of snow here.

We have been sliding on a pond. Are you coming

at christmas with lots of surprises for me? I raced home

yesterday but the door was locked so I got in threw a

window and started to lay the tea. I am very happy.

I wrote this in a hurry. Love and kisses your Ellen. x

Dear Mummy and Daddy, I am sorry you have a cold.

We had another lot of snow. Auntie Dora is cleaning the

sitting room this morning. Lucky keeps jumping

on my lap. I like my new cardigan. I am very interesting in it.

Gerard told me my fortune. He said I will polish

his school shoes tonight. Love from your Ellen.x

Abbey Wood, London, 1945 –

DEAR GERARD,

London is full of broken buildings.

I miss the hazel woods where we picked bluebells,

Lucky, whom I love so much, and I miss racing you

across the fields like a horse and I even miss your

bullying of me. I miss the snowmen which I built and which

you punched in the face and I miss the rabbits.

When I came home I cried every day for a long time.

Mummy said I was ungrateful because she had been

through hell in the war and I was six years away and she

worried very much and now all I do is cry. She said

some children do not have a mummy and daddy at all.

Mummy said the countryside has made me primitive

like a native swinging through the trees in the jungle, she says

she must tame me the way cowboys do horses in films.

She says I walk like a boy, I am as clumsy as an elephant,

I do not plump my pillows properly and my tummy is too big.

I must not jiggle my feet when I sit and I must

take my elbows off the table when I eat. Mummy says

I must study hard but when I read a story book she says

I am being lazy sitting around doing nothing and I will

end up in a factory if I do not do what she says.

I pray each night that I make her happy and not angry with me.

Love and kisses from your Buttercup Princess. x

DEAR GERARD,

I am now at St Joseph’s Convent!