My father, Robert (Bob) Percy Edmunds, was a prisoner of the Japanese during the Second World War. I have a number of letters written by family members upon hearing that he was alive and coming home ...
The following is the text of a letter sent by Dad's mother. The home address is given as "Barkers Hill, Semley, Nr Shaftesbury". It is dated August 23rd (1945).
It is addressed to 1406441 AC/2 R P Edmunds RAF c/o Po Box Java Y 164 London EC1
I have added some modest punctuation, a few words are illegible
"My dear Bob
We are all excited & overjoyed being able to write to you & hoping to see you soon. How are you? I do hope you are fairly well after all this time. We are all well here and everything going on as usual. Bert is in Germany & Cliff is in Italy, both hope to be home before Xmas so if we get good luck we shall have you all here by Xmas.George Hall is in ? (Iraq?) he too hopes to be home soon. It will be nice to have you all here again. Mill have (sic) got a ??? ... of boys Robert & Clifford & Ciss a boy Eric, Laurie have (sic) got a little girl Betty two years old last Feb; they are still at Farnham. Jack was not allowed to ??????... he is a carpenter in a box factory at Farnham. Dad went up to see them a fortnight ago, the week before he went to Cornwall by car all the way with a lady at Whiteheads to do a lick of work on a boathouse. You can just imagine that just suited him he was gone ten days. Bertie came up here to sleep & I still have Chubb, he is such good company I don't know what I should have done without him. Dor is still at Whiteheads she is going back to Wallington in October; Percy Hare is in Burma I think, Fred Garrett (sic) have been on leave from the Middle East. Frank Lampard died of wounds in Burma ?????? ....Phillis Lampard died of meningitis she was in the a.t.s. Bertie Jolliffe was killed in Germany last February.
Dear Bob, you will be surprised to hear Olive is married; she came here as usual for all her leaves, she was in the a.t.s until last xmas; the boy she called her brother came home from India and married her, you know who I mean. ??? ... don't worry about her she is a good miss; when you hear all you will think so; she would have been no good for a wife; she was lazy, you are lucky not having married her, everyone thinks you were too good for her.I made her so welcome here, I treated her the same as my own. I never let her pay for her keep. I must tell you all when you come home but I am pleased to think she is gone; am anxiously waiting for news of you
Love from mother & all
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