Letters, diaries and photographs from World War II

Duty Officers’ Room

13th October 1945

My Darling Janie,

Well, your mother has agreed to toddle down on Friday and although we haven’t received definite confirmation from you we are working on those lines.

I won’t be able to come down to get you my sweetheart although I shall be on the station, with open arms, waiting for your arrival. I don’t want to take any leave of the special variety until I have the result of the Price Regulation business for if anything goes wrong I may have to ask for tine off then. I’m not expecting anything to go wrong but one can’t be too careful.

You won’t have to bring very much luggage will you sweet? One case will surely suffice. I will wait until you get here before I decide when to take my next leave, about the end of November. I say. Darling, it’s a absolutely wizard thought to feel that you might be with me this time next week even though it is in a barracks.

To bring me back to earth and while I think of it, I’m not getting the various optical journals regularly. In fact I ain’t getting them at all. Be so good as to mail them to me Darling when Gordon has finished with them. Today we started in ophthalmic optics class. There are five of us at the moment. We have laid out a syllabus and each take it in turns to lecture on a pre-arranged subject. I start the ball rolling next Saturday.

When I turned up to go on duty I met John Westbrook and his little French wife. She is quite an attractive little thing. He was going around trying to discover local digs so that he could get a sleeping-out pass. She’s obviously fed up with going to and from Camberley without him to London. She works at the French Legation and having to live without him, very much a stranger in a strange country, poor little thing, try and imagine it. She was telling me what a wonderful place Istanbul was.

The sergeants want me to go to their mess tonight and as it’s cold here I’ll drift across.

Well, my sweetheart, roll on Saturday, I can hardly wait. All my love is yours my sweetheart and our little boy’s.

Take great care.

I love you,

Your very own,

Johnnie xxxx

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Not to be reproduced without permission
johnfinal.jpgJanie Askew

John's wife

johnfinal.jpgAnthony Askew
First son of John and Janie

johnfinal.jpgRussell Barker Janie's Brother
johnfinal.jpgGirlie Askew

John's younger sister

johnfinal.jpgMaurice Askew

John's younger Brother

johnfinal.jpgStephen Barker

Janie's Cousin

johnfinal.jpgEvelyn Barker

Stephen Barker's wife

davidfinal.jpgDavid Barker

Janie's cousin

freda.jpgFreda Cobley

Janie's cousin