Peggy's Letters (8 page)
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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