If you have visited this WebSite before, you may prefer to go straight here to see what's new, or here to seek a Sender.
Who was Violet ?
A short biography and explanation can be found here.
This WebSite
After Violet's death in 1980, amongst her "things" was an attache case labelled "Letters to Keep"; this remained, possibly unopened, in the possession of her son Gervas, and upon his death the attache case went to his son Robin.
The 896 items in that attache case are dated mostly between 1946 and 1955, though there are a few from outside that window. That period is when Violet and Gerard lived in Kitwe, NR. The attache case was full. It is possible that, after her move to Salisbury, Violet, fresh in her new home, started another container for "Letters to keep", but if so, it has not materialised.
Bundles
The contents of that attache case were in bundles, held together by rubber bands. From a quick look, there does not seem to have been any reason how the bundles are separated; however, the contents are listed by bundle here.
Contents
Some of the items are newspaper cuttings, invoices, etc., and they are listed as Miscellanoeus, here.
The 870 letters are from about 132 different senders - the Senders are listed here.
Please note, this is a "work in progress", so very few have yet been done. The items have all been scanned and catalogued by name and date (but not content), but most have not yet been transcribed.
The Letters
Each sender's name in this List is followed by the number of letters which that sender wrote and which were in that attache case; and the name (if underlined) is a Link, that will take you to that sender's Page, which holds a brief description of the Sender, and Links to their letters, in date order, the date format is 8 numbers - yyyy mm dd.
These letters are addressed TO Violet, so they shed light on the lives in post-War England of the SENDERS, but not much on the life of Violet.
These letters are all over 65 years old, so not many of the 132 senders survive - I think only four. However, some of the letters are "a bit personal" to descendants of the senders, so the main surnames generally are not shown. But it is felt that this is an interesting glimpse into "times past", and the surnames are not important to the story.
Those who know the family, know the senders. If you don't know, please don't bother to investigate further, just enjoy the stories revealed in the letters. Yes; many are banal chit-chat - but it is interesting to see how that chit-chat compares with today's chit-chat ! How much is the same, and how much is different.
