4.3.70 - new job, snow, life, women, fathers, etc

4.3.70 [Two aerogrammes - it’s likely there was a letter between this and the last one recorded]

Where has this wretched year gone to already? I was all prepared for a few more days in February and when I looked around next it was March.

I seem to have mixed up a bit over Kevin Rowlands, though it doesn’t matter at all. Mike didn’t bring him up here, but just said he’d known him at home, though for the life of me I can’t say I saw much sign of recognition! [No idea what that means.]

About the job since you’ll no doubt be a little concerned. We’re all settling in, without any further losses [of trainees, I think], and now have the distinction of not being entirely new ˗ there being another class behind us. We have done quite a lot of time (an hour each day) on the switchboards, consolidating what we learn in class. These are still dummy switchboards, but have the advantage of someone being at the other end (as opposed to our Mrs Bullitt making the appropriate noise beside us in class) turning on the right lights and sound effects.

We spent all last week learning how to cope with connecting up people from overseas to people in Great Britain, and this week are reversing the process and starting to put through calls to overseas places. The whole business is fairly complex, and taken in terribly easy stages, so that none of us can fail to pick it up. When we’re out at these switchboards at these moments, we have an instructor behind us helping us along if we go wrong, and so you’re really mollycoddled all the way. What an incredible system it all is though! You can dial straight to all the places in the world except China on the boards we will use, and though your man in Little-Chipping-on-the-Mud wants to speak to his brother in Afghanistan, all he has do is pick up his phone, and after he has passed through about three exchanges in England, he arrives at us, and we then put him on his way, via another two or three exchanges; the thing is that it’s only at his end, and at our middle section and at the other end that he actually comes across operators; the rest is done by innumerable permutations of numbers connecting him via the unnamed exchanges. Everything, but everything is coded, and no doubt eventually the operators will only be required to patch up mistakes that the machines or the nuisance human subscribers make. Just at the beginning of this week they brought in direct dialling for the man in the street in New York! [China actually came on board while I was working in the Exchange, sometime later; though we waited all the first day for someone to actually want to ring the place.] Just imagine what equipment there is behind it all: satellites, cables, radio links, etc.

That motley bunch of folk in my class that I described to you last week are sorting themselves out. Mrs Rogers and Mrs Ingle remain buddies, and the only things they have in common are their two marriages, and nerves every time before going to the switchroom. Mrs I is a Catholic (though how she managed the marriages bit, I'm not going to ask), and is much more the pleasant of the two ˗ about fortyish, always well-dressed, bright as a button, and with a mad sense of humour; Mrs R is more severe somehow, though not without humour, and is a good example of the permissive society at work; she doesn’t question it, one gets the impression, but somehow agrees with its tenets, and takes advantage of her up-to-dateness. She is not to be argued with as both Mr Levi and I have found out, not because she’s right, but because she thinks she’s right, and there isn’t another point of view. She’s survivable, however, because she is only a shadow in the brightness of Mrs I who has ten times the amount of real life in her. 

Mr Levi and I get on generally very well. He’s only half a Jew and hasn’t any of the mannerisms, and is only different from your average middle-class Londoner in that he is aware of things around him, and has a very good sense of humour: he is quite prepared to have the Mickey taken out of him and more often than not to take it out of himself. He is more sensitive than one might expect at first sight, and keenly aware of his own shortcomings. If it wasn’t for the sense of humour he would have a nasty chip on his shoulder stating that he is a ‘failure.’ As it is he can state this and smile. He is married, strangely enough, to a Catholic (what incredible Catholics there are in London) and doesn’t seem to get on with his wife at all by what he says. I suspect however that there is a good deal more security to his marriage than he would ever let on, and he is probably, paradoxically, secure in his failures. If you know your own faults, that’s half the battle; it’s only the small matter of correcting them then! [This long profile of Jerry Levi is interesting in the light of our future relationship: he was probably an alcoholic, though he had it under control enough to work, and we often went out after a shift and spent some time in a pub (this could be in the early hours of the morning, sometimes. He was a surprisingly open person, and we clicked strongly; he was like one of those slightly irresponsible uncles you have in some families. We worked for some time together (because the people you went through training with tended to wind up on your rosters. I don’t know whether the letters I have cover what happened with him: I went on holiday for a week at one point, some months later, and came back to discover he’d died suddenly, possibly from a wrong combination of alcohol and the medication he was on. I was in complete shock; he seemed to have been snatched out of my life. I never got to meet his family, nor heard what happened to them.]

The other guy, Hoss (as he’s nicknamed - he resembles in size, anyway, the Hoss of TV: I’m ‘St Michael’ ˗ so is the brand of Marks and Spencer clothes!; both of these are Mrs I’s doing) turns out to be the victim of the mass media mind, with an appreciation of trivia that would be hard to beat. Still, he is immensely good-natured, and on the surface, certainly, doesn’t appear to have a spot of badness in him. [I’m presume the ‘Hoss’ is the character from the TV series, Bonanza. I don’t know this fellow’s real name; it may have been Eric, as Hoss’ real name was, but it could have been something else entirely. Anyway, he was a big boy.]

The beanstalk girl of last week, is twenty, Irene, and gay. [‘Gay’ in the old sense.] She is the surprising product of a divorce but has the advantage of having always, obviously, been reasonably resilient and good-humoured. (It must be that only good-humoured people take on this job!) She is interesting to talk to, likes going round the city in her lunch hour looking at things (churches, what-have-you), reads books (unheard of amongst 90% of the trainees) ˗ there are about fifty or more) and is filling in time like the rest of us, I

[second aerogramme]

suspect, though it appears she is rather thrown out on the world due to the nature of her parents’ present situations; and is too tall for me. Anyway, she isn’t a Catholic so it matters not!

The other two girls are thick in different ways; one is an inverted snob and thinks she’s always being [There’s a long article online about working in the Exchange, situated at the Faraday Building, across from St Paul’s. You could look out some windows and see the Dome floating above you. Women worked day shifts only ˗ except Sundays ˗ and men worked all the night shifts. So we lost track of the women who’d trained with us very quickly, since our paths never crossed after that.]

got at and tells you to shut up if she can’t cope with you having her on, and the other, who is twenty-one, is just plain dumb, though impressionable with certain facts if persevered with!

...I’m finding life rather more trying than it was. This is no doubt the explanation: life has always been right for me, and I was content to go merrily along saying, Oh yes, I’m a Catholic, can’t you see? But in fact people couldn’t really see, and I think He wants something more from me, not just Mass two or three times a week and patting little children on the head, and giving a couple of bob to beggars, but some statement within myself that shows Him that I’m not only on the right road but am walking along it too ˗ not just sitting in the sun at the side. I’m no doubt being all waffly and vague again, and it all means something to me, but probably won’t by the time it reaches you! 

I haven’t heard from the CIB yet, and no doubt the Good God has that all worked out too, but as usual Crowl thinks he knows best, and says there is something wrong. In the words of me mum, we’ll offer it up and He’ll let us in on it all when He’s good and ready.

It’s been snowing here today (started overnight) and up this way it’s about four inches thick and turning to slush. I was tripping daintily home after work (here we’ve been getting off a quarter of an hour early each night, and tonight three-quarters of an hour, because the weather was bad! Talk about kids!) carefully keeping my feet dry and walking along in the thicker stuff which hadn’t been trampled to muck, when I jumped down off the kerb to cross a driveway onto what I thought was cleared, wet gravel and it turned out to be a miniature Lake Erie; I gave up after that and sploshed along in the best of the slush, with at least one thoroughly sodden foot. (Yes, yes, I was wearing four feet this evening ˗ clever!)

Margaret and I went and had a meal the other night (she went off to Paris the next day) and sat there for four hours talking! She is incredibly open about herself and inspires confidence in others to be the same. So we swapped stories of ourselves and our troubles and joys back and forth, and spent a quite pleasant evening. However in spite of all the laughter that came of it, I came away rather depressed: Life does seem to be a messy business, doesn’t it? Very few if any folk escape some muck-up, and for all the good it seems to do you, you often wonder if it’s worth it. (I’m not feeling suicidal, it’s okay.) And that in spite of faith. Only goes to show that we’re lacking in faith somewhere, doesn’t it? Marg’s a strange person: she told me things I never thought to hear from any woman (except perhaps a future wife!) and yet it wasn’t sensationalism on her part or anything ˗ she manages to convey the joys and sorrows of things without making them coarse or obscene. I feel actually that it doesn’t do a man any harm to know an older woman very well if she is open like this: it helps him to understand women so much better and to be able to understand a woman of his own age; because one of these will never be so open ˗ it’s a fact of her age. And yet how else are you to understand the females? If not from themselves? [Perhaps thinking I now knew everything about women. I didn’t.]

In your last aerogramme you talked a bit about dad; if it doesn’t hurt you too much, or do anything harmful to you, would you mind whenever you have a spare inch or two of an aerogramme left over and don’t know what to say, just writing some things about him that I don’t know? I have an incredibly incomplete picture of him. Only if it won’t upset you, mind. [It was about this time that I started feeling more and more than there was a hole in my life, in terms of my father, whom I hadn’t seen since I was three. Nor had I had any communication from him since then. He died in 1965, something we only discovered after the funeral was over. At the time it made little impact, but gradually the loss crept up, and eventually took many years to completely dispel.]

I haven’t been cutting my own hair recently, though I’ve only had one haircut since and can now do with another, but thanks for the thought anyway. Tell Des that I tried again to get his trimmer, but they say here that they are such a rarely-asked for item, that no one seems to stock them.  Love, Mike.

2.1.70 - discovering I'm a more selfish person than I thought

2.1.70

Dear Mum, this letter may arrive at your end as a muddled mess, but this time it’s less because I’m all mixed-up than because I think I’m beginning to see a bit more light in my own personal world ˗ mainly through seeing someone else’s world, and getting some understanding of it. And if I talk a lot about a certain woman whom I will re-introduce in a moment, it isn’t because I’ve got myself hung-up emotionally about her, or because I’ve attempted to be friends when she had something else in mind, but merely because we have come to realise that our backgrounds have very much more in common than would appear at first sight and this in-commonness is of use to each of us in understanding ourselves better. Didn’t I warn you it would be a messy letter?

In order to show the kind of clarity that has come into my own vision, though it is by no means to say that I now know all, I should give something of what I know about Margaret, of whom I said in the last letter that she was quite crazy etc, but in the nicest way. This is only half the truth of course, because along with her absurdities, she has had the sort of life that has caused her to sit down and take stock in such a way that she is now able to overcome problems much more successfully, and (to use a much bandied-about word we use, because of its usefulness) she is able to ‘cope’ with these things and get through them.

Margaret is thirty-nine, a divorcée, and when she was eleven she discovered the man she thought was her father was not in fact ˗ her real dad has since turned up rather too late to be of any use to her, she says. I don’t know quite how sordid things were for her at home, but obviously she was brought up in an atmosphere where things moral weren’t always put to the fore. She seems somewhere along the line to have had something do with a theatrical family, which probably accounts for the sort of things that went on, and for the above-mentioned craziness: she performs at the drop of a hat! Anyway, today, we had lunch together, quite by accident, as I met her going the opposite way to me when I was out, and about to eat, and so over the meal and coffee, she brought certain things to light which have more concern with me than what I’ve said so far.

The most important thing that came up is the utter selfishness of kids: it’s called a variety of names, mostly less hard-hitting, and seems to explain the things that go on when kids are in their teens: for the first time in their life they are finding out that self-love is no love, and that other people need their love, and that the only way to be able to be loved is to love others. (It’s a fascinating circle, which could only have been devised by a mind as infinite as the Good Lord’s!) We didn’t actually talk about it in those terms, but what it made me realise and what I’ve been trying to get to all the way through this letter, is just how revoltingly selfish I was when I was at home, and how it’s only now, since I’ve discovered that understanding other people is the only way to know yourself properly, that I understand this fact. (Margaret says she realised too late the sort of problems her mother was having and how lonely it must have been for her.)

What I must apologise for is my utter lack of any attempt to listen to you when I was at home: no wonder it’s taken me so long to be able to talk to you at all. The hours I’ve spent reading and listening to records when I could have listened to you are beyond recall, and I’m afraid there is little I can do about it, but I want you to know that I’m now beginning to slightly understand your problems and curse the many hours when I might at least have been a sounding-board for whatever you needed to say; though it is perhaps a little presumptuous of me to think that I might have been a help even if I had listened. Granted a younger person has the right to remark that it was all a bit beyond him at the time and that one only cares about others as one becomes more mature, but it isn’t as good an excuse as it might be, and I’m really inclined to think the younger generation is very much in the wrong in this case ˗ it isn’t that the older g. doesn’t understand them, it’s that the younger gen. never thinks that the old g. are likely to have problems, and therefore gets all upset when the older g., already afflicted with enough troubles of their own, are expected to give all their time and love and attention to the younger g, and can’t.

I suppose it’s okay for me to be a know-all now, but at least I’ve had the luck to see where I’ve been wrong ˗ for what it’s worth ˗ heaven help those who go on thinking the world owes them a living. I can’t really cite any special instances of my particular deafness, though I feel that I was especially obstruse just after the time Mrs Bevan died, and perhaps even before. [The Bevans were close friends of my mother, and lived only a couple of minutes away.] Do you remember? I seem to recall not being very helpful or pleasant; you suggested it might be of use to go and housekeep for Mr B. [That is, that my mother should go and help him out with the housekeeping. I think I was unhappy at this possible interruption to our own household routines.] And now I’m 12,000 miles across the wretched sea and of even less use to you.

What isolated beings we make ourselves ˗ my hobby horse: that I never realised that other people had the same troubles as myself. Margaret and I both used to think we understood grown-ups, but my maturing from what was just as much a childhood as anyone else’s seems only to have come about in the last year or so. (She sez she didn’t grow up till she was thirty-two!!, when she left her husband.) I hope some of this has made sense to you and doesn’t offend you ˗ perhaps you can now welcome me to the Grown-Up Club  or start to do so. Love Mike.

P.S. Glad you received the pendant ˗ do you know if Des ever got the stuff he asked me to send him?

20.3.69 Some catch up stuff

20.3.69

Dear Mum, there are so many odd fragments of news I thought I’d better write again to you. I’ve sent off the two foreign newspapers to Dale, but heaven knows when she’ll get them. They’ve both got news of the space men in them. [Not sure who Dale is, though it could be a second cousin.]

(As you can see I’ve finally been given one of these new type air letters: but I see that they don’t have on the outside where to cut them open except on one side; I almost invariably make a mess of one of these and cut them everywhere but where they’re supposed to be cut! Think I’ll put a wee note on the outside.) [These ‘new type air letters’ had only about two-thirds as much room to write on, which must have been frustrating for yours truly.] 

I’m finally getting my tax thing away too, but I’m sending it to you if you don’t mind, because I quite honestly am not sure of completing it from such a distance, and I thought perhaps if you were to give it straight to Des, it might not get lost in the rush of the end of the year. Anyway, it’ll take a while yet. [Presumably my tax return for 1968/9. Des was one of my uncles, who worked in the Inland Revenue in Dunedin; this was in the days when you could go into the office, speak to a human being and get them to help you fill out your tax return. In fact, you could go in and ask for your uncle is you so desired.]

I’m sure I’ve got dozens of other things to say, now what are they all? I know: on Tuesday, I’d been informed that I’d got to go to a rehearsal at 5.30 in the evening, and so said to myself that I’d fill the day in on my own. When I finally arrived at the Opera Centre, the rehearsal had been shifted forward into the early afternoon, and I’d missed it entirely and the two pianists from the other show had had to do it. They’d tried to ring me here at the flat, by phoning upstairs, but of course D was out all the time. We can’t be expected to know they’re going to change their minds like this at the last minute all the time. It’s very poor organisation and quite a number of the singers have been complaining about it too.

Anyway, on the same morning I’d rung up George Bamford to see if he had any more stuff for me to check, and he said he still wouldn’t be ready until that night, and so I said all right then I’d call around in the late afternoon. He also said, of course you don’t do copying do you, he said, I could do with help on that more than anything else. Well, like the twit that I am, I said, No, I don’t, because he’s never sounded keen on my doing it before. Anyway, after I’d rung off, I thought to myself, well, perhaps I could force his hand a little, since he was in such an awkward position as far as time went, and go in and say would it be any use if I did do some copying for him. Well, I did go in, and he, without too much apparent second thoughting, said all right, he’d let me have a go. (He offered one other time to give me some pointers on the business, but never did.) So I sat down eventually, and got started, and apart from his scrubbing the very first thing I did ˗ actually it was a bit of a mess, the pen I’d started to use had scratched on the paper and ink dots had gone everywhere! Also I seemed to be picking up dirty marks from the pen all the time. So finally I went off and washed my hands, and started again, with a not too efficient blotter ˗ it was doing most of the mucking-up of things, I discovered ˗ and using the exiled piece of paper to cover up the page until I actually used it [wrote on it] each time, I got on all right. Didn’t do very much in the end ˗ he said he’d prefer that I went a little slower than not (I thought I was going slow!) and even though the place is away from the mainstream of things, there are a lot of people coming and going, and George and his wife talk a lot, always apparently starting a conversation up without informing the other who or what they’re talking about! And Mrs B made me a couple of ham sandwiches and an enormous cup of coffee, and this delayed things a little too.

Anyway that was that and I then went to the OC. Well, I felt a bit put out at not having anything to do, so in the end David Gorringe, and Hazel and I went to the pictures (a local cinema where it’s cheaper, but where the audience seems always to consist of morons ˗ they don’t laugh or do anything.)  We went to Finian’s Rainbow ˗ a Monica-taking picture, if it hasn’t already been to Dunedin. [Presumably meaning my mother should take my aunt Monica to see it. She was the wife of my uncle Des mentioned above.] It is full of marvellous lines, with a lot of very clever jokes on racial problems in the South of America. But it all went over the heads of the people here ˗ they really are thick, you know. [Oh, dear, what a bumptious know-all this guy is!] (The same day I went down to our post office in Blackheath to get our mail delivered to our doorstep instead of the flats upstairs, and the first bit of mail arrived this morning ˗ Upstairs!). Heaven knows what’ll happen when they get decimal coinage. I think most of them will just give up!

Yesterday, I got up early and went in to get seats for the Dance of Death with Olivier. Got three quite decent seats, without having to queue with a very big crowd ˗ a dozen perhaps, and then since I had 3 hours to fill in before going down to East Croydon where the rehearsal are being held just now (the local art school is doing the designing of the show) I went to the cinema in Waterloo Station where they were showing On the Waterfront with Brando. Fabulous. A very moving story, with a priest who was a priest in it, instead of the usual wishy washy characters you get, and Brando is superb.

Last night Mike and a friend of his he found in a pub recently called John from Ohio (he’s here for an indefinite time, and very pleasant) and I went to D of D. It’s a rather rubbishy play though the first act is at least several times better than the second, but it was great to see Olivier in the flesh, and Geraldine McEwan, his co-star, is outstanding.

Lots of love Mike. 

More on wartime experiences

Since we're having a bit of a focus on wartime experiences at the moment, here are some comments from John Stokes on his father Des's time during World War II...

Dad was a fighter pilot trained in NZ and Canada and sent to the Solomon Islands where he completed two and a half tours before the surrender. Because the Nips [Japanese]

had very little airpower left by the time he got there, the Corsairs he flew were ground attack and so spent their time bottling up the Japanese troops in Rabaul and other garrisons throughout the Solomons chain. 

The NZ squadrons spent a lot of time supporting the Australian Army in Bougainville; I've spoken to Aussie and NZ vets and while they do concentrate on the funny things that happen, the reality is that it was a really savage set of actions - no quarter given or taken - with no real purpose other than to show the Americans that "Hey, look; we're still fighting, too!!"
The casualty lists published in the Australian papers were more than a little sobering, especially after VE Day when half the world went euphoric; men were still fighting and dying in squalid conditions very close to home....

Des at Wanaka, with an example of one of the planes he flew. 

Des is on the wing of the plane, second from left of those seated. 

Travel letter from Des

Amongst the letters I've come across in the last day or so is an aerogramme from Des, sent from Canada, when he and Monica went over for a reunion with some of Des's wartime squadron.  I only know that the date of the letter was 17 Sept - there's no year, although by squinting very hard at the postmark it could be 1980.  (It could also be 1930!)  [John Stokes has now confirmed that it was indeed 1980.]

I think the letter was written in a couple of stages: one long stretch and then a little bit to fill up the last space at the end.  

Dear Pat, Daphne, Jack and Co,
    This was to be a copy (virtually) of my letter to John and Barbara, but as I began that in San Francisco it would be inappropriate.  On the evening of 10 Sept we had a banquet in the Monterey Room of our hotel - went off OK, but 'banquet' would be a grandiose name for it.  I believe a batch of Aussies and perhaps Tour No 1 (which did not eventuate) were to join us (27) but this did not happen.  However I'm sure all enjoyed the night.  It was a nice hotel, in fact all the accommodation has been very good.  You would be interested Jack in the plumbing fixtures.  No loose plugs in the basins - steel (or chrome I suppose) ones operated by push rod which comes up through the tap assembly - new to me.  Usually showers have been over the bath with separate taps (ie H& C) regulating temp. & supply through the bath faucet - when temp. adjusted you lift a lever and the water then travels to the shower rose!
Pretty hard to squeeze letter writing into the day, but occasionally it is possible usually in morning as cases have to be ready about an hour before bus departure when we are on the move.  Tour to date has been immensely enjoyable with quite a few highlights, some recorded on film, but I guess a movie camera with sound would have been needed to capture some of the spirit of the moment, eg, the 'Bert Albert' [Alpert, probably] band in the street at Tijuana.  Wish you could all be with us.  Monica has just [been] watching a moose opposite the hotel.  There had been a couple of elk earlier.  Hope the bears wait until we depart before making their appearance!

The current version of the Airtram - you
can see why Monica might have had her
eyes shut!

Enjoyed S.F. where we took a bus tour of city and some also visited Chinatown and Fisherman's Wharf for a look around and a bit of shopping.  Fabulous shopping - could have spent a fortune, but we still have a long way to go.  On to Edmonton and Winnipeg today.  Flew to Vancouver on DC 8 and stayed in centre of city - very noisy at night.  Great bus tour of this beautiful city including visit to Queen Elizabeth Park with sunken garden where some Japanese?? weddings were being photographed.  Unfortunately my pictures are a little disappointing.  Had dinner one night at revolving restaurant 32? storeys up (highlight of visit).  Also spent time in tremendous shopping mall which spread underground to link up with two big stores, Hudson Bay Coy and [word indecipherable].  On way to Kamloops by coach we stopped at Hell's Gate, a fast stretch of deep wild water on Fraser's (?) river.  Descended gorge by Airtram which took about 28 people (including Monica - probably with eyes closed!) to where snacks, restrooms and ingenious salmon by-pass were located.  Travel Lodge Motel very comfortable and quiet.  Enjoyed Chinese meal at restaurant.  Indian heritage fairly evident along the way.
28 Sept. At this stage the reunion is over - met some wonderful people and had great time.  More later. Love Monica and Des.  xxoo

Letter from Jack to Pat

I've been having a clean out of old papers and amongst all the stuff has been various bits of family memorabilia.  Last night I came across an envelope with an old letter in it that I don't remember seeing before.  It’s from [my uncle] Jack to Pat when she was in Australia, and was sent on Sunday the 15th Feb, 1948.  Monica and Des had just got married; they lived at Stanley St the year we came home.   Jack was 17 in 1948; it was also the year that Mum and I came back to Dunedin, without my father.  I found another letter too, from Nan (my grandmother) in which she’s talking about all three of us coming back.  Obviously something didn’t work out along that line.   I’ll copy that letter here too, shortly.
Here’s Jack’s one.  He gets a bit carried away at times, and full stops become unimportant...but it's nice to see the typical Hannagan humour coming through.

Dear Pat,
It is about time I wrote the airmail [?] don’t you think?  Well here goes.
        Well Mum and Dad went away for there [sic] holiday on Thursday and as far as the weather goes here I think they have had plenty of sunshine.  Terry and I had to get our own tea on Thursday and afterwards I went to the pictures.  I came home from the pictures and at about 11.50 pm Monica and Des arrived home and we didn’t expect them till Friday.  Anyway I got to sleep at about 1 o’clock after a lot of talking; they seem to have had a pretty good time from what they told us.
        On Saturday morning Terry went for his holiday up to Wellington but he had a terrible day for travelling as it was so hot.
        We got all the snaps back from the chemist the other day but Terry took them all to Wellington with him so I will send him a telegram on Monday to send all mine down and I will send them all over to you and you can take the ones you want.  They are very small but you can see what everyone looks like.  I just had a look around but I can’t even find even one tiny small one to send you.
        By the way the pen I am writing this letter with was given to me by Des III [Stokes] for serving the mass for them.  It’s one of those that writes so many thousand words and then stops.  They say you can’t fill them but Dad reckons he can so we can try.  It looks like an ever sharp pencil cause the nib comes out the end and just looks like the lead.  The pen is very easy to write with but I’m very much afraid that I am unable to do it justice.  (So much for the pen).
      I’ve got a photo of [the Ryans] I thought you might be interested it’s not bad for me eh what?
      I just got another photo this time one of Miss Patricia O’Flaherty she’s a corker wee kid from what Mr and Mrs Stokes tell us.  When you see this you've seen just as much of her as we have.
We had a lot of fun the day of the wedding especially when Des was trying to get the car out.  First of all before Monica and Des came home after the breakfast we tied tincans on the back of the car and one Mr Munro printed on the back (just married).  As he was trying to get the car out three of us pushed like mad and he couldn't move an inch.  However he eventually got out onto the street and as they tried to get away Terry put a potatoe [sic] in the exhaust and Des didn’t know what was wrong.  Well he got started and by this time Charlie had a rope tied on the bumper bar and they still couldn't move and after a while they got away and the next we heard they were in Timaru then they went to Wellington and from there to Napier where they stayed for a while and came home.
      Well as this pen only writes so many words I better keep it to write to you next year or maybe a bit sooner than that.  Cheerio for now,
Love,
Jack.
PS Hurry up and come over so I won’t have to write so regularly.
Note on the back.  How’s Michael and Frank ain't I awful I forgot to ask.

Sent to: 
Mrs F A Crowl
6th Floor
Rationing Directorate
159 Flinders Lane
Melbourne
Australia.

Clearing the attic

The other day we were looking for something in one of our two attics and came across a box of photos and memorabilia that had belonged, Celia tells me, to my mother.  I've scanned some of the photos: they're a random mix, so you'll just have to take them as they come.  (And there'll be more.)

The first group were photographed at the family reunion in 1976: from the left we have three sisters: Anne and Tess Hannagan, Rose (Gallagher) and their cousin Mona.  (I have three Mona Hannagans listed on the family tree, so I'm not quite sure which one this is, though my bet is on Mona Thomas.)

The next picture comes from four years later: the three sisters have not aged well, although it must be admitted they weren't young ladies either (Anne was 84, Tess, 81 and Rose, 88).  Rose is in the middle, and died a year later. 

In this photo we have cousins of a different generation.  I think it's Denise Hannagan on the left, with Kathleen Ryan behind her; Anne (?) Ryan in the front, and Mary Stokes at the right.

By way of contrast, to the left we have a group of boy cousins: Paul Stokes, myself, John Ryan and Raymond Hannagan.

On the right is Terry Hannagan on his wedding day, with Monica (nee McCabe), his new wife, and Jack (his younger brother) and Phil (Monica's sister).


The photo below is of Des and Monica at their wedding - the quality isn't so good because this is already a copy of an original.  


















And the photo above was taken at Brian O'Flaherty's wedding to Jean.   Brian's parents, Des and Joyce O'Flaherty (nee Hannagan) at to the left, with Terry, their other son beside them.  On the other side of the couple is Pat O'Flaherty, and presumably Jean's parents.

Finally we have a photo of Jack Hannagan as a boy - I have no idea who the Bishop is, or the other two boys.   [Wikipedia tells us that James Whyte was Bishop of Dunedin from 1920 to 1957, but there was also a coadjutor Bishop, Hugh O'Neill, from 1943-1946.  My guess is that it's more likely Whyte.]