ཙ

THE STORIES

BEHIND THE LETTERS

JOANNE WILSON

First, the letter:

From 'London Life', circa 1910.

I always liked drawing and reading rather than sports. When I was fifteen I was sent to an aunt who took care of me. She had bought a new pair of shoes one day, a pair of smart satin high heeled shoes, and I was admiring them. They had the effect of making me tall. The following day my aunt called me into her room and there had me don silk stockings, garters and a pair of high heeled shoes. Then she ordered me to take off my outer clothes and put me into a firmly boned corset, knickers, a vest and a black silk dress.

Yours

S. WALLAH.

Now, the story behind the letter:

sincerely,

We lived in the country, my mother and father and I. Father commuted to his business in London every Monday, staying over at his club until Friday when he could come home to us again. I was taught by a governess who visited the house each day for the period of my lessons. She was a lovely governess, very sweet and feminine and quite young. There were no boys in our area and so I was lonely some of the time. Mother and Miss Spriggs tried to make up for my lonliness by spending as much time with me as possible. Father, I rarely saw. Even

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at weekends when he was at home he preferred riding to hound and playing tennis to talking with me. Mother was also very pretty and I always thought she wore the lovliest clothes I had ever seen. She was soft and cuddley and smelt of bath soap and scent.

Miss Spriggs recognised very early my talent for drawing and reading out loud and she en- couraged these talents. I tried tennis once but I didn't like it very much. It made me hot and smelly. I think it was the only sport I ever tried. I preferred to be with pretty Miss Spriggs reading and drawing. I know that Mummy and Miss Spriggs were very fond of me. They were always telling me what a lovely boy I was and I had lots of hugs and cuddles from both of them. So I always tried to please them by doing my work and staying clean and never making a fuss.

One morning my mother called into the room where Miss Spriggs and I worked. She asked Miss Spriggs if she could be alone with me for a few minutes and when she had gone she told me that she and Daddy had to go away on bus- iness for a while and that they were sailing for America the following week. Miss Spriggs was going to be given a months leave and I was to stay in London with my mother's sister Jane. I was sad that they were going away, especially my mother but I liked Aunt Jane and I loved to visit London so I didn't think it would be too bad.

We took the carriage all the way into London on the day they were leaving and called by Aunt Jane's house in Kensington High Street where