The first letter

[madcrow]

Beautiful letter, a voice from the passed. It's part of your family's history now, treasure it.

[Mike Buckley]

Thanks, Maurice! We are most definitely treasuring all the letters we have of that part of my wife's family. We've been ending our evening meals lately with a reading of one or two letters and immensely enjoying it. I never knew my wife's father because he died at only 46 years old before my wife and I met. She has always said we would have probably liked each other and his personality revealed in his letters makes me think that would have been inevitable.

[Cantab]

I guess by the time I saw them at Heathrow, they' have needed transatlantic endurance, so perhaps arrived with me later in common usage. I am of the trubo-prop age

Dave, your comment brought back memories of my first visit to England, staying at my grandmother's in Richmond, Surrey, in the mid 1960's. The point of this comment is that her house was under the flight path for planes landing at Heathrow, just at the point when the landing gear was often put down. By the mid 60's there was a steady stream of commercial jets.

[Mike Buckley]

her house was under the flight path for planes landing at Heathrow

One of the houses my family lived in during the 1960s was under the flight path of the planes landing at Miami International Airport. The planes were so low that the landing gear was already down and we could easily see the rivets in the metal. The planes often landed about every 20 seconds, making conversations when relaxing outside interesting even if the stuff being discussed wasn't.

[madcrow]

What a beautiful way to remember and honour the letter writer.