BackStory Episode 15

The gap between the girls’ letters to each other was caused by censorship.

Mail would arrive, or be returned to sender, that had been opened and re-sealed and marked by an examiner or censor handstamp.  (All of the envelopes of the letters sent between my parents during the war had these stamps, showing they had been opened and read).  The letters inside might have words blacked out if the censor had suspicion about what was being said.

The purpose of censorship was to ensure that important information was not being passed into enemy hands.

In Liverpool during the war, the Littlewoods Pools (football pools) building was requisitioned to house the postal censorship department for the country.

Censorship of the press was also prevalent.  This sustained an atmosphere of ignorance and gave propaganda a chance to succeed.  In the U.S., toward the end of the First World War, Congress had passed two acts on Espionage and Sedition.  These gave broad powers to the government to censor the press and place fines based on any criticism of the government or army.

So Maude’s letter is carefully written.  The first ‘innocent’ topic is a description of the dairy that was in the neighbourhood where she and Will Hall (my father) lived.  The description of it and the milkman and his horse and milk-float is from my Dad’s writing, as is the story of letting his family know that the RAF is sending him abroad for training.

Marguerite wrote diaries full of entertaining detail about her 4 years at Bryn Mawr college.  I have chosen two stories that she had told me about:  the amazing “Miss Ely’s” and her college friend Yung Wang. 

The final story, about penicillin, was written by me.  I could not resist inserting this bit of history as a way of emphasizing how recent penicillin’s discovery was as well as how important it has been in the medical world.

The episode ends with the girls both hoping their letters will arrive and not first ‘go under the censors’ noses.  I have had Maude and Jackie come up with a plan (of which Jackie could have been well aware):  taking the letter and passing it on so that it could be delivered without using the postal service, via a tag team, ‘underground’ delivery system.

Stay tuned for the next, and final, episode.