Letter from New York, 1964.

A Twixmas crossover post!

Hello! I hope you’ve been able to take a break and are ready for the new year. Yes, another one. Bloody hell.

I’m not back. Not yet. I am still one with the sofa and gradually reintroducing vitamins into my diet. The veg drawer in the fridge must think I died. I’ll have a new post proper on 6 January and it’ll be the final post in my Decades series: an interview with a 93-year-old!

But in the meantime, I read this letter that my mum sent to her sister in 1964 and thought it was a) funny, and b) relevant to this Substack.

Monday 4.5.64

Dear Barb

I got back from New York late last night and found your letter waiting for me. I decided that I’d better write quick to put your mind at rest on the subject of my marriage. First, I have no intention whatsoever of getting married as soon as I come home, it would be anything from one to two years before I do, anyway it definitely won’t be less than a year.

My exact words to Terry were – Harry and I have decided that we’re too old to wait for a white wedding and a house ready to move into so we’ll be getting married in a Registry Office and living in a flat till we save enough for the deposit on a house.

I do intend getting married in the Town Hall, but I don’t know why this surprises everyone so much, because if you remember rightly I always said I would have a Registry Office wedding. I think white weddings are a complete and utter waste of money, so you can tell Terry what to do with her wedding dress, anyway the wedding dress is the least important thing, moneywise it’s the reception that runs away with the money and I don’t intend to get myself or you into debt just to provide free food and drink to a few people who wouldn’t appreciate it anyway and don’t say that you can have a small inexpensive wedding, cos these days there’s no such thing.

Now, in regard to the bit about me living in a flat, once again I don’t understand the surprise about that, millions of people live in flats till they can afford a house. If Harry and I do save enough for a deposit on a house before we get married, naturally we’ll get one, but if not it will have to be a flat. Don’t forget I’ll be coming home with very little money and no job. Heaven only knows how long I’ll be out of work.

Anyway, I should have known better than to open my big mouth to Terry, I don’t really know why I mentioned it at all.

Thanks very much for your offer of financial help and please thank Dad for his too, but as I said before, I’ve got no money and you’ve got none, so why get ourselves in debt for a white wedding when I personally couldn’t care less about one. In fact the thought of one frightens the life out of me, I’ll be much happier getting married in the Town Hall.

Change of subject coming up.

The World’s Fair was marvellous, in fact as I’ve already told you in previous letters, everything about New York was marvellous. I’m hoping to go for another weekend in a month or so, because there’s still hundreds of things I want to see.

The Copacabana was great and Sammy Davis was his usual fabulous self. We left there at 9.30 and the next club was in the Bowery of all places. It was called Sammy’s and it has to be seen to be believed. The entertainers were all around 70 years of age (one was 88). I took loads of photos so I hope they turn out ok.

After we left Sammy’s we went on a tour of the City and finally ended up at Jack Silverman’s International Club on Broadway. We got back to the hotel at 3am.

Anyway I’ll have to close now, so once again please don’t worry about the wedding, after all I may never get married at all, who knows? Harry and I won’t have seen each other for a year and people change in that length of time.

Love Mo

P.S. My love to everyone.

P.P.S. How’s Fluffy?

Fluffy was the family cat. I sadly don’t have any photos of her. But I do have lots of new subscribers thanks to Noodles going viral on Substack Notes.

Welcome! I’m so happy to have you here. But I don’t write about Noodles much on The Ladybird Purse - I write about women and money - so you may prefer to subscribe to my other Substack, Happy Endings, where I write about everything else - my author life, things that bring me joy and, obviously, oodles of Noodles. And if you enjoyed my mum’s letter, I post every other week about Mum’s life in the sixties via a suitcase full of memorabilia we found after she died.

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