Welsh Pens

Remember me most kindly to Sir Edmund Hay-Currie and Mr. Milne
FM

Kimberley Club,
Kimberley
August 30th, 1897

My Dear Joe,

I received your nice little letter, written on Aug 5th, from some place in North Wales, with a name I can not only pronounce, nor even read. I have studied it as written by you, as written by Raymond as written by Mary, and as written by Mother. But it beats me; I dare say it is easy enough, but you must all have written with Welsh pens, for blow me! if I can even read the name. That pen of yours must have been a beast, its spelling was awful in places. For instance your pen wrote, that the front tyre of your bicycle was "cracced". I presume you really meant to write "cracked," but the welsh pen had a way of spelling all its own. After all, this is the only bad spell in your letter. I think you have improved very much in spelling, my boy; and if you had written with an English pen, you would not have made even that single mistake.

Welcome

I intend to post here a series of letters sent from my great grandfather while he was in Kimberley South Africa to his family in the UK. The letters date from 1897 to 1903. My intention is to post one or two per month which is about the pace at which he wrote them.

It is unfortunate that I have only one half of the correspondence. My Grandfather saved all of these letters from Frank which he bound into a book. I found it on a bookshelf in my Grandmother's house after her death in 1997, 100 years later.

I will try to transcribe these as accurately as possible. There are some odd spellings, which may be archaic and when he strikes out a word, if I can read it, I will include it striked out. Words in red are ones where I couldn't make out the spelling. I may correct these as I go. Frank sometimes wrote asides in the header, footer or margins with his initials F.M., I include these in italics.

I find the stories in these letters fascinating and wanted to preserve them by transcribing them here. I hope there are others who will find these as interesting as I do, enjoy!

Adrian Mandy