Judith Lacy's Jottings: Letters reveal a wartime correspondence across the Pacific

Some of the treasures my grandather, Ken Mawson, kept from the early 1940s. He is standing at the back on the right. Photo / Judith Lacy

OPINION:

I'm fascinated by pineapples. I always have been. The taste, the texture, the colour. The spikey skin and that the fruit goes just as well with savoury as it does sweet.

One of my pen pals lived in Sabah, Malaysia, and I noticed the canned pineapple we had in the pantry at the farm near Patea said "produce of Malaysia". I kept the label in a scrapbook of what I was learning about Malaysia. I was fascinated.

But not as fascinated as I was recently to discover my grandfather, Ken Mawson, had a California pen pal, also called Ken.

Kenneth M Armstrong lived at 1246 East 76th St, Los Angeles.

A relative was having a cleanout and I was given a shoebox of bits and pieces Pop had collected over the years. He died in 1995.

Both letters from Ken Armstrong are beautifully typed and in good condition. The first is dated September 14, 1940, but it's not the two Kens' first correspondence as American Ken starts the letter with a fulsome apology for not writing earlier.

"I guess I was just guilty of man's age-old fallacy of procrastination. It's not an easy guilt to have to admit, for I'd always been one to pride myself in being prompt as possible in answering letters. I slipped up horribly this time, however, and I apologise most sincerely and profusely."

In light of Pop and Gran's engagement, American Ken goes on to talk about his bachelor standing and then in great length the steps he was taking to be a commercial pilot and concerns about being conscripted.

There is a hint of how the two Kens started corresponding.

American Ken wrote of visiting a woman in Colorado he had been corresponding with for three years, "having become acquainted with her through a magazine in somewhat the same manner that you and I become acquainted, Ken".

The second letter I have is dated January 11, 1941. Pop has written in the corner that he answered it "5.3.41". American Ken writes of his application to join the Royal Canadian Air Force. Among the documents he had to supply were "three full-length photographs at least five inches by three and one-half inches to give an impression as to appearance".

He writes he does not make New Year resolutions "for as I get wise to what abominable habits I have that grate on other people's nerves, I try to correct them at the time".

In this letter, there's a postscript - a joke about Hitler he heard while in London, Ontario.

"Do you know why Hitler was born? To relieve his mother at the front."

Pop enlisted in 1942 and 1944 as a library assistant/ civilian and embarked twice with the NZ Army Service Corps / Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force. He served in the Pacific and photos that were also in the shoebox show a smiling, tall, slim uniformed man. In one he is reading a Life magazine.

Like most men of his generation Pop didn't talk about the war. In the early 1990s, I interviewed him for a family oral history. He wasn't keen (I overheard him talking to Gran about my idea) and he spent the whole interview tapping a ruler on the TV tray the recorder was sitting on.

I will never know what became of American Ken. Did he become a commercial pilot? Did he stop "treading the straight path of bachelorhood"? How long did he and Pop correspond?

What I do know is American Ken had a fine mastery of both the English language and a typewriter. I'm sure Pop appreciated these talents and found the insights into American culture fascinating. Did Pop like pineapple? I don't know, but he certainly was gruff on the outside and sweet inside.

This is a Public Interest Journalism funded role through NZ On Air