Rita J Lucas sent a letter to us via 'Best of British' (B of B) magazine on Feb 26th 2019 and the content was forwarded to me by Editor Simon Stabler on 6th Mar 2019. Simon’s email is here:

Hi Andre,

I included news of the Shinfield Park reunion in our March issue and have been asked to forward the attached letter on to you.

Regards Simon

The letter in question was a pdf ‘picture’, so I had to retype the letter content below (in purple), making only minor amendments for clarity and editorial integrity. My added clarification is in red.

Tewkesbury, Gloucester

Dear Mr. Francis

I have been glancing through the B of B magazine for March and read about your RAF re-union on 27th April.

As it happens I am going down to Flowerdown House at Weston-super-Mare tomorrow for two weeks. I have stayed there many times with my late husband, Harold Lucas, who was in the RAF (presumably at Shinfield Park), although I was not.

I know the Black Boy, as my husband’s grandfather, George Daniel Lucas, had Lane End House built and, in the 1920s, also owned Lane End Farm. My own parents lived in a house at the junction of Hyde End Road and Shinfield Road.

However, I write because my late sister Marion Williams worked at Shinfield Park on the civilian side around 1942 when the Weather Centre was established.

Incidentally, my late husband was goalkeeper for Shinfield football team and my father did a lot of work for Shinfield Royal British Legion.

Yours sincerely

Rita J Lucas

I assumed that Rita has no access to email or the internet, so I sent her a letter, the content of which follows in green:

Dear Rita,

Thank you for your letter.

I have posted all the details you gave to our website and asked for anyone who has any information to pass it to me and I will then forward it to you as well as put it on record.

From experience of receiving communications such as yours, I need to say that there is only a very small chance that you will get any response after such a long time.

However, even if there are no acknowledgements to your communication, I feel that a website such as ours is now established as a resource that hopefully will be here for ever, enabling members of families to search for a cross-section of their family history. It is in the light of this that I would ask you if you have any further information on both your late husband, Harold, and sister, Marion. For example, when Harold joined the RAF, where he was stationed, what his trade or profession was, where you met and were married. If you are thus able to give me a little more on Harold and/or Marion, I can set up a separate page for either of them on our website.

I look forward to receiving a reply from you.

Yours sincerely,

Andre

If anyone has any information on Harold Lucas or Marion Williams, please forward to me (Webmaster) and I will ensure that Rita receives it.

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