Busy Postman's GOO Love Letters

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 992, 7 June 1930, Page 20

Busy Postman ' s GOO Love Letters

BASSAGES from love letters, said to number 600, written during a 17 years' courtship, were read in a breach of promise case which was marked by breezy passages. Damages were claimed in the King’s Bench Division by Miss Clara Meeks, 36, of London, who alleged that she was jilted by Mr. John Charles Drinkwater, Post. Office sorter, of Cricklewood.

The latter denied the promise to marry, and conducted his own case. Mr. R. Elwes, for plaintiff, said Mr. Drinkwater's reply to the claim was that Miss Meeks again and again proposed marriage to him, but he never accepted her.

“Unfortunately for him,” observed counsel, holding up a great sheaf of letters, “I can produce all these epistles from him, in which, time after time, he spoke of plaintiff as his ‘loving sweetheart,’ and mentioned marriage.”

The parties were natives of the little village of Kingston Blount, Oxfordshire, and were merely friendly until 1913. About then Miss Meeks’s sister became engaged to be married, and that apparently impressed Mr. Drinkwater, because he invited plaintiff to “keep company” -with him. After some hesitation, because she had a 'crippled leg, Miss Meeks agreed. While in camp, after being called up for military service, Mr. Drinkwater wrote:

My Dearest Little Girl, —If you only did know how much I really do love you! As time goes on I long more and more to have you as my very own, dearie. I long for the time I can again tell you of my love, and call you my- very own for ever. I thought of you and last Sunday-; how we spent it.—Yours alone for ever. Charlie.

In April, 1918, the couple became engaged, and defendant gave Miss Meeks an engagement ring. “You will marry me, won’t you?” he asked, adding, “I regard this as good as a wedding ring.”*On September 10, 1919, he wrote:

When I go to bed at night I sit and look out of the window at the beautiful moon, and long, with a great longing

middle, which we call “saddle querns,” and the smaller, thicker lumps well worn by use which “the woman grinding at the mill” worked backward and forward as she squatted at her task.

In a house of the better class the actual cooking pots were generallv of copper, and only poorer folk were con tent with saucepans of fireclay, hut for other purposes clay was commonly employed.

The water carried in from the oublic well was stored in great jars of porous clay, whose sweating sides, would by evaporation keep the contents cool; and jars just like these are used by all our Arabs todav. We ourselves find them the best vessels for holding our water, and one always stands by the door of the expedition house.

for you, dearest. Ron on tne day when x can take you in my arms and say we wiJ never be parted again. If we had a home of our own, dearie, it would just make all the difference, would it not? Ever yours alone, Charlie. A letter from him on June 1, 1920, said. “I am a lucky fellow to have the love of a girl like y-ou.” Mr. Elwes added that every time the projected date for the wedding came near, it was postponed by defendant. Once it came so close that wedding presents were given to plaintff, and Mr Drinkwater arrived to pack them up. The climax came in Mav, 1925, when he wrote: My Dear Clara: It is with a very I have n rt that 1 5 U down to write. . y nisrht ana P eace b >’ < la y nor sleep by PS ,/,,- . , 1 ! cannot go on any longef fohem hat a terri «e shock it is going *? ke ™. and I only wish I could writ?ne-°ti. *’ v for - af i er all this time. lam «rth“El?* "a y «be ee Yhe ? cannot see my wav out I vou 6 \vi ll n r:eVe? f a which* 1° know to ask mS implore you not it my punishment ’is so I^relu.'e view’ ;' b ,f U, , ely in >'cur hands whatevlr Defendant, said Mr. Elwes after- • ard admitted he had married ani -?? e thius wou !d not be done in tbe ing Ch for fh nd ? at ~ as the breld mak a sneHal o' S h and smoky business a specml oven was needed and would afr For d ,h Pa . r h- g ? aerally in lhe oi>en the n 1 V ? thm fl ap-jack," which is the normal bread of today, there might iar nV" 6 c °" rtyard a wide-mouthed lar of very thick clay set in the ground; in this is lit a fire of brush - ■wood and dung cakes, and, as it dies plaster flat - rouuds of flougb are side* of „ asainst the glowing inner i>ide& of the pot, to be cooked In the space of a few minutes.

In the Moon-goddess’s kitchen there was a proper range built of bricks and fireclay with a double furnace, circular flues and rings of small holes in its Bat top, where the cauldrons might be put with the heat coming

: other girl, and the news shocked and prostrated plaintiff. Giving evidence about the purchase of the engagement ring, Miss Meeks said, “I saw a pearl ring in a shop window and exclaimed, ’That is the ring for me!’" and Mr. Drinkwater replied, “Oh, pearls bring I tears.” “They have brought me tears.” plaintiff told the jury in bitter tones. Mr. Justice Swift, alluding to the letters, said. “They must have taken a considerable time to read.” Miss Meeks: I had 16 years in which to read them all. After the repeated postponement of the marriage she told defendant. “I think you are a very detestable fellow,” and he burs; into tears and cried, “I have got entangled with a loose bird of girl, ami she is pressing me to marry her.' Witness added she had a proposal of marriage from another young man in 1921. but did not accept :t because she i considered she was bound by her I promise to Mr. Drinkwater. Not being ; inquisitive, she had not asked defen- | dant what his income was but she I thought he earned £5 or £6 a week i at the post office. Mr. Drinkwater, cross-examining: i Nothing was said about an engage- | ment? Miss Meeks (sharply): Don’t yon ! tell stories. Mr. Drinkwater: I never promised | to marry you. Plaintiff: You are a liar. Defendant: You tried to press me into marriage inside a month. Miss Meeks (with heat): Indeed. I did not. I have never pressed eny man to marry me. His Lordship (throwing oil on the troubled waters) : Please, both of you, remember that you are nor married. Defendant, in the witness-box, was asked by Mr. Elwes, "You will agree that you have treated her very badly?" “In what way?” was the reply. Well, if you want it in plain English, you have behaved like a hound? —Yes, very well. I have my life 10 study. I The jury found for Miss Meeks and assessed the damages at £7O. Judgment was entered according!?* with costs.

into direct contact with them; and here, too, we found, what we find in private houses also, that the wood fires for boiling water were outside in the open court, not in the roofed kitchen.

So today the Arab woman cooks her bread outside the shelter of reed nsat-j and mud which is her “house.” anu boils her water over a fire lit in a hole which she scoops out in front 01 the door. The continuity in th* e “ sentials of life is unbroken: we kne" that as she cooks now, so did her f° r * bears cook three thousand and thousand years ago. and in all hkei hood when this autumn we coffte - dig the pre-Flood levels we shall that the same customs and the devices go back even father into past.