Dear Patsy,

When I was three years old, I went missing for nearly four hours. My aunt and uncle had taken me and my two big cousins out to the next town over where a fair was visiting and they were all trying their luck on the ring toss. I was too small to see over the counter or to have any interest in getting a ring over some old lamp, so I was watching all the legs go by and waiting to be taken on the merry go round when I saw it.

Some other child had lost their balloon and it was skittering past, trailing its string like a fishing line to lure me in. It was the biggest, reddest, loveliest thing I had seen in all my little life and I was sure I had never wanted anything more. Well of course, I ran off after it into the crowd and thought of nothing else until I had caught its string in my hand and wrapped my chubby little baby arms around its plump rubbery roundness. I can still feel the firm bounciness of that balloon in my arms and how happy it made me. I named it Susan and decided I would keep it forever and ever.

Then I looked up and realized I couldn't see the ring toss stall, or my big cousins, or my aunt and uncle. Looking back, I probably wasn't really all that far away from them, but from the perspective of a three year old I might as well have been in another world altogether. I should have been scared, a little baby alone among all the noise and clamour of a world several sizes too big for me, but I wasn't. It never occurred to me that even if I wasn't afraid, my aunt and uncle might be when they looked round and discovered my disappearance, so I didn't stop to think about what they might want me to do. I decided Susan and I would go exploring. Somehow I found my way to the fortune teller's tent and crawled in at the back. It was quite dark, except for a pair of old fashioned oil lamps, and it smelled of lavender and cocoa. I listened to four fortunes before the lady spotted me there, playing with the tassels on her satin cushions as if I had every right to be in her tent. I really was a bit frightened then, because I knew perfectly well that grown ups don't like it when children sneak in to listen to their conversations. But she wasn't cross, she just took my hand and led me out to a circle of caravans where the fair people lived and they gave me cold boiled eggs and gingerbread and lemonade that made me sneeze. I tried to give some to Susan as well but she just got sticky and the Strong Man had to help me wash her in his little caravan sink.

I'm sure while all this was going on my aunt and uncle were beside themselves with worry and no doubt while they were keeping me safely entertained the fair people were putting word out that they had found a little dark haired girl in blue gingham, but all I knew of it was that when my aunt and uncle did come to take me away I cried, because the candy floss lady had promised to show me how to make all the little wispy bits spin together on the stick and become a lovely giant ball of pink sugar (like a fluffy sister for Susan!) and now I would never know.
After that I wanted to work on a fairground right up until I saw the nurses in their uniforms during the war and realized that a tent that smelled like cocoa and lavender was all very well, but I wanted to be part of real life, helping people in pain and being part of something better even than roundabouts and ring tosses (but to this day I'd still like to know how to spin candy floss!).

When I was eight I made friends with an old man (or perhaps he only seemed so through my young eyes) who had lost an ear, an eye and a good bit of the right side of his face in the early days of the first war. I used to see him in his little front garden on my way home from school, digging in potato beds and drinking cold tea out of a flask. I'm not sure quite how it began, but I started pausing to watch him on my way by. Most of the children were afraid of him because of his grizzly scars, but by this point I was in love with the idea of nursing and thought little of his old injuries. He always looked so lonely out there with nothing but his vegetables for company (I found out later his wife had died a year before of something that sounded, though I had no name for it then, like diphtheria). So I started picking wild flowers from the roadside and decorating his gate with them so when he next came out he would see some colour instead of just dull, muddy beds. When mam made a cake for a special treat I slipped my piece into my school satchel and left it on his doorstep wrapped in newspaper.

Then one day I found a kitten. It was a tiny little thing that looked as if it had been attacked by some bigger animal and abandoned. Its ear was ragged and it had a toe missing from its back paw, and I wanted that kitten even more than I had wanted Susan when I was a little toddler at the fair. I kept it for two weeks in our shed, secretly tending its ear and feeding it stolen scraps when I could get them or snails and earthworms when I couldn't. Somehow the little thing survived my inexperienced ministrations and got better, but it didn't like being shut up in a shed (now I know how it feels!) and mam wouldn't let me bring it into the house. She wanted me to drive it away, she said it was giving me fleas and with rationing the luxury of a cat would be a foolish indulgence, but I couldn't bring myself frighten the poor little thing off, so I took her to the one place I knew where the need for company was surely greater than the privation of rationing.

I had never even spoken to the old man before, just left my little gifts in secret, but that day I marched right up to the front door with the cat in my arms and knocked. I told him that the cat needed someone to care for it and I thought maybe he did too, so perhaps they could look after each other. I think that was the first time I ever saw a grown up man cry, but he did. After that he'd always find a little something for me when he saw me in the lane – the first apple from his tree or a bit of barley sugar or a drawing he'd done of his cat for me, sleek and happy and sleeping by the fire. On my birthday he sent be a big box of real chocolates, tied with a satiny yellow ribbon. That would be a nice gift now, but remember this was during rationing, so it was an almost unbelievable luxury to give to a child.
He moved to Cardiff a few months later to be near his only remaining daughter and his new grandson, but he took the cat with him, and he left me the china doll that had been his daughter's when she was a little girl (do you remember I told you of her? The one with ringlets and a crinoline that sits on my windowsill?). I named her Gladys, after that other little girl who had once loved her.

What I'm trying to tell you is you were right Pats. Since I read your letter I stopped focusing on the part of my life that's just happened and started thinking about when I was a little girl, and you were right. More and more of it is coming back. I remember losing my first wobbly tooth in an apple and being scared to keep eating it in case it bit back. I remember the day I fell off the roof at school and sprained my ankle because Dylan Jones bet I couldn't climb as high as a boy (but he got too scared to keep going half way up and had to be rescued by the head master with a ladder). There are still plenty of gaps, and I haven't managed anything at all above the age of about twelve yet, but it is so much more than I had before. I'm sorry if I've bored you with my long rambling stories of naughty little Delia and her antics, it's just such a relief to have stories to tell again. I hope you don't mind.

Oh Patsy! Would you really come and visit me? I'd love that so much! We must arrange a date in the new year. I'm afraid it might seem a little dull to you here after London, but I can show you what charms there are to be seen here and maybe you'd enjoy swapping buildings and smog for hills and river mist for a little while? I'm sure if you were with me mam wouldn't object to me going further afield either. You are a trained nurse after all; she could hardly say I wouldn't be safe in your company if I had a seizure! (though I haven't had one for some time now so it isn't likely). Oh Pats, We could get the train to the seaside! How does fish and chips on the pier sound? Or a show in Cardiff? Anything you like, you pick! I do hope you weren't just mollifying me with this idea of a visit because I am quite taken with it! Do say you will Pats!

Everyone here is getting ready for Christmas too. The church has set up a little stable scene all surrounded by candles and holly boughs and people can bring toys to leave at the foot of the manger (which will eventually be donated to give poor children something to look forward to on Christmas day). I went to see it last Sunday and it's all ever so pretty. There's a great Christmas tree up in the village square too and every time I see it it makes me think of the one you have in Nonnatus house. I keep imagining this great big outdoor tree there in your little parlour, filling up the whole room so you all have to squeeze round the edges to get from one room to another (I know it isn't really as big as all that, but it amuses me to imagine it so!). Mam couldn't understand why on earth I was giggling at a tree and somehow I couldn't explain exactly what was funny ('because of Alice in wonderland' didn't seem to tickle her as it did me!).

I so wish I could see the Cub's play! I always liked a Christmas carol, and Steven's take on Scrooge sounds thoroughly entertaining! I almost hope you don't manage to get him to stop his impersonation because it sounds such fun! But I suppose it would be a shame if anyone was made to feel too cross at a Christmas show, even a crotchety old headmaster. I don't think you the least bit dreadful, I would love to see the nativity pantomime! 'For lo, is born the Son of God!' 'Oh no he isn't!' 'OH YES HE IS!'. I wonder if I will ever see the nativity again without being a little disappointed when that doesn't happen? I'm sure the nuns wouldn't hate you for it! From what you've told me of Sister Monica Joan she might be right there at the front clapping along! (Especially if we had cake for the interval). Oh dear, maybe it is for the best that I'm not there, I might be a little too tempted to let the boys convince me to do it for real! I think perhaps having no memories yet but those from childhood is making me a little more sympathetic to childish tricks than I ought to be at the age of 24. It's as though part of me is still ten years old because that's where my memories are.

I have almost finished your Christmas present now Pats. I'm going to send it to you in a day or two to make sure you have it in time, but you must promise not to open the parcel until Christmas morning (shall we say at 7.30am?). That way I can think of you just when you're opening it and imagine your reaction, and it will be almost as though I'm there to give it to you myself. I'd like that.

Love,

Delia