Goodbye, Goodluck, and God Bless
A Treasured Letter from a Friend
This handwritten letter was discovered among the contents of Beatrix Edith Straw’s travelling trunk, an object donated to the Woolpack Inn Museum in Holbrook.
Beatrix, better known as Trixie, was born in Parel (a suburb of Bombay, India) on 2 July 1906. She grew up as the eldest of eight children in Parel and later became employed by a company called EMI Transmission Limited.
In 1931, she married Arthur ‘Jack’ Straw but their marriage was not a long one. By 1938, the couple were divorced and Trixie was living in Scotland with their two young sons, Peter and Christopher.
When WWII broke out, Trixie placed the boys into a private boarding school in the country. She stayed in London and shared a flat with her friend, Amy Silas. However, after the apartment was destroyed during an air raid – with the bomb exploding in the room directly beside her own – Trixie began to look toward a safe, new home.
This letter (with recipes for beetroot wine and some other sort of homemade remedy on the reverse in different handwriting) was sent by a friend of Trixie’s in England, M. Cross.
Cross details being bed-ridden and an interest in being visited by their ‘Mum.’ The writer closes with heartfelt words, suggesting that this letter was sent shortly before Trixie and her boys embarked on the brave move to Australia in 1950.
‘All the very best,’ M. Cross writes, ‘Keep smiling, my thoughts will be with you. Goodbye, Goodluck and God bless.’
