These cards were deposited with the Archives within photograph albums relating to a local family by the name of Nicol. In 1942, young Arthur Nicol was fighting in the Middle East with the 65th Anti-Tank Regiment. Christmas greetings to family were restricted each way to a small form. Arthur chose to draw a desert camp scene with the sun shining through the clouds and mentioned ‘silver linings’ in his message home. Coincidentally, his father filling in a similar greetings form, made a sketch of the Wallace monument to remind his son of home and penned a short rhyme, also referring to a ‘silver lining’. As Arthur mentioned when he captioned the sketches for the family album, there seems to have been an almost telepathic emotional connection between father and son at this most family orientated time of year.
