Notes for persons wishing to communicate with friends in Enemy Countries, or Territory in the occupation of the Enemy - December 1940

Authority has been given to permit communication with persons in enemy territories, subject to the following conditions.

The territories included in these arrangements are: Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Danzig, Denmark, France (German-occupied), Germany, Holland, Italy and Italian Possessions, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland (German-occupied).

1. Communications must be brief, clearly written or typed on one side of the paper only, and writers should request their correspondents to observe the same rules not put more than one letter in the same envelope. Erasures and corrections or mutilated stationery and additions by other people are not permitted.

2. Letters and envelopes must omit the sender's address. They may be us English or in the language of the country for which they are intended (except Czech and Hebrew), and must contain nothing but matters of personal interest.

(a) No reference may be made to any town, village, locality or journey, or to the Censorship or to any other phase of the war, or to Thos. Cook & Son, Ltd., or any of their offices, or to the means by which the letter is sent. No enclosure of the following nature is permitted: printed matter, map, plan, sketch, drawing, print, photograph, or other pictorial representation, or postage or revenue stamp.

(b) Business letters and letters containing directions about property or money matters must not be sent to Thos. Cook & Son, Ltd., but should be submitted by the sender to the Trading with the Enemy Branch of the Treasury and Board of Trade, Imperial House, Kingsway, London, W.C.

3. Each letter must be placed in an open unstamped envelope fully inscribed to the addressee, who should be asked to address any reply to your full name, care of Post Box 506, LISBON (Lissabon in the case of letters from Germany or German-occupied territory), Portugal. Poste Restante addresses are not accepted. The use of titles or Naval, Military or Air Force rank is forbidden.

4. The open envelope containing she letter should be placed in an outer stamped envelope and sent to Thos. Cook & Son, Ltd, Berkeley Street, Piccadilly, London, W.1, together with a memorandum, plainly written, containing in block characters the name (Christian name first) and full address of the sender. A married woman should give her own as well as her husband's initials,

5. The communication to Thos. Cook & Son, Ltd., must enclose Postal Order value 2s, (stamps or international Coupons cannot be accepted), which fee will cover the postage of one envelope containing one communication to the neutral country, and from the neutral country to the addressee, also of a reply (if any) from the neutral country to Messrs. Cook's Head Office in London, and from that office to the intended recipient. The fee does not include the cost of postage of the reply from enemy territory to the neutral country.

For an extra fee of 6d each, letters can be sent by Air Mail to Lisbon.

Envelopes must not be endorsed "Air Mall."

Thos. Cook & Son, Ltd. undertake this transaction at the sole risk in all respects of the party requiring their services, and on the express understanding that no action will lie against them by reason of any act or default on their part or on the part of any person be agent employed by them.

6. Letters under this scheme may not cover remittances, directly or indirectly, to enemy territory, for which a licence of the Trading with the Enemy Branch (see paragraph 2b above) is necessary.

7. Communications for Prisoners of War, i.e., British and Allied Naval, Military, and Air Force prisoners and Civilian internees, must not be sent under the foregoing arrangements, but forwarded in accordance with the regulations of which particulars may be obtained at any Post Office.

Parcels cannot be dealt with under the foregoing scheme.

169/12/40 J.R.P.