Peter LIghtfoot 1880-1968
20 December 1923
Dear Frances
Just a few lines hopeing it finds you well as it leaves me at present i have just came in from an election meeting we are in the thick of the fight and i hope Labour wins this time we have had about enough of the Tory’s it is a lovely Night and frosty and i am knowing about it this week my nose is as red as a berry with the Restu do you use it for washing with if not tell Aunt Sarah to get you some tell em it’s good. Because your Dad makes it so you argue about religion well i am sure you can hold your own with them. Spiritism is Demonic tell Aunt Polly i said so and so does the Bible. Mam as told you all the news so i have very little to write about i expect you are busy getting read for xmas i will try and come before then to see you it seems a very nice place from the Photo I think this is all now as it is geting late so with best love and xxxxx i will close
Good Night and God Bless you
From your loving Dad xxxxxx
My grandfather wrote this letter to his daughter. He worked at Gossages and Restu is a brand of soap made there.
We are still staunch Labour in the family, but I wonder what grandad would have made of some of the changes in his beloved party since he wrote this letter!
His points about religion are also interesting. He was a Protestant, and very much against other views. I think he has a point about Spiritualism, but it is a pity that my father turning Catholic caused so much strife. Frances must have been around 16 at the time, but he has every faith in her ability to argue her view.
Working at Gossage’s cannot have been good for him, but then he did live till he was 88.
Angela Topping 
Peter Lightfoot went to work at the Widnes Soap Works until he was 84. The Company made the famous White Windsor soap.
During the Second war he worked on the furnaces at Dennis’s, which was a very hard job especially for someone as old as he was.
I had no idea he workd to that great age! I must say I am warming to the Lightfoots and feel much prouder of them as a result of these letters, though it still makes me weep when I think of how they treated our dad.