To the Letter

by Simon Garfield

  We are free of duties and yesterday I went to our friends in Athens, taking some of your coffee and cocoa, which they were very pleased to have. Thank you for sending it. We were embraced very excitedly, kissing and so on, continental fashion.

  I hope that you will not start buying any clothes (if you have the coupons left), because you think you ‘must look nice’ for me. I shall be sorry if you do. Just carry on as near as possible to normal. My return at the present time allows us to make public our mutual attachment. I shall tell my family I hope to spend a week away with you somewhere during my leave. My counsel to you is to tell as few people as possible. To someone like Miss Ferguson you can politely reply to her observations that you thought it was your business, rather than hers. Try to avoid preening yourself and saying much. This is my advice, not anything but that. I hope you understand. I do not ever want it to be anything but our affair. Do not permit any intrusion.

  I do not know how long leave I shall get. I could get as little as fourteen days, and I may get as much as a month. I am wondering how I shall tell you I am in England. Probably it is still quicker to send a telegram than a letter, and I hope to send you one announcing that I am on the same island. I will send another when I am actually soon to get on the London bound train, and you can ring LEE GREEN 0509 when you think I have arrived there. Tell me how I get to Woolacombe Road, (the number would be sufficient, I shall remember where it is) and I will meet you there, or some other place you may say, as soon as I can. You must bear in mind that I shall be with my brother until we get home. Also, that, having been away from home for so long, my parents will want to see (and have a good case [for seeing]) a lot of me. I hope that everything will work itself out without any unhappiness to anyone. I shall be in great demand from two or three points and it will be difficult to manage without offence.

  It is a strange thing, but I cannot seem to ‘get going’ and write very freely. All I am thinking about is ‘I am going home. I am going to see her.’ It is a fact, a real thing, an impending event, like Shrove Tuesday, Xmas Day, or the Lord Mayor’s Banquet. You have to be abroad, you have to be hermetically sealed off from your intimates, from your home, to realise what a gift this going-home is.

  The few letters of yours that I had on me, I burnt the day previous to our surrender, so no-one but myself has read your words. In the first ten days of our captivity I did not think any soft thoughts about you, all I did was concentrate on trying to tell you I was alright. But when we had a few supplies dropped by aircraft (at great risk to themselves in the misty snow-bound Greek mountain villages) and we started hoping we might get sent home upon our release, I was always wondering about you, about us. It is a pity that the winter weather will not be kind to us out of doors. But it will be nice sitting next to you in the pictures, no matter what may be on the screen. It will be grand to know that we have each other’s support and sympathy. Won’t it be wonderful to be together, really together, in the flesh, not just to know that a letter is all we can send?

  I love you.

  Chris

  27 WOOLACOMBE RD, LONDON SE3

  6th and 7th February 1945

  Darling, Darling, Darling,

  This is what I have been waiting for, your freedom left me dumb and choked up, but now, oh now, I feel released. Oh Christopher, my Dear, Dear Man, it is so, so wonderful. You are coming home. Golly, I shall have to be careful, all this excitement is almost too much for my body. You must be careful too, Darling, all this on top of what you have been through, it is difficult to keep it down, you can’t help the excited twinges in your midriff, can you, do keep well, Angel, I shall have to say that to myself as well.

  Bessie Moore in Blackheath.

  Marriage my sweet, yes I agree, what you wish, I wish. I want you to be happy in this Darling. I make a plea to whatever gods there be to make me greater than myself, so that I can make you as happy as humanly possible, to help you over the bad days, and swing along with you in the good days. Whilst you are afraid, you will not be happy, we must get rid of those fears between us. Also confidentially, I too am a little scared – everything in letters appears larger than life size, like the photograph, it didn’t show the white hairs beneath the black, the decaying teeth, the darkening skin, I think of my nasty characteristics, my ordinariness. Yes, I too feel a little afraid. Still I can’t be bothered with that now, for we are going to meet, does anything else matter Chris?

  About what happens on arrival, of course you’ll have to spend the first part at home, I suspect I can get my leave when needed, we only have to sign for the actual summer period, otherwise they are very accommodating. Oh Dear Dear Me, plan a week somewhere, bonk, up comes my heart, a week somewhere, by the sea, WITH YOU. Where shall we go, of course I’d choose north Devon, sea, country and air, but March raises the question of weather, might we go to a largish town, I prefer villages normally, but with you I guess I’ll do what you want, also I feel that you’ll need looking after, don’t think you should walk around in the rain, not for awhile, anyway, guess I don’t care where, as long as it’s the sea, and you, you, you. Inward clangings and bouncings and I wonder how soon.

  Glad you managed to give them the coffee and cocoa, our Greek friends I mean, to show them that we wish them well, and hope very strongly that they will get the government they want, though perhaps they live too close to poverty to think of governments, still you’ll soon tell me all about it.

  I have a few apprehensions floating around, such as the actuality instead of letters. You know I say to myself, ‘Bessie my girl, you’re not so hot’, but I think you may have a similar feeling. I say, how is your digestion, mine’s awful, I shall be reduced to taking Rennies or something, a wind remover. My tea at this moment is stuck somewhere in the middle of my chest. So you don’t want to get married, well that’s a dou[che] of cold water, still I soon shook the water out of my eyes, it seems a bit unimportant, with your homecoming in front of me – I guess most impractical, poor Lamb you hardly know me. ‘Do not let us make any mistakes’ now underlined. You dear old silly, do you really think you can guard against that, or ensure the future?

  I can’t help wishing that you won’t get these letters, that you’ll be on your way, that the time to wait is that short, because my impatience is getting pretty bad, being able to write like we have has been a wonderful thing, but it has always remained only the beginning, the contact for our future and a beginning must change to something else, and now it is changing.

  What do you think of the war news? Don’t like getting too optimistic, but wouldn’t it be wonderful to come home to stay?

  I bet Ridgeway Drive is a very joyful place, two sons coming home, crikey. I bet your mother felt slightly flattened out at first, but she’ll be bouncing now.

  I Love You.

  Bessie

  Not long after his return home, Chris Barker and Bessie Moore spent a week together in Bournemouth. It was a success, but perhaps not a complete one. The subsequent ardour was a little less explicit, and there was a mysterious incident with fish. We do not have Bessie’s letters from this period.

  14232134 SIGMN. BARKER H.C., 30 WING, 1 COY., 4 AIR FORMATION SIGNALS, C.M.F.

  10–28 April 1945

  My Dear One,

  Our meeting was a wonderful thing, and now we have to put up with the after-effects.

  I do not feel in a very good state for writing at the moment, as the ship has been rocking a good deal, and I have succumbed once to the irresistible urge to be sick. We have now got ourselves onto a pretty good job aboard ship, each morning ten of us have to clean out the Ship’s Hospital. It gets us out of other jobs, like Mess Orderly, Guards, sweeping the decks, so Bert and I get on happily with our three baths, the lavatory pedestals, and similar number of wash basins. I am not too keen on doing the Scabies bathroom, but never mind. Three weeks ago, when I was a temporary gentleman, the chap in Lyon’s ‘wash
and brush up’ washed out my wash basin, now I am doing the same

  I wondered on leave, over a number of things. I wonder now if you would like to wear an engagement-ring. If you would like one, and it was not unlucky or something, how do you feel about getting one. I think they are jewellers’ blessings, but if wearing one would make you the least bit happier I’d prefer it. What do you think? I am a blunderer, but you must excuse me. I am starting to feel more normal again, though like you, find our days together ‘dream-like’.

  I hope you did not weep too much (if you did weep). And, if ever you do so again, let it be only at the hardness of our separation, never in despair of our future meeting and life together. Of course, my senses having thrilled and luxuriated in you, I have become more than a little woebegone at our post-war hopes of a home, by ourselves. The figures lead me to think that it will be ten years before we get the chance to choose. I expect you will have to be discreet in what you say to your Dad, but it seems to me that we shall be forced to live at 27 after I return for a little while, in order to prospect for a place. When the war is over I know you will buy what you can to ensure we do not have many troubles in equipping our own home, and, if you can manage, to start house [hunting]. Shall I write my Mother telling of our plans, and asking her to let you have what money you want? As you know, I have £350, and you nearly the same, so we could raise £700 for a first payment. I wish we need to not only feather our nest, but to acquire one also. Remember that I have a regular saving of £3 weekly, for the purpose of repayments or anything else you may think necessary. I am sorry you are alone in your searches.

  Do you know, I can’t help feeling triumphant at our relationship. It seems so wonderful to possess your regard, and possess you. I do not think I have any of the slave-owner mentality when I confess I am infinitely joyful at owning you, and I feel that I do. I want you absolutely, entirely, wholly. I hope you are feeling all of this too, and that you know in your bones I will do anything for you.

  You say I said enough while on leave. I am disgusted how little I said, about ourselves, and about my impressions of ‘life abroad’ and the Army. I am not very happy about my deficiencies as a sweetheart – I think I teased you too much. I should have been on my knees before you, confessing my utter dependence on you, imploring your interest though I may seem to have it, telling you always that without the hope of you, I should starve and thirst. I could have been so much more eloquent, yet my stutterings satisfied you. I am sorry we wasted those five nights at Bournemouth, it seems to be beside the point that there will be many more. I am sorry about the error of judgement regarding salmon. I’ll catch a whale for you on my return journey.

  I hope you are getting [on] alright with your spring-cleaning. Personally, I think far too much is made of this event. A properly run house would be ashamed to admit it needed a really good clean-up once a year. It is a suburban blight. But you enjoy yourself, don’t mind me. (I bet this ‘gets’ you!)

  [A few days later] I am now once again in Italy, and everything is going as expected. Please write me, always, just what comes into your head, for I want what comes into your head, not the contents of Habits and Manners of Good Society or the Daily Mirror’s idea of what the Young Man Abroad wants to hear about from Home. I do not like ‘damn, blow, blast, bugger’, but I prefer that to something that is not you.

  I hope you can have some time with [your brother] Wilfred when he is on leave, but I think that ‘celebration’ is at least premature while the Japanese are so strong and the fighting is likely to last for so long. And what shall we celebrate? That the Fascists are vanquished? That there is freedom in Germany, and everywhere else? I shall be inclined to celebrate when fighting everywhere has ended, and the people seem apparently to be taking the first steps in controlling their own destinies.

  Last night I was on guard, a kind of stroll round the tents (remember the hessian being pinched from our earlier latrine?). I was on 11.50PM–1.30AM, 5.30AM–7.30AM, and thought of you sleeping peacefully, while I patrolled the almond trees and listened to the barks of distant dogs, and the ‘perlip, perlip’ and ‘whirrip whirroo’ of the birds around here. A feeling was with me that distance doesn’t matter. In one of your letters you say your heart beats within me. That is good. I will look after your heart. Please always try to be happy because of future prospects, rather than sorrowful because of present separation. I know it’s grim, because my hands, my lips, are very conscious of their idleness.

  I love you.

  Chris.

  2nd May 1945

  Dearest,

  I had just addressed the front when someone called out ‘News Flash’, we all rushed to ‘the tent with the wireless’, and heard the announcement that the German armies in Italy had surrendered unconditionally. Coming on the same day as the 7A.M. announcement (which I heard) that Hitler was reported dead, and Rundstedt captured, it gave us a certain extra elation and hope that other Germans will also surrender rather than make it necessary for our chaps to get killed unnecessarily. We have again been warned that sobriety is expected of us when the great announcement is made. For us, I don’t expect the change to mean anything except more spit, and more polish, more parades, more guards, more sickening routine and regulation.

  I think I stand a good chance of returning to U.K. for good in a year.

  3rd–9th May 1945

  I am very glad that the rockets have finished. What is it like to be able to go unthinkingly to bed, and to know you will be undisturbed?

  Your comments about my greatness over my Greek experiences are very welcome, but they are by no means correct. I am not a great man nor have I ever behaved like one. I am a very little man, with his ear close to the ground.

  I hope you will buy clothes. Don’t wait for my approval. If you want to save, consider again the smoking habit. I thought of an idea. Suppose you smoke 20 a day now, carry on smoking 20 each day for a week, then smoke 19 each day. At the end of that week, reduce to 18 for the next seven days, and so on. It would take nearly six months to reduce to nothing, but it might be the way out, to slowly slide away from it. You say you wish you were thoughtful like me – well, I’m not thoughtful, only artful! I have no doubt that between us we share all the faults and vices human beings are heir to . . . Question is how often we display them. I think we’ll rub along together very well indeed. I feel fairly certain we have both sufficient intelligence not to try to make the other unhappy.

  I think I would like you to say, about the ring, that the money could be more wisely used and that we don’t need to conventionally demonstrate our undertakings to the world. We do not need a symbol, and our love is strong. A point I had in mind was that the Ivy-type of mind might be saying ‘Ah, Chris has been home, but I see that Bessie is still on the shelf.’ Or something cheap and silly like that.

  The events in Europe are less and less meaningful, the staggering waste of our lives – and what I must do in the meantime – is sickening. Oh, for 8 hours’ work a day, 6 days a week! I imagine it will be many months before any large number of chaps start discarding khaki for colours of their own choice, but with no blackout, sand-bagged windows, or A.R.P., things generally should be easier. I imagine that your Foreign Office task will cease, and that most of the wireless stations will close down.

  I heard a broadcast record by Bevin yesterday, in which he said there would be a short standstill period before chaps started demobilising. Some of our chaps with low numbers are not happy about that! We just listen in, and imagine things to suit our own cases.

  I am still in a glum state and I believe that only the news that Japan have surrendered also would be sufficient to un-glum me. I am very thankful that the end of the war in Europe has come at last, and all the terrible things that war involves will now cease there. But I am very conscious that the people generally have suffered much, and I do not believe we are any nearer a decent state of society. On top of al
l my general mix-up of confused thought and regret is a more acute realisation that we are not together, and the chance of being so is remote. I know that it doesn’t make you happy to have me fed-up (and I am that) but I do not feel like a song and a dance just at present. It’s grim.

  Another magical record: Chris Barker’s letters preserve the past.

  We put up a tent. We take it down. We are told there will in future be no trucks to the village (a quarter of an hour’s walk). Today and tomorrow we must ride in a truck (because of possible trouble with celebrations, I suppose). We exhibit our kit daily so that all the dust can blow on it. We must take Mepacrine tablets daily. We must have our mosquito nets down by 1800 hours daily. We must roll our tent walls up by 0000. We must not perform our ablutions outside our tents. Ordinarily you just grin, curse and bear it. At the moment, I am not very happy about such things.

  We have again been reminded we mustn’t get drunk. Chaps are getting 1½ bottles of beer this week. I was going to have mine just now, but remembered I had already promised it a bloke. It is horrible stuff (light ale) I’m told.

  We had a sing-song, and I joined in a few of the songs. It was not easy to get ‘order’ for the King at 9P.M., but I was near the wireless and heard all he said. What an ordeal for him it is every time, and how, of recent years, he has become adept at just avoiding a wrong word. I bet he is glad it is over. I thought there might have been greater mention of his Allies in the struggle, but otherwise it was a reasonable effort. If only everyone would recall that we are at peace in Europe only because of the death and mutilation of literally millions of our fellow countrymen (and women) and of our fellow world citizens. Yet, if ‘private enterprise’ had its way, the air raid shelters that are being dismantled in England would be sold at a handsome profit to Japan. They will need them alright.