by Chris Barker
I love you.
Chris
20 July 1945
Dear Bessie,
I am sorry about your chest. You appear to have received expert attention, expert assurance. Myself, I should rub it with Vick, or Ellimans, anything, to try and produce a move. You say you have lost that ‘tiredness and general run-down feeling’. I must congratulate you, but I must warn you, too. I think you are rushing around too much.
I am not a bit hard on ‘The Tories’. They quite definitely are the biggest, the most expert, beautiful liars the political life of this country has ever seen. They lie every time they say they are National, they lie about what they propose to do, and what they have done.
I had better try and get a few words over to you on this Deb business, upon which you are ‘sorry’, ‘No, I’m not even sorry’, ‘really angry’, ‘bloody trivial’ and ‘truly sorry’. I am glad you are so frank, and hope you will always show me in this way how your mind is working. I find your plea for ‘more understanding’ a bit awkward. Do you imagine me to be likely to intrigue with Deb against you? Or that I am likely to fall in love with her? Or to spend time on her instead of on you? Or to treat you in any inferior way because of her? What, otherwise, is this ‘torture’ you suffer from? You say you are no longer desirous of sloshing her. I have a woman friend who happens also to be a friend of yours, or so I had imagined. Do I ditch her, slap her down or what? You be bold enough to tell me how you think I should act, and I have no doubt I can be understanding enough to do as you want. There are no secrets between you and I (I hope). I am a worried man at the moment, but I hope not a foolish one.
Please believe. I love you.
Chris
21 July 1945
Dearest Chris,
You blooming old Darling, I could hug and hug and hug you, for somehow saying all the right things, and being your so beautiful self, do you wonder that I get so blue? Look what I am doing without.
Yes, I felt more excited about the Labour Win than VE Day. Reeves got in with a 10,000 majority. Labour gain from Conservative too. I do wish everybody would stop striking now and give the government a chance to get into action, dash it all, a 40 hour week at this stage is a bit precipitate.
No, no, no, you are not wrongly interfering in my affairs, I want you, want you to interfere, for they are our affairs, our affairs, even when I protest, I want you to go on interfering, because maybe I am not very used to it yet, but I want to get used to it, we are dependent on each other, we cannot have any private life apart, for two people loving each other so much there is no other way but complete and utter surrender of everything. I should feel desolate if you didn’t want to interfere, if you didn’t have bossing thoughts, it gives me happiness to know that you have, forgive me any perversity I may indulge in, I am rather ordinarily human. Yes, it is my duty to us, that I take things easier, and I am trying to do that, I have become a martyr to my engagements and am cutting them down.
I know you are right Chris because they have been fretting me. It’s funny how when you are run down, you seem driven on to do more than you can, it’s so difficult to stop rushing, even looks as though you’ve detected my state of nerves in my letters, never thought of it showing like that, but how I hated being told. Bless you dear for being what you are, for noticing, for being strong enough to tell me. You make me feel safe and sure in your keeping.
Re Deb, of course carry on as usual, I hadn’t ever thought of you doing anything else. Didn’t you know that trying to discuss rationally an irrational point is a feminine foible? Darling, you have made me feel coolly detached about Deb by saying ‘who are all these other people, what are all these other things?’ So don’t worry anymore. I felt the same myself, we belong, the rest doesn’t matter.
So sorry to have caused so much upset, but so glad to have you say all the things you have said, I adore you. Yes, I am yours, yours alone. We are hungry for each other, oh so very hungry, for everything you have to give me. Your hands, your arms, your lips, your body, the smell of you, to know again the exquisite magic of being so very close to you. When I imagine hard, I can feel your hand on the top inside of my thigh, why just there I don’t know, but that spot is what I can recapture sometimes, just your hand there, so vividly your hand. Don’t you think that odd, it’s quite a feeling, and always the right leg. Did you rest it there most, or something?
I guess I haven’t felt that ‘calmness of spirit’ since Greece, it came home to me then how easily I could lose you, just like that, and I haven’t been able to erase it from my mind, it impressed me too deeply. I thought then, can this happen to us, it can, we were lucky.
Lick for me, rise for me, yearn for me, go on wanting me, always – need me, need me, need me, feel my pain, my misery, for we are one.
Your hand in my blouse, on the tip of my breast – sweet delight – wonderful man.
I Love You.
Bessie.
26 July 1945
My Dearest Bessie,
There was plenty of excitement here today. I came back from giving a lecture on the Cooperative Movement at about 12 o’clock, and got the news that there had been 20 Labour Gains in the first 61 seats declared. After, at each hour, we crowded around the wireless to get the latest figures, doubting yet hoping that ‘the people’ had given Mr Churchill the right to retirement, and the Labour Party instructions to proceed to secure a fair share of the world’s goods for all who work. At the time of writing, 7 p.m., the Labour Party has a majority of 160 over all other parties and is bound to be called by the King to form his Government. It is a great surprise to me, and gratifying in the extreme. Not only because Labour now has the chance to repair some war damage, but because the Tories lied so viciously to retain office, with Beaverbrook the biggest story teller of them all.
I suppose now that everyone will expect the Millennium, miracles overnight, the immediate Heaven. Personally, I am advising chaps to take it easy and expect little or nothing. It will take years to modify the existing private interests, especially in face of their opposition.
All the chaps here voted Labour, and always have been Labour. That’s the impression! A sort of Boat Race night.
I love you.
Chris
27 July 1945
My Darling, My Dearest,
Let me say another word about Deb.
If you had a regular man correspondent in the same relationship as I am to Deb, I should probably curse his luck, but how, in face of what you tell me of your love for me (which I absolutely believe) could I entertain any serious ideas? He would be your pal, not your lover. You say I threw in a lecture with my observations on Deb. I expect to be lecturing quite a bit, remembering questions and discussions can always follow a lecture. When I say I want you ‘entirely’, ‘wholly’, ‘completely’, I do mean it. Because I believe that you possess all that I want – an honesty of mind, an interlocking temperament, a superb body. Oh, I know and I am glad, that you are a living, breathing woman, but what can I do about Deb, other than what I have done, carried on as usual. I am at your feet, content to be there.
I want you to understand and be uplifted by the awareness of my body’s urgent need of you, I want you to feel (not just while you are reading, but always) my primitive urgings, my great mental and physical desires around you, my unbounded affection, my complete devotion.
Oh, these miles are bad, I need you. I am hungry for you, hungry for your body, your body, your body. Hungry. Hungry. Hungry.
Will reply to the rest of your letter tomorrow.
I love you.
Chris
28 July 1945
My Darling,
I have today won a draw for a ‘Victoria League’ parcel, and in a couple of months, all being well, you’ll get one. They are 5s. each, and contain something like a pound of jam, a pound of sugar, a tin of fruit, or something like that. They are moderately worth winning in the draw. I believe they come from Victoria, Australia, as a kind of help to people in England.
I am glad you are not opposed to the idea of Sanderstead. It is very important that you don’t breathe a word anywhere. I have hopes. Some hopes. (You know how in these times the securing of a place is dependent on about ten things going as you want them.) This is one of those cases. There is a chance. With Wilfred actively pursuing the matrimonial idea, you must be prepared for him to live at 27 with his bride. This is inevitable, and would effectively eliminate any hope we might have in that direction. I can quite believe that your Dad could get £2,000 for 27. But it would be folly to sell unless a better place had already been secured. I am sorry you can’t be told more at present.
The housing situation is now very hopeful, long-term view, as Labour will not dally on this, if on any other issue. But even in the next five years sufficient houses cannot be built to overcome the shortage. We shall certainly be in a tight spot, unless we do ‘strike lucky’.
The thought of being in a house, alone with you, with closing the front door and taking you to me as I wish, is a tremendous thought for me to have. It seems impossible, yet one day such an event will occur.
I didn’t go into Bari today, as I took on the job of colouring the map of UK we had supplied to us, showing the constituencies. Almost all Southern England is blue, and almost all Northern Scotland. In the scattered areas, the Conservatives have still got their supporters. It is up to the Labour Party to show them, by 1950, that they are best served by the representatives of the working people.
I LOVE YOU.
Chris
30 July 1945
Dearest,
What a rotten hound I feel, what an unthinking thing for bringing all this reproach on you. I don’t know what I can do about it. Nothing now. You chide me about Deb, and I feel displeased. I say so, and you ask forgiveness. And I now ask for yours. I really don’t know why I must insist on being right, and of needing that you be quite above human feeling. I want you to think, if you can, how I can avoid doing this again. For, there can be no question that when I wrote I knew I would upset you, and I must have wanted to upset you, just to squeeze out of you some expression of regret. But had I just passed your Deb remarks by, you might have thought more that I was more interested in her than I am. What sort of method can we adopt, so that if we disagree upon something the other has said, we can say so, but not go into details. How can I mean a damn thing I say if I go out of my way to cause you distress by saying I am distressed. I love you and yet I hurt you. What an abject distasteful specimen I am. To the misery of our separation (which you do everything to lessen for me) I add half-insults and gratuitous doubts.
Please, please, don’t tell me your life has been misery but for our five weeks. I am appalled at that statement, devastated by the anguish of that cry. Can you not modify it? Remember how you must have felt when you got that first sea-mail letter of mine in September 43, and of when you came home and read the second letter with hat cocked over your eye? And of the hopes I aroused in you, and you aroused in me. How magically we claimed each other and proudly granted everything we had. You only imagine that ‘the rest is misery’.
My dear Bessie, I think I have told you twice already (I know I have done it once) that my fear about marriage related to the fact that I might get killed in a battle. There is not now very much likelihood of that, as I am fairly certainly not going to Burma. Therefore, only your agreement stands between me and my ambition – to have you for my wife. So, I do ‘visualise it’ for my next leave – when I get it! I visualise confessing personally to you that I have been a hound over this incident, of asking and receiving your pardon.
Saw Japanese Suicide Planes on British Movietone News yesterday. Deadly. Came out 5 minutes after Boyer and Fontaine’s Constant Nymph had commenced, as it was very bad sound.
My darling, I am a hound, I am sorry. I love you.
Chris
2 August 1945
Dearest,
Yes, the election results are a bit of a shock. I hadn’t noticed that Hampstead, of all places, had gone Labour. You are supposed to be cut off from the world in your Italian village, but you still remain better informed than most. I am a bit amazed at your ability to supply information on anybody I seem to mention. How is it done? I am really more than a bit amazed, generally speechless.
My indigestion is still awful. I don’t think it’s ‘chewing’, I fear it’s nerves, though how it happens I don’t know. It reminds me of when I first started work. I had been in for 3 civil service exams and matriculation, what with that and the upheaval of starting work I had ’orrible indigestion for goodness knows how long. I thought I had grown out of such things, but it doesn’t seem like it, does it?
Perhaps the circumstances are excusable, but when I shall recover from this business I don’t know, makes me get rather fed up with myself. I must phone your home tomorrow, for they will wonder what has happened to me. I don’t like to admit to not feeling up to scratch, but guess I shall have to before long. Thank you, very very much, for the ‘Victoria League’ parcel, it sounds a spot of the right stuff. I shouldn’t say anything about it to your Mum unless she should ask, I think it best.
My goodness, I am glad you abandoned the idea of not writing for a week because of our misunderstanding. I should have been in a fine state, makes me quiver to think of it, think of my poor old digestion.
I do wish I could be a bit more like you, you remember detail and always somehow comment on the right things. It makes me feel hopeless, you know. You satisfy me so much that I don’t feel you get it back from me in full measure.
I won’t breathe a word about Sanderstead, just keep my fingers crossed and hope.
To come back to the Labour Government. I do think they should make a good job of it, I do think they have more brains to work with than the Tories. When you compare the two, Labour show up rather well, don’t you think?
I wonder how our leave is getting on. I do think your commanding officer is a bit thick, surely you should be entitled to some compensation for being POW. It wasn’t exactly a picnic.
Goodnight Darling. I Love You.
Bessie
2 August 1945 [Second letter]
My Dear One,
Please do mention marriage to my Mum just as much as you want. I have already (some time ago) told her I shall be marrying you a few days after my next return home, and although she did not reply, I know this was because I had already conveyed this state to her previously. I wish I could write you quite frankly on this point; but I do want you to avoid giving Mum any kind of impression that she will be left alone because of the married lives of her several children.
Had a busy day today. Up early and spent the whole morning on the range, firing the rifle. I believe the total possible, in about 25 rounds, all different styles of shooting, was 100. The top man got 66, the bottom 12. I was next to bottom with 22.
You need not feel anxious about how the Labour Party will manage, I think. They certainly cannot do worse than the Conservatives, as you say. But I am sure they will do very much better. Most of the Labour members are experienced in the school of life and socially competent to deal with its problems. I think the Tories are in for a shock in about three years, when our initial conservative reforms give way to more sweeping ones. The only thing that can confuse us is the little jealousies of the Big Men, and I rather think that Attlee’s ordinariness is a guarantee that some of them will be held in check.
There is some scheme of a week’s leave; I believe it starts after this month’s leave has been had by all the lads. That’s where I come in. But it may be much later than this other. And I want to get to you now, as soon as possible. But I should be home by August 1946 (3 yrs 6 mth) on my Python,* as it is called. You say the Express is prophesying the end of the Japan war by the Autumn. They are, as you suppose, notoriously unreliable. According to them, King Edward VIII would not abdicate; there would have been ‘no war this year or next year either’ in 1939; and the Conservatives are in power in Parliament now.
> Regarding letters, we’ll leave it as it is. I am not reluctant to reduce your one source of contact with me. And certainly I don’t want you to ‘hate it, hate it’ through any action of mine. But, I really would like you to write me rather less, because I believe you are doing too much. All your many letters only increase your ‘tenseness’, as well as more practically take up your time. I want you to take me in your stride. Every other day, at the most, twice a week at the least. Five times a fortnight is what you want to aim at. I think you will find the tension relieved a little by this. And – and shall I suppress conveying my physical thoughts? It doesn’t do me good, really, I think. The thought of you stirs and pulls me too much for my physical quietness. Half my time I spend physically raging for you. The other half I spend between the blankets.
I think you are very brave about your teeth. I should say you’d got roughly ten times the guts that I have.
I want to be just what ‘kind of a man’ you want. I want to be everything to you, now and always. I didn’t want to laugh at your ‘I want to get married’. I wanted to put ‘Me, too’ by its side.
You are beautiful.
I love you.
Chris
3 August 1945
My Darling,
You say you haven’t thought seriously about leave or marriage because the fear of disappointment is too horrible to think about. Don’t, then, worry about any such thing as disappointment. I know that I shall marry you. Can’t you just make that break, and know, too?
You say that marriage to me is your one ambition. That is my position too. It is my one wish above anything else, it is my one desire. I want to bring you relief and myself be relieved. I want to come to you and love you, come into you and stop with you, warm you and keep you warm. I want to be everything to you. I want you always to have the same high, undeserved opinion of me as you have now. I want the increased communion of our minds, the greater understanding of each other. And I want for myself the dear flesh of you, I want the wonder of your body, the magic of your breasts, the happiness of being with you, near you. If you do not hear the plain deep cry, my vitals to yours, it is not because I do not thump and bump and shake and tremble at the sheer beauty you are to me, the wondrous loveliness of your body, the delight of your hands.