My Dear Bessie. Chris Barker

       27 February 1944

      Dear Bessie,

      Letters take such a long time, and I am so keen on remaining in good touch with you that I have decided to write you fairly regularly, irrespective of the replies received, until such time as I detect that you are disinterested, or it appears that our present happy association is not so happy.

      So on to our pigs – yesterday came the day for the male (boar) to be sent away for slaughter. Half a dozen of us were detailed to hold various parts of the massive, dirty, unfortunate creature, while the man who knows all about pigs got a bucket firmly wedged over the poor thing’s head and snout. I was originally deputed to take hold of the right ear, but in the opening melee found myself grasping the right leg, which I held on to firmly as it lumbered out of the sty, and heaved on heavily as, somehow, despite a terrific struggle and the most heartrending screams, we got it on the lorry, which was to be its hearse. In the afternoon it met its man-determined fate, and this morning as I came away from dinner, I saw its tongue, its heart, liver and a leg, hanging from the cookhouse roof. I had my doubts about eating it in the days when it was half the eighteen stone it weighed at death. But now I have none. I certainly can’t help eat the poor old bloke. The sow lives on, she has a large and sore looking undercarriage, and will be a Mother in three weeks. I suppose we shall eat her progeny in due course.

      I recently made application for ‘The Africa Star,’ which most chaps here are wearing. I have first heard that I am to get it. When you know that I arrived out on April 16th and the hostilities ceased May 12th, you can see how very easily medals are gained. It is the same very often with awards supposedly for gallantry.

      My Dad, a thorough going old Imperialist, will be delighted that he can talk about two sons with the medal, and mentally they will be dangling with his – EIGHT altogether, though his nearest point to danger was really the Siege of Ladysmith (in a war maybe you would have condemned?). Since the war, my Dad has had medal ribbons fitted on most of his jackets and waistcoats, and goes shopping with them all a’showing! My Mother comes in bemoaning the fact that there is no suet to be had. Dad comes in with a valuable half-a-pound he extracted from a medal-conscious shopkeeper. I can tell you plenty about my Dad, who has many faults and the one redeeming virtue that he is all for his family, right or wrong.

      I have just seen a Penguin, Living in Cities, very attractively setting forth some principles of post-war building. I always think how well off we suburban dwellers are compared with the people who live in places like Roseberry Avenue or Bethnal Green Road, and die there, too, quite happily since they never knew what they missed.

      I saw a suggestion for a new house to have a built-in bookcase, or place for it, and thought this a rather good idea. I have often sighed for some shabby volume in the short time I have been away from home. I carry with me now only an Atlas, a dictionary, Thoreau’s Walden (ever glanced at it – a philosophy), Selected Passages from R.L. Stevenson, and The Shropshire Lad, by Housman.

      Do you remember when we did some electioneering? Was it at Putney? I would have enjoyed being at Acton lately, as I read in the local Gazette (sent to the other chap in our tent) that one of the candidates (later withdrew) was walking around with a steel helmet bearing slogans on it, and a big notice urgently advising electors to buy potatoes and store them under the bed. Did you vote in 1935 (I did) and with what result? Maybe we can get together for a bit of postwar canvassing?

      Cheerio, friend.

      Chris.

       6 March 1944

      Dear Bessie,

      I hope I am not guilty of indecent haste if I commence another letter only a week after my last. I cannot claim that anything special has happened (in fact, thank Goodness it hasn’t) but I am brimming over with many things to tell you, my confidante, and it will be a long (and I hope a pleasurable for both of us) time before I have really unloaded my cargo of news, ideas, tales, things that have occurred since I left the country on February 24th last year, and also some of the things that occurred before then.

      I have just come away from the pictures, the mobile van, screen at the bottom of a slope and projector at the top, with the audience seated in the dip. Not bad tonight; two news reels only six months old and Girl Trouble, Don Ameche and Joan Bennett, fair entertainment as films go, quite a little smart talk which I rather enjoy.

      This afternoon I was just going off to sleep when my Sergeant woke me and (despite my protests that I was on night duty tonight) told me I must report at 3 o’clock for the ABCA (Army Bureau of Current Affairs) Spelling Bee. I went along there and suggested it be abandoned in favour of a discussion on ‘strikes in wartime’, and we did discuss strikes, fairly interestingly. The strange thing about most of these affairs is that so very few people can open their mouths to any effect in public. I am always congratulated on my contribution and looked at with greater respect afterwards by my companions – this ‘Gift of the Gab’ as it is called, is a dangerous thing for the welfare of the people. I am very suspicious of good talkers, very attentive to the stutterer.

      From the pictures, I had intended going straight to the other farce out here, The Egyptian Mail, our daily newspaper, and The Egyptian Gazette, its Evening (which we do not get) and Sunday consort. I am sending you a few copies in order that you can see what a hotch-potch of old news and English newspaper rubbish it is. It has frequent typographical errors, and is very unreliable. It puts the wrong headlines to news items, and is more amusing than informative. Once it said the Aga Khan had come fourth in a horse race, another time that Somerset had declared at cricket 1301–7.

      I am not sorry you did not join the WAAFs [Women’s Auxiliary Air Force], because most of the chaps seem to regard uniformed women as uniformly willing to be pawed about. One of the girls in my district used to push her breasts into my stomach (it seems that she was a little short! – anyhow, I used to feel it was like that) and hold my arm, every time she saw me. This was around 1937–39, not in the younger days, when I thought, like most youths, that I was handsome. Anyhow, this girl joined the WAAFs shortly after war was declared. And I don’t think it was patriotism.

      It is the usual practice to swop our free issue of 50 cigarettes weekly for eggs, 10 for 1 egg. We also get 2 boxes of matches; these also fetch an egg each. We do not get many Arabs round here, but in other parts you can get a live chicken for 40 cigarettes. They may be scraggy things, but I am told they eat well. Of course, all trading with the Arabs is strictly forbidden, but goes on just the same.

      And now away. I am going to have a few busy thoughtful days, as tonight got the job of opposing the motion ‘That woman’s place is the home,’ at the first of some debates I have helped to get going here. Am quite looking forward to it. It’s like old times!

      Good wishes always,

      Chris

       13 March 1944

      Dear Bessie,

      It looks as though Air Mail is wunnerful quick these days, your Letter Card of 5.3.44 having fallen into my waiting hand only a couple of hours ago. You must use LCs more and hang the expense, for if your sea-mail is anything like this LC, I shall be writing you poetry in a few weeks.

It seems that my frankness has not been without its effect on you. For there you are (I was about to write ‘here you are’ till cruel geography poked me) ready, even eager, to go back seven or eight years to Abbey Wood, and here am I so ready to embrace the project, if not you. How far distance has lent enchantment to the view, and disappointment gilded the scene, only events will show. But I warn you now against any prospect of me doing ‘the honourable thing’, and beg you to note that I have not yet, in my pastime ‘affairs’, done anything dishonourable. If you are hopeful, willing, expectant, it is in opposition to the facts, for I

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