My Dear Bessie

by Chris Barker

  I want to visit my Dad’s resting place* before I go home. Would you try and remember to remind me? I may forget in the whirl of events.

  I have strangely little else I feel I can say.

  I love you.

  Chris

  * Towards the end of 1945, a new scheme was introduced named LIAP, short for Leave In Addition to Python. Under LIAP, any person who would have served overseas three years before being demobilised was to be given a short home leave.

  * Chris’s father died on 5 June 1945. In a letter to Bessie on 15 June he wrote: ‘Please do not speculate about my reception and treatment of the news. I have taken it, I regard it, as dispassionately as possible. It is the distance which counts, and the fact that tears in a tent are out of place. I am very concerned about my Mother. I am anxious to stop her remembering. I am desirous of comforting her all I can.’

  10

  Janet or Christopher

  SIX WEEKS LATER

  26 November 1945

  Dearest,

  CALAIS

  Everything has gone all too smoothly so far. I arrived at Victoria at 9.0, and at 9.30 the train drew out. At 12.15 I was one of eight chaps in a room of the Royal Pavilion Hotel, Folkestone, a very large building, now a transmit camp. I got a few hours’ sleep before Reveille at 5 a.m. At 5.30 I was eating breakfast, at 6 I was lining up in the cold dark morning to get a blanket. At 7 we moved off to the cross-Channel boat Canterbury. At 8 we left the shore, and at 9.15, after a very quiet serene trip, we touched France again. We are now in a transit camp in Calais (I have a bottom bunk in a large Nissen Hut which holds 120 men) and will be leaving by train at 7.15 tomorrow morning (Reveille 5.30). There was a NAAFI buffet car on the train, and we could buy a bar of chocolate and ten cigarettes in addition to tea, cakes, etc. Coffee awaited us at Folkestone if we wanted it. This morning about 6, we paid over 7½d. and received five cigarettes and another bar of chocolate. I have eaten both bars already. Scrumptious. Fry’s TIFFIN and Rowntree’s FUDGE. Like other things, it was good while it lasted.

  I felt quite a hero to be able to get into the compartment without having blubbered. (For me it was either very good, or a commonsense appreciation of the fact that it is different this time, and that the next time we meet it will be for good.) You were outwardly FINE, however you may have wibble-wobbled inside.

  I expect it will be some weeks before I am able to write connectedly. For the moment I am too close to your goodness, too humbled by your affection and too proud of my having been with you in all ways, to be settled in my thought. Above everything, I love you, I have had the chance to tell you, and I know that you are mine. My thoughts will always be around you, and I hope to be progressively successful in my letter writing, to avoid some of the jarring elements I have previously sometimes introduced.

  I have just got another bar of choc, two boxes of matches and 50 cigarettes, free. And bought another 60 cigarettes for 2s. With 110 cigarettes in hand, I feel happy! I have seen The Three Stooges and Frank Sinatra in Step Lively at the Camp Cinema (free). It is a wet day here, sometimes the rain is very heavy.

  Will you please again convey to Wilfred and Dad my thanks for their kindness. Forgive this scrawl.

  I love you.

  Your grateful husband,

  Chris

  30 November 1945

  Dearest,

  I am still at this Transit Camp near Milan, expecting to move off to Naples tonight. It is very cold and misty, and the camp is very crowded. I spent at least an hour and a half lining up in mammoth queues for my meals yesterday. For the NAAFI I had to wait only a quarter of an hour, but when I came out, there were nearly two thousand queuing for the hope of cake and tea.

  The cooks here are German prisoners and the servers Italians. There must be a lot of ‘flogging’ going on. In the town, which we saw by dark last night, several shops are selling Army medal ribbon, official pattern, sixpence a piece; it is difficult to get from Quartermasters. No wonder! The ride through Switzerland was very good. Passed through Lausanne and ran for five miles or so beside Lake Geneva, bordered by the millionaire’s chalets. It is a great sight to see the mountains high in the background. Everything is almost perfectly clean, the chalets and other buildings are freshly painted, railway stations are neat and tidy. Many people waved Union Jacks and Tricolours out of windows, others waved their hands. Whether this is a bit of pre-tourist traffic beckoning, or genuine appreciation, I cannot say. But at least a dozen troops’ trains pass through daily and have been doing so for over four months.

  I saw some of those midget umbrellas last night, £2 15s. 0d., but had no money for the purchase. I would like to be stationed around here, but there is no likelihood.

  Later. We are definitely leaving tonight. I hope it will be much warmer down South. It’s perishing here.

  I love you.

  Chris

  1 December 1945

  My Darling,

  RIMINI

  The journey from Novara to this place has been a disgraceful business. I was lucky enough to be one of eight chaps in a compartment, quite full and no spare room. In each of the coaches, however, there were seven or eight chaps who had no seats, and had to wait huddled at the end, in front of the (frequently used) lavatory. The lads in this state in our coach were all RAF, and I was very sorry for them, they could stretch their legs only by standing up. They must have had a terrible night. Our compartment had the usual two on the racks, two on the seats, two on the floor, and two had to go in the corridor and get as comfortable as possible. We shall repeat the performance tonight, and perhaps tomorrow night, if the train carries on at its present rate.

  For breakfast this morning at a wayside halt we again had fried egg! The Germans at these halts have done very well, clean cooking and tables. The last halt was called ‘The Gothic Grill’, a strange compliment to them.

  The train is going now, and my news is little. I am still at the game of guessing ‘what we were doing this time last week’. I think of you.

  I love you.

  Chris

  2 December 1945

  We are now in Southern Italy, about twenty miles from Naples. The sun is shining, it is beautifully warm after the cold of the last week, and around us is – scatterings of orange peel. Oranges can be bought for about 1½d. each, or, more usually, changed for cigarettes. In great demand by the peasants is bread, etc., an indication of their very real need. You can imagine with what glee we exchange our Army pattern Sausage Roll for a luscious orange.

  I lost my toothbrush at Calais, and left my hat in one of the feeding centres en route. Will be pleased to get in a town and secure some replacement. A sad occurrence befell one of our chaps: he put his kitbag on the Bari pile at the start, instead of the Naples lot. He had put all his kit, except his eating utensils, in it, and had his birthday cake (icing and all!) for December 9th in it. Whether and when he will get it is very uncertain.

  8 p.m. I am now in a Transit Camp in Napoli – the same one I was in when there was a terrific storm, on my way to Perugia; formerly a park. As usual we are nobody’s baby. We are ten to a tent underneath the trees. I successfully discovered and lugged to the tent an iron bedstead, in which I shall repose tonight. A chap has given me a hat, so my pate is now covered. I have bought a toothbrush, so my teeth now feel lovely and clean.

  I have just had two cups of coffee and two sugary doughnut rings in the NAAFI – and appreciated them. True, I consumed them standing, but they were good. I shall have to get you on making doughnut rings. Did I tell you I thought you were a jolly good cook and that I thoroughly enjoyed every munching moment? I love you. I daresay I would do if you were silly and useless – but it is such a consolation and satisfaction to know you are not. My beautiful, capable woman.

  I love you.

  Chris

  In Naples, December 1945

  8 December 1945

  My Darling,

  Once again we have been disappointed, and we are still here. How long it wi
ll last, blowed if I know. It is cold and unpleasant and Bari, a little further South, sounds good to me. I haven’t had a real night’s sleep since I came here – in fact since I left 27.

  I went into Naples this afternoon and had intended going to For Whom The Bell Tolls this evening. But, as has been happening a lot lately, the electric light failed all over the town, and the cinema was in darkness. So we came back to camp and consumed yet more of the cakes that inevitably cannot be resisted, yet are so sickeningly indicative of our Army-ness. We came back in the rear of a tram which was full to capacity – which in Italy means full to capacity. One of the Italians dropped a cigarette on the floor, tried to bend down and look for it, an almost impossible task. When he got a chance, he had a look for it but couldn’t find it, so accused a neighbour of pinching it! Started fighting but had to stop as he wanted to get off.

  I am sorry about this scrap of a letter. I am in a somewhat ‘suspended’ state at the moment, and can only hope I shall recover something of my zest when I am with my unit, instead of messing around in this cold hole. I hope you are feeling OK but I am pretty sure you are feeling as sick as I am, though fortunately your bed is warmer! But the time is passing. The great consoling thought. Excuse this scrap.

  I love you.

  Chris

  10 December 1945

  My Darling Bessie,

  I see from the papers that it has been very cold at home.

  I observe that Charlton did well on Saturday. I suppose that Wilf is just about to start work by the time you get this letter. The demob figures seem very encouraging, no slackening and everything in hand. I feel fairly hopeful about getting out in time to have a good-weather holiday with you somewhere. I was glad to see that 100,000 chaps were called up in the last four months and 140,000 are to be called up in the first half of ’46. I think the wrong chaps are being called up, though. We are getting boys of 18-and-a-half who have only been in the Army a few months. There is no doubt that the Army will mould them the wrong way. If they called them up at 25–30, it would be better. Blow me, that is as clear as coalite! I think that the influence of the Army has been mostly for the good on me – but there are thousands of chaps now aged 24–5, who have grown up in the Army and have little conception of civilian standards, or individual responsibility.

  We are hoping really to get somewhere tomorrow, as we went along to the Orderly Room and again reminded them that we were here and wanted to AVANTI, and we have been told to see them again tomorrow at 8.30. We are all in a state with our socks, etc., but determined not to change anything till we get a possibility of a change.

  Mail is our main desire. It is over a fortnight since we left England. I am feeling better now than I did then, because I well understand that every day is counting towards my release.

  We have to collect our 7 free issue cigarettes each morning between 7–8. If we don’t go, we lose them. I haven’t lost any, but you can imagine how many cigarettes are ‘made’ by the chap whose job it is to give them out. Three chaps in my tent never go for them, and at 9s. for 20 to the Italians, the Quartermaster must be making a fortune. How are your efforts at reduction, pal? Am afraid the ‘ciglets’ were not a great success, but who knows what may come of such an idea? I think I’ll start up a Company, ‘Halve Your Smoking’, and put that invention forward!

  I love you.

  Chris

  14 December 1945

  My Dear Wife,

  This morning at 10 o’clock saw us all with our kit, outside the departure hut, ready to move off.

  We proceeded to a place called PORTICI, 6 miles from the centre of Naples, along the ‘autostrada’ (the fine road which connects the city with Pompeii). The Unit Headquarters are situated in a building near there, and I am (hooray) sleeping in the building tonight.

  The RSM [regimental sergeant major] has asked me since the first querying if I have had experience of acquittance rolls (pay sheets) and I have told him ‘yes’ (I have – at Whetstone where I did Pay Clerk), whether I was used to money, and I said ‘yes’, and if I had ever been Post Corporal, to which I said I was in the PO. He says he will try to get me a job as Assistant to the Group 28 Post Corporal, who also is Pay Clerk for the soldiers and Italian civil labour. If I do get the job I think I shall be fairly happy for the present, as the food here is very good indeed, and that is a large consideration in the Army (for tea today, our first meal, we had tomato soup, and a salad – well served – of a nice slice of corned beef, cheese, and cold peas and beetroot. There was a piece of cake, as well as usual jam, etc. The bread was very thin, a great change, and the plates are supplied by the Army and don’t need to be washed by the men). Our job for the next few days is to clean out a house in the village which is being turned into an Officers’ Mess, and to shift furniture and so on.

  As this unit maintains the big aerodromes at Bari, Foggia, Naples (Pomigliano this one is called) and Rome, I cannot see the unit breaking up for a long while, and probably my Army days will be concluded around these parts. Naples is horrible, the wretches who inhabit it are worse. Out here it is not so bad, because there is some foliage (the trees in the orange orchards have their bright yellow gifts sparkling upon them now) and (unlike Bari and Foggia) the landscape is not wholly, monotonously flat.

  I changed my socks – after 19 days! They are black as anything, but I hope to get them washed sometime. So now I feel quite spruce – though I am still wearing Wilfred’s shirt. If you care to lecture me, carry on. I will get young Solly to answer it –he is still in the same socks the ’erb!

  Three or four children have just looked in here, to pick up half-eaten cakes left on plates. All are thinly-clad. One has no shoes or socks on. Poor little soul. In this weather, and wet underfoot, it must be very bad.

  I love you.

  Chris

  17 December 1945

  My Darling Bessie,

  A year ago this morning we were attempting to assess the damage done by the first night’s attack on the Hotel Cecil. The smoke of battle was in the air. This morning there was another smoke in the air. Acrid; sulphuric – from Vesuvius, which was puffing it out very liberally at breakfast-time, but has ceased at present. There is always plenty of notice of any eruptions, so don’t get alarmed.

  At the Transit Camp I glanced at a copy of Married Love by Marie Stopes (which was being read from a most unscientific angle by some Infantry lads with us). It might help our ignorance. There is a table in it showing the ups and downs of desire in a woman. If you think it would be useful, you might like to get it.

  [Incomplete]

  19 December 1945

  My Darling,

  This afternoon I went to the Bulk Issue NAAFI, to assist in drawing our Christmas rations. A fortnight’s rations were drawn, about eight pints of beer, five bars of chocolate, two hundred cigarettes, per man. We had a couple of thousand bottles of beer, several dozens of gin, whisky, sherry, and port (for officers and sergeants), 18,000 cigarettes, and various oddments like oranges, mincemeat, tinned turkey (a precaution against having our live turkeys purloined?). Our three ton truck was well stacked on the return journey. I always find myself meekly wondering when I get to these wholesale places, ‘How is it all done?’ Great feats of organisation are accomplished in the supply of necessities to armies.

  Here I am, in the YMCA at Portici, with two Indian soldiers drinking tea and eating cakes at the next table. When they go back to civilian life, the whites will shun them, cordon them off, deny them intercourse. How will the Indian take it? The soldiers like the average English soldier because we treat them decently. He must ponder our way of life and that of our wealthy prototypes.

  What do you think of ole’ Mosley* and crew? There’s a lot in the paper about banning them. I don’t agree, myself. I think that all the 18B clients† should have been tried for their projected treasons, and in the event of guilt being proved, at least had their estates sequestrated. If nothing has been done up to the present, I can’t see why we should proh
ibit peacetime part-time lunatics.

  I hope, hope, hope for news of you tomorrow.

  I love you.

  Chris

  20 December 1945

  My Darling,

  I shall go berserk unless I get some mail shortly; today was another blank day, although one of the ex-4 AFS [Auxiliary Fire Service] chaps did get 14 letters.

  Blow me, this not having any mail is a blooming bind. Suppose you had not heard from me for 25 days. What a lark – you’d think I had deserted you, wouldn’t you? I very much hope I shall hear from you before Christmas. I reckon I will swoon when I see my own name on a letter. I know that some Air Mail must be held up going your way, as some of our releases are not getting away by air, due to the bad flying weather. We have had a bit of rain lately. I don’t care if it snows.

  Sorry for the oil stain on the first page of this. It comes from a YMCA cake I have just consumed.

  Lovely Bessie, I love you.

  Chris

  21 December 1945

  My Darling Bessie,

  I fear that you are due to hear more weepings and wailings and gnashings of teeth from this direction. But the fact remains, no mail, no mail, no mail. Not a word from you for a month all but a day. What a joy it is to be out, here, in the blooming Army!

  Our turkeys met their deaths today. Not a gobble did I hear as I went for my tea today. All that remained of them was red bareness hanging by a hook. The Italians killed them. Laid their necks on the grounds and chopped their heads off.

  This afternoon I went for a bath to a place called Annunziata, about half an hour’s ride away. A BATH! The first all-over wetting I have had since you (my gracious, wonderful wife) scrubbed my back. The Army pays over 9d. each per man. It was jolly fine and I feel beautifully clean.