My Dear Bessie (7 page)

Certainly let us mention marriage. Consider me as the one you will be with always from this day, if you want me and will chance it. You are right about it being ‘heavenly' – but oh hell, angel, you are a long way away! Bessie, Bessie, Bessie, I want to be with you.

I love you.

Chris

18 April 1944 [Second letter]

Dear Bessie,

I think that I will now start to tell you something of myself and family from the Year Dot to the present day. I think this is necessary because I want to (it is very difficult to write – all I want to do is tell you I LOVE YOU) marry you very soon after I return to England, and I want us to do most of the talking through the medium of our letters. There is a lot more to tell you, and I hope to do so. Deb knows much of my history as a person; I want you to know as much as anyone, if only so that you shall never be party to a conversation and be at a loss about it. You won't remember everything, and I am not certain how I shall proceed. But I think it is desirable. Your time is much more precious than my own, but I hope that you, too, will give me an abridged ‘something', so that
when we do, wonderfully, finally meet, we shall know more about each other than could be obtained by a contemporary or current correspondence.

We have met only comparatively little in the past – and I expect I discussed the weather as much as possible! Some of the things I tell you will not be news, one of them you will need to spend a little time (at least) thinking about, and all of it I hope will be of real interest because it is about me. My ignorance of you can be judged by the fact that I don't know if the B.I.M. stands for Ivy, Irene or Itma, I don't know your birthday, or your birthplace. I want to know your food dislikes, if any; if and what you drink; whether you still smoke; how you housekeep or if someone else does it somehow. Please, please, please, tell me of and about yourself, so that I may breathe you in, and wallow in news of you. For by now you must have serious doubts of your ability to escape marrying me, and wondering what the Dickens you have done to deserve it. Please regard me as a serious challenge, your confidant now, your mate when you give the word, your ‘lawfully-wedded husband' if you will.

I think I can make a start on my career now by telling you that when I was born, my Father was 34, a Postman, and getting about 25s. a week. The family was increased to six (I have two brothers and one sister), and had to move from rooms in one part of Holloway, N.7., to a four roomed house in another part. It came under a Slum Clearance scheme when I was 13, and we were rehoused in a 5 roomed house on the London County Council Estate at Tottenham, until I was 26, when we moved to our present place at Bromley, which my brother owns. I am the
baby of the family. My sister is 33, my second brother, ARCHIE, is 36, my eldest, HERBERT REDVERS (Bert, after a Boer War General!) is 38. Dad is 64, Mum, 62. My early memories are few. I remember digging big holes in our back yard and lining up for the pictures. I don't know how much you recall of the last war? I remember the great fun of making cocoa after we had come back, seeing the R33 (which I thought was a Zeppelin); wanting to be a ‘Spethial Conthtable' when I grew up; my Dad, a strange, awkward, red faced man, coming home from India.

Things here (I'll leave The Story of My Life II till later) are about the same, except that today we have gone into Khaki Drill which is much nicer than Battle Dress, and can be washed anytime one wants. I am playing chess as usual and Bridge at night when possible. I'd like to creep away somewhere and do a bit of hard brooding about you, but I have to go through the motions of behaving normally, like you. Whatever I do I am conscious of the fact that you are in the same world, and it is a pretty great thought to be getting on with, rather overwhelming at times. I hope the time we are away from each other will not seem too painfully long, and that before 1999 we shall be able to TELL each other what now we can only think.

I love you.

Chris

25 April 1944

Dear Bessie,

This will be in pencil because it is the only writing material I have with me at present, as like an ass I forgot to bring my pen with me.

This afternoon a dozen of us had a truck to the sea, by a different route from that we normally walk. It was a terrible (and enjoyable) ride
, but worth it, although I found it too cold to dally long in the water. Our way was through the usual shells, burnt-out vehicles, bits of guns, and odds and ends left by retreating armies. Needless to say none of us were very pleased to discover a bleached skull on the beach, only pausing to wonder whether it was one of ‘theirs, or ours'.

A pity that today I got your LCs of 12th and 14th BEFORE TIFFIN. After I had read them I wanted ambrosia and nectar, not dehydrated potatoes and corned beef. Consequently I ate little. I have heard that it is pretty serious when your appetite is affected. This is my first experience and I'll not give it the upper hand.

The smaller your writing gets, the better I shall like it, please.

You say that I am sweeping you off your feet, ‘such a terrific love' you don't really think it has happened to you before. My dear girl, it has not. I address you as your future husband.

I think of your breasts more than is good for me. I am sure you are not entirely disinterested in the fact that I have hairs on my chest. Then we start wondering other things. Where shall we live, do we want children; how about your age. You tell me you
have £85 10s. in the POSB [Post Office Savings Bank] without knowing I am just writing you that I have £227.

Thank goodness you did not send me a cross. Really, I am scornful of such things. I have no patience with its religious intent, and I know very well that the gold-cross-laden women at home wear them as no more than lucky charms. They probably forget that Christ was crucified. I hope you didn't seriously think of sending me any such thing. I must risk hurting you, my love – I hope you aren't RC [Roman Catholic]. I'll say no more for the present.

Can you understand how I burn at the thought of you, and stretch my arms to enfold you?

I love you.

Chris

28 April 1944

Dear Bessie,

Tell me of your clothes. Tell me of your room, the furniture, so that I can better imagine you, more easily come to you when you are alone.

Throughout the years, I have remembered the Abbey Wood sun glinting through the trees that you and I were under. It is
my one real physical memory of you – I know that you are not a toothless old hag. As I kick around here thoughts of your body excite me, thrill me, but I want you to understand that our minds are the things we have to keep together. If either of us cheat, it is no good.

You say you'd like to be vamping me ‘right now'. I wish you were. Although I suppose I would soon be telling you that life was a serious business and we must ‘behave'. I hope you realise that in marrying me you will be the wife of a man who believes in ‘wearing the trousers', but not his wife's skirt as well. I do not want you to be terribly, terribly, terribly anxious to ‘obey'. I believe you and I will get on well together and bring the other great joy, not of the physical kind only, but of the mind.

My autobiographical details seem to have been neglected. I suddenly dropped the idea under pressure of telling you that you are lovely.

But I will potter along for a bit now. I was never christened. My mother had a lot to do at the time, it was somehow overlooked! Now she is very keen that I be ‘done' but I am quite pleased with my status. I believe that if a child dies without being christened he must be buried in unhallowed ground. That makes me very keen to rebel against the rubbish of that dictum.

I went to Drayton Park (Highbury) LCC School. I was probably a very ordinary pupil but good at English. I never won a scholarship despite parental ambitions. When I had done very badly at Arithmetic once I had to stand up before a class. The headmaster said that a chap with a noble forehead like mine should have done much better. I was elected Editor of a new
venture School Magazine, but somehow never got out an issue. I left too soon. I remember, at an Armistice ‘treat' when I was very young, putting a banana in my pocket to ‘take it home to Mum'. When I got home the banana was just pulp. I had the usual fights, during playtime, and before and after school. I supported Cambridge, The Arsenal, and Surrey. (I got these from my eldest brother who has been a big influence on me throughout my life.) I only remember having one ‘good hiding' from my Dad when I was about 11. I made a swing, tied one end to the mangle, and smashed it completely when it fell down under my weight.

I started in the PO as a Boy Messenger at the Money Order Department on Mch 8 1928. I enjoyed the experience. It was good to be earning money, and I spent most of my pocket money on second-hand books. I was elected Editor of the Messengers' Magazine too late to publish an issue, as I left in November 1930, when I started at the CTO [Counter and Telegraph Office]. The first girl I ever went out with was a Girl Probationer, whom I took to see
Sunny Side Up
, one of the first ‘talkies'. I took out several other Girl Probationers, but I can't recall quarrelling with any of them. I was Secretary of the Cricket Club, but my highest score was 16, and that must have been unusual or I shouldn't remember it. I played little football. I must have been poor. I was ‘Junior boy' for nine months, and had a terrible time being dragged all over the kitchen by my seniors, ‘ducked' in the water, and generally leg-pulled with. One of my jobs then was to clear away the Controller's (O.J. LIDBURY, he has got on since then) tea tray. I remember still the pleasure of drinking the creamy milk he used to leave.

That is enough for this episode. We'll carry on later if you can stand it. Please try something similar on your own account, as I am very keen to learn about you, very anxious to get an insight into your history. Do you know French, Shorthand? Understand if you can, how much I want to know all there is to know about your past, so that I can better gather you. Just at this moment, I want to rummage around you, run my hands over you, your hair, your breasts, your arms, your loins, your legs.