My Dear Bessie Read Free

library, writing room, games room, and open air theatre, where a free film show takes place weekly, also a concert. There is a lecture one night, bridge and whist another, and a more ‘highbrow’ musical evening another night.
    Directly I arrived, my brother applied for my posting to his unit, and after two months of Base life I started on the wearying but interesting journey to him. I met him, after a separation of 26 months, and had a fine time talking of home and all that had happened there – the rows and the rejoicing – and in theevening walked through the sandy vineyard to swim in the blue waters.
    Since leaving the Post Office Counter School and joining the Army, a period of twelve years, I had little real rest. I was either actually on the counter or doing some Union work. If I did relax, it was not for long and I was conscious of being guilty. Since joining (or being joined to) HM Forces, I have had a great deal of leisure, and I have spent most of it reading and writing.
    Oh, the Pyramids; yes, I have seen them, sat on them, and thought what a gigantic case for Trade Unionism they present. How many unwilling slaves died in the colossal toil involved in erecting these edifices? And how insignificant the erection compared with Nature’s own hills and mountains?
    I visited the Cairo Zoo, happily in the company of two young Egyptians who were being educated at the American mission. They made the day a success. The cruelty of having a polar bear (noble creature) in this climate, and the effort to console him with a 10 second cold water dip!
    Excuse the writing, and confusion of this effort. But it’s me, alright. I hope you are OK Nick. It’s a long way from our Lantern Lecture on Sunny Spain at Kingsway Hall!
    All the best, Bessie.
    Chris

    14 December 1943
    Dear Bessie,
    I received yesterday your surface letter of 20th October. I read it avidly as from an old pal, noting that though time has chattanooga’ed along, your style remains pretty much as it was in the days when we had that terrifically intense and wonderfully sincere correspondence about Socialism and the Rest Of It, unlike the present time, when, hornswoggling old hypocrite that I am, the Rest Of It seems infinitely more attractive. Thanks for the letter, old-timer. I am sending this by Air Mail because it will have enough dull stuff in it to sink a Merchant ship.
    Yes, I remember our discussions over ‘ACQUAINTANCE’ and my views are still as much ‘for’ as yours remain ‘against’. I have, perhaps, one hundred acquaintances (I write to fifty) yet I could number my friends on one hand. The dictionary:-
    ACQUAINTANCE: a person known. FRIEND: one attached to another by affection and esteem.
    You are known to me, and while I have affection for you it does not amount to an attachment.
    I am sorry that Nick and you are ‘no longer’, as you put it, and that you should have wasted so much time because of his lack of courage. You must have had a rotten time of it, and I do sympathise with you – but are you writing to the right bloke? I’ll say you are! Joan gave me my ‘cards’ a couple of months back, though I had seen them coming since April, when I got my first letters.
    I can quite believe your estimate of the way the London-leave soldier improves the shining-hour. You can understandchaps who get three or four days leave before a campaign opens, painting the town red, but unfortunately quite a large number who are in comfortable Base jobs have their regular unpleasant habits. When I was at Base our evening passes bore the injunction ‘Brothels Out of Bounds. Consorting with Prostitutes Forbidden.’ Where we collected the passes there was a large painted sign, ‘Don’t Take a Chance, Ask the Medical Orderly for a –’ doodah. The whole emphasis of Army Propaganda is ‘Be Careful’, even the wretched Padre at Thirsk, when he said a few words of