From Harold to Stella: ‘ours is a strange family – we are embarrassed by too much affection, too much gush’

Sep 231940
 

Monday
H. Gregson (Seaman), HMT Dalmatia, c/o GPO London
My Dear Stella,
This is your pen I’m using and believe me it behaves itself quite well… It has grown out of the awkward age – it has shed the mantle of adolescence. No longer is it a badly behaved infant, an undisciplined, “do as I please” child; now it has become my very good friend and I do not know how I should live without this small, black creature with the blue blood and the tongue of gold.
I know all his moods, but I must confess that I have little or no authority over this mighty prodigy.
Thus do I sit myself, fully intending to pen a sane, matter of fact letter to my sister. I have it all planned that I shall ask after her health, I shall send my love to her children, for they are often in my thoughts, and I shall ask to be remembered to Arthur. I shall make mention of a few of my experiences and I shall enquire about the Liverpool raids also. I shall tell the story about the new skipper… and so on and on ad infinitum…
But, once started, my pen takes command. There is a secret intimacy between my pen and some dark mysterious part of me which hardly exists at all. So if I write what appears to be a rather selfish letter, please don’t blame me.
Ours is a strange family. We are embarrassed by too much affection, too much “gush”. In our family a sister never says to a brother, or a brother to a sister, “How are you – I am glad to see you looking so well.” Or “Can I help you at all?” You see, we always take so much for granted. We are an honest family and that’s a great thing.
And we have the greatest mother in the world, haven’t we? The most unselfish lady in the universe. Yet, for a thousand pounds, I can’t imagine telling mother that she’s all that.
Here is thoughtfulness. I know damned well from letters received and from tales heard that the hometown is “getting it bad”, yet mother makes but little reference to the raids. She even says, thinking of my safety all the time, that it would be better if I didn’t come home just now if I got leave. I asked to be sent an ‘Echo’ or a ‘Post’ but mother won’t send one “because”, she says, “there is so little in the ‘Echo’ these days.”
I know the real reason. I would still love to see an ‘Echo’ again. Could you send me one, Stella? There is one other Liverpudlian on board, he too has asked for a local paper but, so far, nothing has materialized.
Incidentally, this other fellow is a real “Scouse”, a real “Eh, Wack, warreryousedoin’” lad. But it’s great to hear the accent – a little corner of Liverpool right here in the Channel. Yesterday he said “Eh, Greg, did yuh ever go ter the labour club in Wavertree Road?” I said that I had not. He continues “Oh, it’s de gear, that’s where I learnt the Rhumba.”
Other observations of his include the following – “Mossley Hill, eh? All Jews there aren’t thee?” “Brodie Avenue? Blimey, those people livin there spend all day on their backs.”
A good crew this. At least the lads. We really enjoy going into action now. That is, so long as there is only one plane to fire at. When it’s a big raid (I’ve been in two) – well, then it’s not so good. On that first raid on Portsmouth dockyard when dozens of Junkers dive-bombed on the ships and docks I nearly died of fright, but I’ve grown out of that feeling now, thank God.
This is an unsatisfactory, half started sort of letter. I hope you’ll forgive me. I’ll have to finish now if I wish to get this posted here.
Listen, let me know how things are all round, will you? How are Wendy and Michael? Is Arthur due for calling up yet? Tell him I think I can get some cig tobacco to him and ask him if he wants any shirts or hankies. The latter are a penny each and the shirts are only a couple of bob. I can buy socks also at a low price.
Let’s be hearing from you. And don’t worry about the noise – we’re a tough lot!
Lots of love to you and the family,
Hal.
P.S. Any fresh literary triumphs?
What do you read these days? Have you read any Steinbeck novels? I myself have just started the Rachel Field ‘All This And Heaven Too’ classic and should soon have Steinbeck’s ‘Grapes Of Wrath’ (the picture is terrific.) I recently finished a very fine book – John Hilton’s ‘Knight Without Armour’. Listen. If you like, I’ll send on my copies from the World Book Club. I think you’ll like ‘All This And Heaven Too’.
I feel the urge to learn. Have you an old book of shorthand you don’t require? I’m going to have a go at learning shorthand – it can be most useful.

From Arthur to sister Jane & Jack: ‘we consider ourselves lucky if we only get one air raid warning during daylight hours and two at night’

Sep 241940
 

Tuesday
Crosby
My dear Jane and Jack,
I’m tempting fate. We have not had an air raid so far tonight and it is now midnight, so I’m taking a chance on at least getting this letter well under way. If there are any interruptions, you will have to forgive me if the letter seems a little disjointed. Actually we have been very lucky so far in Liverpool. There have been “alerts” – dozens of ’em. In fact we consider ourselves lucky if we only get one air raid warning during daylight hours and two at night. For all that, there has been very little material damage done and, considering the number of bombs dropped, the number of planes he must have had engaged in visits to Liverpool, and the amount of money and time he must have spent on our “Education” in Nazi methods, the number of lives lost is remarkably small. It all seems in the lap of the gods. If he hits a public surface shelter and it is crowded, then the casualties are high. If, as has happened on a few occasions, he hits a shelter which is empty, then we have a good night. I don’t know whether you ever listen to, or see in the papers, the German communiqués about the damage which has been done in different parts of the country. If you do, then take it from me that, at least so far as Liverpool is concerned, and probably so far as the whole of the country is concerned, he talks a lot of poppy-cock. He has said on several occasions that the harbour of Liverpool has been burned to the ground. He is crazy. On two occasions only – one of them was last Saturday – has he caused fires of any size at all. One of them destroyed only one building, the old Customs House, and the other day (which was this weekend) was his best day ever here and then he only got four decent fires going. Really it is a poor effort considering the number of planes he has had here. These are two of the very few days when he has been able to reach dockland, and although this weekend things looked pretty good for him, when it is all boiled down it means this – he hit a timber yard, a cotton warehouse and a general warehouse in Bootle. To do that he probably dropped the best part of a thousand incendiaries over the north end. Not very good shooting, is it?
We have had a bit of stuff round us. In all I should say about a dozen or fifteen high explosive bombs within half a mile. It may be more than that, but we have felt very little, except on one occasion when I was at home and, in full innocence, opened the front door during what I thought was a quiet spell. Just then he dropped a couple in some fields which are two or three roads away from us and we felt the full benefit of the blast. That is as near as he has got to us yet and we are not over-worried about it. My experience is that, even if you have no real shelter, you are safe enough if you stay in the house. To do any damage to you he has to drop one right on your doorstep, or at least within a couple of houses. Even then you are not likely to be hurt, but you may be shaken up. So far as I can see, there has got to be a more or less direct hit on a house before any really serious damage is done to the occupants. Property and furniture may be knocked about, but what does that matter as compared with life?
I’m writing all this, not for the sake of scaring you, but because I feel you should know what we think of it, and to write and tell you that nothing has happened here would be an insult to your intelligence. I will tell you quite frankly that apart from one occasion when a “Molotov breadbasket”, which is one of those arrangements in which he releases a big number of incendiary bombs at once, burst over my head soon after I had left the house to go to the office, I have not been really scared. Yet, on the other hand, once it is nearly time to leave for the office, which is, just now, the time at which he is likely to come over, I get all worked up and cannot settle in the house. Once I am outside and on my way down I feel much better, even if the sirens go and I have to walk part of the way during the raid. I think it must be a sort of claustrophobia complex I have as zero hour approaches. I’m all right once I’m on the move. Stella, on the other hand, heaves a sigh of relief when the sirens go and she has to go up and fetch the kids downstairs. Then she settles down into the routine of keeping an eye on them while reading or knitting.

Monday 21 October 1940
As you will see, it is quite a long time since I started this letter. In fact the night I did so he came over very late and interrupted me, which I took most unkindly. In fact we have had a number of lively nights since then. Only a couple of nights after I had written the first page of this letter, Jerry touched lucky with a whole load of incendiaries and treated us to the greatest fire I have ever seen – or expect to see. He went right along the south end docks and planted fire bombs in dozens of places. In all we had about seven or eight huge ones all going at the one time and from our roof it looked as if half of Liverpool was on fire, but actually the damage, although considerable from a financial point of view, was nothing like as great as was at first feared. The chief thing is that he was not able to affect transport at all, except passenger transport to a small extent, and once again the docks escaped serious damage. The more I go about and see the damage he has done, the more I marvel at how small it is. To back up what I said on the other page about the number of lives lost and injuries inflicted, I’ll quote what happened on two successive nights – or mornings. On the first occasion he dropped a line of high explosive among house property which, incidentally has suffered by far the most in these raids. The first bomb hit a house which had already had a time bomb in the yard in a previous raid, and consequently there was no-one in it. The second and third bombs dropped in the yards of houses in a street opposite. The fourth scored a direct hit on a small surface shelter, demolishing that one and damaging an adjoining one. The fifth dropped in the middle of the road. The only casualties were those in the two shelters. In all, about thirty killed and injured. This despite the fact that there were at least two planes which dropped a full load of H.E. and incendiary. The next night he came over and dropped even more. They all fell either in gardens, sports fields, the grounds of hospitals and places like that and there were two very slight injuries, one of them a soldier who slightly burned his hands in dealing with an incendiary. It’s like a raffle. Sometimes he is lucky, but most often we are.
You will be interested to know that the work I have put in on these air raids, sometimes working a fifteen and sixteen hour day, has made a very good impression on the office. So much so that, although I did not apply for one, I have been given a rise. In fact I am the only one in the office to receive an increase since the war began, and it is not likely that there will be any more for a long time. The news editor of the ‘Daily Post’ and the editor of the ‘Echo’ – whom I have seen about twice in my life – were so pleased with what I have been doing that each of them went on successive days, and quite unkown to each other, and told the managing director that I should be given some recognition. Result – a rise. It is very welcome just now for many reasons, not the least of which is that I will now be able to resume giving something to Mother, in which direction I have been rather lax of late, but things are so tight – or rather were, until I had this stroke of good luck. I would rather it had come through some other medium than other people’s misery, but the position being what it is, I might as well turn it to good use if I can. Anyway, it will probably mean that I shall be put on to day work as soon as possible, although I don’t think that is likely to be for some time yet, because of the difficulty in getting new staff. We cannot compete these days with the national papers who are offering excellent wages to people who are likely to be out of the army for some time to come. On the whole, I prefer night work just now from a purely selfish point of view, because I can get my sleep in as usual during the day and, at night, there is generally at least one good story to be done, which is an improvement in sitting twiddling my thumbs as I have been doing for months. I’m almost a war correspondent now, complete with steel helmet, which Stella and the family think makes me look funnier than ever. Daddy’s hat is a standing joke in the house.

Sunday 3 November
Still another effort to get this into the post and I’m determined to finish it tonight. So far I have written of nothing but the war but now, with November upon us, I had better make this a Xmas letter! It seems as if we have gone back to the ice age, writing Xmas letters two months ahead of time. Despite war conditions, there are signs of the festive season being on its way. Already Woolworth’s and other stores are displaying some purely Xmas lines. I don’t know whether we will be able to get hold of a Xmas tree this year. Usually Bert gets us one from the Burton woods, as I have told you before, I think, but as he is not at Burton now, the chances do not seem so good. I would like to get one if I can, because we are ging to do everything we can to make it as normal a Xmas as possible. Stella has already made the puddings and the next job will be the cake. Even if we cannot buy any fresh ones, we still have a few crackers left from last year and these, together with the coloured paper garlands, will help to make the atmosphere something like normal. I have bought some decorations such as Santa Clause on a sleigh and that sort of thing because they may be scarce later on, and we are gradually accumulating a stock of small novelties for the stockings. I have even got some new pennies so I think that, whatever happens this year, the youngsters should have a decent day, which is the main thing. It is impossible to tell what will happen in the way of visitors, of course, but I have no doubt things will be sorted out at the last minute, as usual. Presents for the adults will be kept down to microscopic proportions, I expect. I don’t know what to make for Wendy. Last year I made her a doll’s cot and she is just a bit too young for a doll’s house yet, and so is Michael, who would probably break it in the first day if I did make one for her. It is impossible to stop them from playing with each other’s toys. Before the time comes, however, I shall probably have a brain wave. Michael has already made up his mind that he wants a train – a big wooden one which he can pull along, so I’ll have to start that very soon. I suppose it will have to be painted the traditional red. It won’t be long now before he is demanding the real thing like Hornby trains, or Meccano.
As you will see from the date, we are not far off Bonfire Night, but of course a real bonfire or out of doors fireworks are out of the question this year. We are having a few indoor ones and I expect a few of the youngsters from round about will come in to see the fun. We tried one or two of them out the other day and they were a great success. I was not as strong minded as Stella, who religiously kept her hands off them, although she actually bought them in South Road. As soon as I saw them, I had to try some of them! What’s the good of being the boss(?) of the house if you can’t do things like that? I’m quite looking forward to the time when we can have a real Bonfire Night out of doors. It’s like going to the grotto, the children are a great excuse.
I don’t know what the arrangements will be in town about grottos this year. Last year, so far as I can remember, only Lewis’s had a real grotto, the remainder of the stores having only a toy fair. It will probably be the same this year, but whatever happens, we will take them both into town some morning – Stella will probably meet me in town straight from the office, where I can have a sleep and some breakfast before I meet her. If we do that, we should be home again about lunchtime and then I can have a sleep in the afternoon if necessary. The children like the trip to town and Wendy, like a true woman, will probably insist on a glass of milk in a café. She has reached that stage already.
Today I lifted the last of my potatoes. I put in quite a lot of work on the alleged allotment at the back of the garden last year, but the results were disappointing, probably due to two reasons – lack of manure and slackness in not keeping weeds and pests down. Everything seems to have come so far and no further. Sprouts, for instance, have come to a small ball, about an inch across, but seem to have stopped growing altogether at that point. The same thing happened with beetroots. Some of them reached the size of a tennis ball, but some of them never exceeded a marble. Cauliflowers were promising well and suddenly bolted, growing about a foot in a couple of days. Dwarf beans were severely attacked by fly, two rows failing to yield a single bean, and the cabbage fly, which was a new pest to me, did a lot of havoc with my greens during the summer. Still, we have had a few meals off our own stuff and I have learned a lot, which I hope will be useful next year. Considering everything, the potatoes did well, for they had no feeding of any kind, and one cannot expect too much in those circumstances. In all I suppose we will have had about six or seven months’ supply by the time the last are eaten, for with these I have lifted today we should have about two or three months’ supply in hand now. Bert sent me quite a good stock of winter greens which are doing better than the others, and which I hope will just be right when the shop supplies are running low. That was the chief difficulty last year, that we were unable to get any fresh greens for two or three months during the winter.
Well, I must finish on this page so it’s time to say au revoir. We shall be thinking of you both as usual at Xmas, and particularly when we are eating the turkey, or whatever takes its place. In the meantime, we all send you our love and best wishes for Xmas and 1941. We hope, too, that next year will see the end of all this nonsense and that you will be able to get home for a few months’ leave. Bye for now, and see you both take care of yourselves.
Love,
Arthur XX
P.S. I’m almost certain Stella has already acknowledged them, but just in case – many thanks for the frocks for Wendy. They fit her beautifully. Not one has had to be altered. Everything you mentioned in your letters as being on the way has now arrived. Yes, your cable came and was duly passed round all the family or else they were told its exact text.

From Stella to Arthur: ‘what a cold-blooded monster you were, and yet I came back for more’

Mar 241942
 

Wednesday
Home
Dearest,
I never want to see a curtain or a hook or a curtain ring again! The whole of today has been occupied with curtains and their etceteras in some shape or form. It started this morning when I took our bedroom curtains down and put them in soak so that I would have to wash them today. Then after breakfast I thought I’d better get the screws in the window frames before doing the shopping. I thought this would take about half an hour but actually it took nearly all the morning because I discovered I would have to put in 16 screws – one in each corner of each frame and as they had to go in as far in the corner as possible and there was scarcely any room for your finger and thumb (I mean mine not yours) it was a fiddling job. The sun was quite warm outside but working in the window all that time I began to feel like a tomato in a greenhouse. Then there was a last minute rush to the shops, then dinner to cook and eat – and still you notice no work done and the curtains still in soak. After dinner I washed the curtains. My fist went straight through the first one so I treated the others with great reverence! Fortunately it was a perfect washing day and they dried beautifully. While they were on the line I took Wendy’s old curtains down and unpicked the Rufflette tapes on them as I didn’t see why they should be wasted. Then I sewed these on to her new curtains, made the frill, put the hooks in and hung them up. They look lovely and fresh but they will have to be washed very regularly.
This brought us to tea-time. After tea I ironed and hooked our curtains (they look lovely now – I hope they haven’t got mucky again by the time you come home) washed the dishes and bathed the children, who had been out all day and were just as filthy as the curtains! With them in bed I hung our curtains up again and then started, while there was still some daylight, to sew rings on our new blackout. I had to do this on the window to be sure that each ring was in exactly the right spot, so this was just as fiddling as putting the screws in. Anyway it’s done now, thank heaven and looks quite neat. I haven’t been out to test its efficiency as a blackout yet. If I find the light showing after all the trouble I’ve had I’ll go completely mad!
The whole thing is taken down quite quickly and it’s made from those two pieces of curtain that used to cover the two centre windows. I re-dyed them and they are quite a good black now. This leaves only the two side windows permanently papered and just now they are going to stay like that. I refuse to even consider another black-out problem. And that’s quite enough of that – three and a half pages of curtains! I’ll have you so sick of them as I am myself. I sometimes wonder if I bore you with all these tedious domestic details, but my day never seems complete if I haven’t told you exactly what I’ve done with it.
Your letter arrived by the midday post. I can never make up my mind when I want your letters to arrive. I like them first thing in the morning, of course, but when one doesn’t come it means that there are still the other two posts to look forward to.
Yes, I can quite understand how unsettled you will be feeling this week. Actually you have never had a chance to settle down in Skegness, knowing that you would be there such a short time. If you are going to be at Aberdeen for six months there will be some point in trying to get settled there. Is the Commodore who kept you waiting while your dinner went cold the same bloke who didn’t come to see your nice clean chalet? He seems a regular pest!
Michael’s behaviour is not such a worry as it was because in this weather I bundle them out right after breakfast so see very little of him all day. Meal times are the bogey. How he gets enough energy to play around all day I don’t know. He is eating absolutely nothing. Today, for instance, he had no more than two forkfuls of dinner, then at four o’clock came in pleading for a biscuit and I told him he was hungry because he hadn’t eaten his dinner and would have to stay hungry till tea-time. He yelled the place down of course, but, as he really did seem hungry, I thought there would be no trouble over tea. There being a sudden rush of new-laid eggs (they had so many today that they were making everyone take next week’s rations as well as this week’s – I had to take 18!) I made omelettes with apricot jam. Michael ate about a third of his, said he liked it, then deliberately played with the rest and didn’t have another scrap! This performance at every meal is most nerve-racking. I never enjoy my own meals. The baby-theorists say you should never show that it matters to you if a child doesn’t eat, but these days it is very hard to show no emotion when you see good food wasted. I hope Rees will give him something that will make him ravenous. Michael’s cough seems to be improving and Wendy is a mystery to me still. She looks fine, eats wonderfully well, and scarcely coughed at all during the day. Then each night round about eleven she starts this really terrible coughing. Last night she went on till she was sick. I gave her an extra dose of medicine during the night and it seemed to help a lot. There is always something to worry about, isn’t there? All day I’m expecting Michael to faint with malnutrition and half the night I’m sitting on Wendy’s bed while she coughs her insides out. Then next morning she seems so bright and energetic that you feel you must have dreamt it all.
I was wondering how you got on about your feet and I’m sorry you had to pay for new boots. How much did they ream you for them? You certainly have made very good use of the naval health services so far. It’s a wonder you didn’t have a baby there while you were at it!
Your mother was fishing for an invitation to stay over Easter yesterday. I hadn’t realised that Will was going away or I would have raised the matter myself. Anyway I thought I’d better clarify the situation right away so I told her that if I had definite news that you would not be home during the Easter weekend she would be very welcome, but while there was the faintest chance of you coming I was not inviting anyone to stay overnight and was not going to stay a night anywhere myself. With Thelma going away these weekends alone will become a very real problem for her, and she is quite welcome to come here at any time when there is no chance of a surprise visit from you, but no one under the sun is going to spoil that precious first moment, my sweet!
By the way, while we are on the subject, if you do find out exactly what time you will be coming beforehand, it might be as well not to let your mother know as she might find some excuse to be here at that time. I’m not blaming her, love. It’s only natural that she should want to see you as soon as she possibly can – but that moment is yours and mine and I’m willing to make a life-long enemy out of anyone who makes it otherwise!
It has been really warm here today. These nice not-too-hot days, especially towards the evening, always remind me of those long-ago days when we used to go walks together, stopping now and again for a drink (and now and again for other things!) while you expounded your theories on marriage and the world in general. I shall tell Wendy to marry a confirmed batchelor – they make such excellent husbands! I remember you saying that no man on earth was faithful to his wife, to which I replied that I was thankful I was not going to marry you! Dear, dear, how sure of ourselves we were, and how very, very young! Changed your ideas about fidelity, my own? Or are you leaving someone behind in Skegness? Do you remember how, catering for any eventuality, you had it all settled that if I should become pregnant you would marry me to legalise the child and then divorce me as soon as possible? What a cold-blooded monster you were, and yet I came back for more, didn’t I? I probably stuck to you at that time chiefly because I was jumping mad that I hadn’t made you fall for me. It came as quite a shock when you said “Have you ever thought of marrying me?” – in that little lane in West Kirby. I’ve never yet been able to make up my mind whether you were in earnest or not and I don’t think you knew yourself, did you? How wild I used to get because you would never say you loved me. In lighter moments you would say “I hate the sight of you” and in more emotional moments you would just kiss me but you’d never say it, you bugger! You’ve said it enough since to fill all those gaps, haven’t you precious?
West Kirby reminds me of a letter I wrote to you from there in which somehow the shadow of war cropped up. I remembered writing “Please, never go to any wars, will you darling”. Remember? That must be several years ago. I wonder if a hint of today’s separation touched me when I wrote that, even when I didn’t know I would ever be married to you. Not to be married to you! Can you imagine what that would mean? I can’t. I can’t picture myself at all without you. All those years before you came and comparatively few years since you came and yet you’re the whole of my life. How horrible to think it might never have happened. I sometimes go over the crossroads and see how often, years ago, I might have missed you. When I neither knew nor cared about your existence I was deciding, or other people and events were deciding, whether or not I should ever meet you. Just to take one little example. When I sat for the scholarship it was settled that if I didn’t pass for Bellevue I could be sent to Mount Pleasant (that being £2 cheaper). Now if I’d gone there it is practically certain that the higher standard of all-round teaching would have made up just that slight difference between an ordinary H.S. Cert and a university scholarship. Which means that I would have been fancying my chances with some conceited student when I might have been seducing you on the sandhills! ’Orrible thought!!! And you can even trace our meeting to years before either of us were born. For instance, if my Aunt Annie had not had a girl friend called Celia (who afterwards married a Tom Greene) then a certain young woman – whose parents had not even met then – would never have heard of the ‘Bootle Times’. And that’s only my side of the picture. All that time you were somehow, through a maze of crossroads and decisions, moving towards me, until that moment when you walked (or should I say staggered?) into County Hall (blessed be it for ever) and in a drunken stupor decided that you had to shag someone and I just happened to be about. And the world was never quite the same afterwards because the fates that had been trying to get these two stupid people to see that they were incomplete without each other, leaned back and left the rest to us. And even then we were stupid enough to hold out against loving each other! So the fates got a bit anxious and had to dig up a silly man who lived somewhere near me, and make him win some silly competition so that you would have to come and see him – and in passing, put me in the family way! We did give those fates a lot of bother didn’t we? They’d been working so hard to make sure that we should meet and yet when they plonked us down in the same little office we were just polite to each other – “Miss Gregson, you made these errors in this sports proof”. “Oh, did I, I’m sorry Mr Johnson.” Why didn’t the earth turn upside down or the heavens open or something when I was introduced to you? That’s what I can never understand. Life’s Big Moment – and nothing happens.
Oh, my own, my precious, I could go on like this for ever – I am never tired of contemplating the miracle of our finding each other – and the hideous possibility that we might, somewhere along the road, have taken a wrong turning, and each spent an aimless life trying to find the other and never knowing what we had missed. And Wendy and Michael would have been lonely little unborn ghosts in the limbo where the babies live whose parents lost their way. My darling, we belong to each other, now and a million years hence.
My last letter to Skegness, angel. Tomorrow night I shall be writing to you and on Friday night when you are on the train. Perhaps for part of the time the train will bring you nearer to me and then up you’ll go out of England far away – but all the time you’ll be close in my arms. You are never far away from me, sweet. Even if you sail to the other side of the world so that we are, for a moment, just as far from each other as is physically possible, we shall be a million times nearer than most people who eat and live and sleep together.
I can see every line of your face so clearly now, that I can’t believe you are not here. I’ve only just noticed that my face is quite wet – but I’m not miserable, darling – how could I be when I’ve got you right by me at this moment?
I’ll say goodnight, now, dearest, before I come down to earth again. I haven’t the foggiest idea of the time but it must be darned late. Write from Aberdeen the first minute you can.
Always your very own,
Stella

From Arthur to Stella, and Michael to Arthur: ‘I buyed an aeroplane and it’s got a thing that goes round’

Apr 061942
 

Easter Monday
Aberdeen
Dearest,
It is now 11pm. I’m sitting in bed just waiting for Percy to put the finishing touches to his nightly toilet and then we’re off to sleep. We’ve been roaming the banks of the Dee and not a few hills today, but I’ll tell you about that again. The only thing is I’m tired out and will only write now until Percy is ready to sleep. I tried to phone you today – this before I received your letter telling me the phone had been cut off. It was impossible to get a line, they were mad busy when I reached civilisation because we seem to have spent the day losing ourselves and then getting back almost to where we began. That sentence is as rambling as the day has been, but you will see that your letter did save some disappointment after all, although I, too, feel another link with home has gone. I’ll send you the club phone number and let you know when I may be there. Don’t forget you’ll have to make it a personal call.

Tuesday
Now to try to answer your letters. On the question of your need of a holiday, I have felt very guilty some time. You do need a holiday, sweet, and you deserve something more than a week, too, but that seems as much as we will be able to manage just now. We will let the whole matter lie on the table for a time because there are so many things which cannot be sorted out until we get to Torry. There is the question of whether or not I can get permission to sleep out with you for a full week and that in itself depends on where I can find for you. I have already got someone working on that line and and may hear something in the next week or so. When I do get it properly sorted out I’ll let you know and the sooner you come up the better because neither of us will settle down properly until you have been up. Do your best to make it a week. Two nights would be such a short time that I think we would be tempted to stay in bed for the full 48 hours and I want you in other ways than sexually – I mean in addition to sexually of course! To be serious for a minute, I think one of the things which has helped to unsettle us both is the way we have shown in our letters how much we want each other. No wonder we cannot settle down! I know yours have been very, shall I say, “stimulating”, to me. That may have also been the case with some of my letters to you. Therefore, apart from an occasional word of endearment here and there perhaps, I don’t think I had better describe my biological urges too minutely.
I have only answered part of your letters but I am going to try the experiment of catching an earlier collection tonight – the 6.30pm – and see if that reaches you any sooner. It’s almost post time now so must go. Many thanks for the regular letters you write, darling. They mean ever so much to me. I got your Easter Monday – or rather the one post-marked 8pm 6 April – by this evening’s delivery. I was glad to hear May is well but sorry you had such a time with Mother. Eric seems to have had the rough edge of her tongue.
I had a letter from Harold today. Will send it on when I have answered it, but goodness knows when that will be. I don’t seem to get time to write to anyone except you these days. My arrears of correspondence are assuming gigantic proportions and I’ll have to do something about it. Sorry this is so short a note. Will try to do better tomorrow.
Goodbye, sweet. Biological urges or no, I only know I love you now and ever.
Ever yours,
Arthur X
P.S. Will you tell Wendy I tried to ring her up on her birthday and explain about the phone. Tell her how much I wanted to be at her party.

From Michael to Arthur
Home
Dear Daddy,
Uncle Eric gave me a shilling instead of an Easter egg and I went to Hilton’s and buyed an aeroplane and it’s got a thing that goes round. I saw Ronnie today and he said “Do you want to see my boat?” and when he came out he said I could keep it. It’s got a gun on the front and funnels and a thing that petrol goes in. I’m going to sale it in the bath. Uncle Eric brought the mirror for my dressing table in his motor car. The mirror moves. Mummy let me have a little clock in my bedroom. The aeroplane’s got wheels and nice things on the end and windows. It’s a fighter and it’s called a Defiant. When I saw it in Hiltons on the shelf I gave the shilling to the lady and I carried it home. I’ve got money in my pocket – a farthing, a halfpenny and a penny and a ha’penny with a boat on and a shilling. My trousers are nice and clean. Ronnie gave me a piece of clay. When I was in the garage the mudguard came off my bike. I have eaten all my meals up today. Ronnie has got a big yacht with a little man on. I took my bus and racing car out and I found a little car at the back of the cupboard. Mummy has got a sewing machine.
Love from Michael

From Stella to Arthur: ‘may it keep you safe, now and always, and bring you home to me’

Apr 151942
 

Wednesday
Home
Here is your chain, dearest, with all my love. Sorry I can’t put it on for you, but some day, when we are together for always again, I shall have the greatest pleasure in taking it off. Until then, my own, it can be a small tangible symbol of the invisible and unbreakable chain that will always bind us to each other. May it keep you safe, now and always, and bring you home to me.

From Stella to Arthur: ‘Until mothers are really ill, children regard them as machines that can’t run down’

Nov 141942
 

Saturday
Home
Dearest,
I’m feeling very virtuous this evening because even if you were here to bully me I could not be “looking after myself” more than I am doing now. I am actually in bed at the unholy hour of 7.30 – in fact the children and I all went to bed at the same time.
All this has not been done without reason of course. My cold seemed to take on a new lease of life today, and this afternoon I started going hot and shivery and head-achy. Actually I’ve improved a lot during the last hour but I felt really “in for something” at tea time. Anyway, I’m concentrating on sweating it out now with the help of bed, a hot water bottle, two Vegenin tablets, and hot milk.
I’ve told you all this in detail just to show you what good care I’m taking of myself and I do mean it when I say that I’m feeling much better already. The children have been splendid – they get really concerned now if I’m not well. Until mothers are really ill I think children are apt to regard them as machines that just can’t run down. This morning I had an extra hour in bed and they were up before me. When I came down I found the curtains pulled back and the breakfast table laid!
I went to South Road this morning but got no further at Martins except that I got a definite understanding that if the coat has not been found by the next time I go in they will give me a claim form. The woman admitted that everything had got in a terrible mess and I noticed there were several people there on a similar errand. Anyway, my much-loved blue coat was safe and sound and it does feel so nice and cosy. I don’t think I’ve ever had a coat I liked better than this one. The brown coat is beginning to feel a bit chilly now and I think I got this fresh cold on South Road today.
Your mother was round this afternoon, fortunately in a pleasant mood. She is trying to make Xmas plans but of course I couldn’t say what I was doing until I knew your movements. She is talking about going to Joe’s for Xmas, but of course she won’t. About Doris she has done just the same thing again – advised them not to come because of the expense. You remember how hurt Doris was last year about this same thing.
A bit of street gossip now – Mrs Hodge is expecting. She’s the last person I would have thought of because Carol is such a typically “only” child. I believe she got the shock of her life – something must have come unstuck! Anyway, if I’m proved to be in the same boat I’ll have some company going to the clinic, and if that comes off I bet Mrs Gardiner will follow suit. There’s nothing more catching than pregnancy, especially in this road. The position regarding myself at the present moment is that I am 12 days over but have so far had no other symptoms. Illness, as I have told you, can easily throw the machinery out of gear, so don’t take it for granted until I report more definite signs or until I can go to Rees for an examination – that will be in about three weeks from now. As you know I find this an extremely nerve-racking period and I’ll probably leave the subject alone until I have something more definite to tell you.
Talking about babies – I thought the irony of this would have intrigued you as much as it did me: Dick Hasprey[??] and Maisie with infant plus several females very obviously returning from a christening!
Well, love, that’s all the news for today. Like Charlie I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if you were still cleaning the tables at Cookham at the end of the war. Everyone is banking on next spring to finish it now but I’m inclined to think [??]’s was a pretty fair estimate. It’s the first time since the war began that I have ever been able to even dimly visualise the end, so it’s a new sensation for me.

Sunday
The first thing that happened this morning was vapours so you’ve lost your bet! I was as usual disappointed, but I’ve been sensible about it, and although it was later than it had been for a couple of years, I hadn’t really been banking on it.
I have felt much better today although my cold still hangs on. I have come to the conclusion that the real trouble now is catarrh because I have a perpetual headache and very peculiar noises and explosions in one ear. If it doesn’t clear up soon I’ll go and see Rees – I probably need some sort of nasal douche. I looked up catarrh in the ‘Home Doctor’ and read the depressing news that a cold in the head following “a virulent germ such as pneumonia” often leads to chronic catarrh. That didn’t exactly cheer me up but at least it made me determined to get rid of the condition as soon as possible.
The children were once again down before me so I let Wendy put the kettle on and Michael raked out and laid the fire without any supervision. He must have done it right because it lit first time! They’ve both been very good all day and altogether it’s been a quiet peaceful sort of day.
I haven’t done your pants yet, love. The only reason is that with a headache, working on dark material is just murder. They won’t take long when I do tackle them.
I do miss you, darling. You’ve been home so often lately that I’ve been completely spoilt. And yet already I feel as if I haven’t seen you for months. It will be heaven to have you home without the cloud of your going away always hanging over us. Never mind, the last few weeks have brought that day considerably nearer.
The children have got some fantastic game (Cynthia is its author) that would amuse you. Michael sits down holding a torch and is supposed to be God. Wendy dances round him and is a fairy. Michael’s eyes are shut but every so often Wendy rouses him and he stands up brandishing his arm in several directions, then says “I’ve killed them all” and retires to his throne again. Now, what would you make of that? When I was bathing him he said “I’m still God, you know”.
I don’t think there’s anything else to tell you. I’m looking forward to another letter from you tomorrow. It does seem absurd that there hasn’t been time for you to send a letter in answer to any of mine yet. The services both ways seem very slow, though the letter I sent on Wed. might have arrived after you left the camp on Thursday. Goodbye for now, sweetheart. I do love you so much even if I do go ill at awkward times and let my boilers burst at the wrong moment. I’m all yours, precious.
All my love,
Stella

From Stella to Arthur: ‘there’ll be some queer puddings this year’

Nov 271942
 

Friday
Home
Sweetheart,
No letter today young man – that’s twice in one week. I’ll be beginning to think that the wicked metropolis is luring you away from your poor little wife. You spoilt me in Glasgow, pet, that’s the trouble. There’s a funny thing about your London letters. No matter when they are posted they always arrive by the morning post. So if the ‘D.P.’ comes without a letter I know it’s no use watching the later posts.
I gave myself a holiday from cooking today. We went and ate, on the way back from the library, at the British Restaurant near the George (that one in South Road isn’t open yet). My one complaint about the place is that they give you far too much. What I should have done was to order one dinner and two plates and given Michael half mine, then we would both have had plenty. I couldn’t get through mine and though Michael seemed willing to wade through his I told him not to worry about it. Meat, potatoes, carrots, gravy, and steamed pudding with custard. For the two of us the charge was 1/5! They were doing a roaring trade and there was a complete cross-section of the public there – boys and girls from the secondary schools, business men, shop girls, soldiers, housewives, factory workers, bus conductors etc. There was a constant stream coming in and I kept wondering how and where they all fed before this place was opened – the demand must have existed yet no one realised it. It made quite a pleasant change, especially as I was stuck for something for dinner today.
The one in South Road should be more convenient for us when it opens and I’ll probably get into the habit of going about once a week. It’s not like having a meal in town where you feel “done” when you pay the bill.
Apart from this I don’t think there’s much to tell you today. Marjorie got my prescription from Bastick’s[??] and I nearly broke my heart when I saw the size of the bottle – about four inches high and it cost 9/7! I don’t know how long this treatment has to be kept up, but it’s going to cost 5/- a week, so that finishes any idea of being able to save a few bob for Xmas. You needn’t write and tell me to take the stuff regularly! When you’ve paid that much you’re not likely to forget a dose, and just as a matter of interest I’ve reckoned it works out at 9d a teaspoonful! So you may be sure I treat it with due respect. The tales you hear about how horrible it is are all a load of bunk – it’s not at all bad.
I didn’t thank you for the children’s letters yesterday. I think they appreciated the praise from you.
Do you realise this is the first time we’ve had no idea when your next leave will be? I suppose, by the 3-monthly rule, you are due for another seven days at the beginning of February. It’s a pity they’ve stopped weekends just when you’re in a convenient place.
Sweet, I miss you more every day. And yet, in one way, I don’t want you to see me again until I’m looking marvellous (as if I ever could!) That isn’t strictly true for I’d give the world for you to walk in now.
Well, lamb, I must to bed. I believe Melias have some raisins, and though I haven’t much hope of there being any left, I want to get down there as early as possible tomorrow. Elsewhere you can get sultanas but nothing else and currants are just non-existent. There’ll be some queer puddings this year.
Goodnight angel, I love you.
Always your own,
Stella

Saturday morning
Many thanks for long letter, darling. I’ll let you off about Friday!

From Stella to Arthur: ‘I hate to see good parents wasted when there are so many silly ones in the world’

Nov 281942
 

Saturday
Home
Dearest,
Many thanks for a very long letter today. There seem to be a few points to answer so I’ll start on it now. By now, of course, you will know that I have the liver stuff so the question of getting it in London doesn’t arise. The 2oz should last 2 weeks. I don’t know how long I’ll have to take it yet, and Rees can’t say until he sees how much improvement I’m making on it. As he is so concerned about putting me on anything so expensive I don’t think he’ll keep me on it any longer than necessary, but will probably put me back to the fessolates as soon as possible. Yes, I sent Rees the £1 a day or two after you left. I have also put aside another 10/- for him, but I’m afraid, after paying 15/- for medicine out of this week’s money, I’ll have to take that in order to exist till next pay day. This next bill will probably be about the same as the last. I don’t know what happens about the X-ray and other tests. I paid nothing at the time.
About the grant. I applied first to the SSAFA and they put me on to Miss Rollo. She is not connected with SSAFA but is the local welfare officer. Recently I have come across the slip giving information on this. It tells you to ask at the P.O. for the name of the regional officer for pensions. Anyway, it all goes to the same place for the decision and I don’t see any point in trying any other method, having found Miss Rollo so decent. As you can only claim for amounts exceeding £2 they would be justified in giving you 10/- for a £2-10 bill, so I think we did well to get the pound. I honestly don’t think the office scheme would be worth worrying about – this business of “after the first £5” makes it pretty useless.
There was an interval there. Mrs Gardner came over on a matter concerning Xmas puddings and from that the subject somehow turned to “nights out” and we both started counting how long it was since we had been to a dance. She has now gone to get on with the puddings and I’ve lent her some prunes to be chopped up as “ersatz” currants.
I’m glad you enjoyed your evening with Bill and Emily. It’s a pity they haven’t a family for I’m sure they would make really sensible parents. I do hate to see good parents wasted when there are so many silly ones in the world. It’s a wonder Emily hasn’t taken a job now – or perhaps she has. I know she used to get very fed-up with the house when she was here and I would have thought she would jump at the chance offered by war to get out to work.
No, Will has not left yet. He is still half-expecting to go but there’s nothing definite yet.
Now that finishes your queries, I think. Mother came over at about 1.30 today and stayed till about 4. She was much concerned over the lack of warmth in the hospital. Each bed had only one blanket and all the patients looked absolutely frozen, she said. She was telling me that Margaret has “discovered” Jean Lambert again and she and Ernest were staying with him last weekend. He is, of course, separated from his wife, and has a super furnished flat in Prestatyn at 5gns a week! There was lashings of rationed and unobtainable food on the table and Jean remarked that butter was quite easily got at 5/- a pound – and the same went for all other food! Point one, where does he get the dough, and point two, why the devil isn’t he called up? These people make me jumping mad. When I think of you being away and me having to worry about things like kids’ shoes and the price of medicine, and then I hear about people like Jean, I just get livid.
Another item of news from there is that there is a chance of Ernest being recalled to the R.A.F. Six of his pals, in exactly the same position, have had their papers.
I had a bit of shopping luck today – got the very last pound of big juicy raisins from Kings! Did I grab and what dirty looks I received! This has put me in a good humour for the whole day for it makes all the difference to my pudding and cake problems. Now I have raisins, plenty of sultanas and about half a pound of precious currants. I am making my own candied peel from a recipe originating from Mrs Hodge. The peel is in soak now in salt and water and tomorrow there are various other stages of draining and cooking and “candying” to be gone through, and there you are. I think I’ll get the puddings done tomorrow. I’m making half the amount I usually do – that should give me two medium-sized puddings. I won’t do the cake till later as I don’t know how it will keep with this flour. If only I knew you were going to be home I could work up some real enthusiasm for these preparations. Like last year I’m hoping to get pork – I’m not messing around with turkeys or fowl at the price they are.
The children have been to John Winter’s birthday party today and seem very intrigued by the gramophone there, which they insist on calling “the record”. John, who has improved a lot lately, is starting school on Monday, to his mother’s huge delight.
Well, lamb, that exhausts today’s news. That sparrow, by the way, did pass out and Tiger put his whole tail right in the fire and singed all the fur underneath which I thought served him right. Talking of cats, the kids were crawling underneath Johnson’s counter today after a manx kitten – this is the third generation now.
Sunday tomorrow and the chance of an extra hour in bed. This business of Wendy not being due till 9.30 makes all the difference to the weekdays, but it’s still pleasant not to have to rush on Sunday morning.

Sunday evening
I’ve had quite a useful day today. I felt really energetic this morning and the work seemed much less of an effort than it usually does. At last I got down to polishing the hall – the first time since you washed the muck off it! The children became infected by all this energy and they had a great time upstairs. There was much brandishing of brushes but where the dust was swept to I haven’t yet discovered. Anyway, it kept them quiet for the morning and Wendy discovered several hairclips during the operation.
This afternoon I got the puddings made and they are boiling while I’m writing this. With the fruit being short I’ve made half my usual quantity, one good-sized pudding and one smaller one. If you are not home for Xmas the second one will be kept for your first leave, unless you would like me to send it to you? Anyway, that is one of the points that can’t be settled just yet. The home-made candied peel was a great success and much nicer than the shop peel. I put some sherry in instead of rum. I believe it is almost impossible to get in small quantities. No doubt Dave could have got me some, but I don’t like asking when I know he wouldn’t let me pay him for it. The sherry seems to have given it the correct smell anyway. I won’t do any cakes and/or bunloaves until about a week before Xmas as I don’t trust this flour. By that time I might have touched for more fruit. Oh, for a bit of ground almonds! It’s something to have got the pudding off my mind. Just getting the ingredients was such a gamble this year.
This week I must try and get some black material and get that golliwog made. I believe Mrs Hodge has a really super one – home-made – for which she paid 12/6. The shops are full of home-made dolls and toys this year. I’ve seen several tanks very similar to the one you made. Incidentally, one of those electric shops in South Road still has some soldiers – very reasonable too for these days. I’d like to get some for the fort if I can persuade Michael to stay behind one of these days. I’ve got a vague idea for something I can do for Wendy inspired by sets I’ve seen in the shops – two sets of small cards one with capital and the other with small letters. We have some plain white cards in the house, which, cut in two, would be ideal. I could do the letters fairly big and clear and fill them in with Indian ink and she could build up words with them. If there are enough cards it would be better to have a double set of the small letters, wouldn’t it? I really must get on with things this week as I don’t want that last minute rush we always seem to have which means sitting up late for nights before Xmas.
Your mother was over this afternoon with some pills, which she insisted were my prescription. Of course they weren’t and of course I wouldn’t buy them off her. If people go on falling for these things she’ll never learn and, as you know, I’ve spent too much on this stuff already. There were enough of these pills to last for weeks and they were 4/- so you can see they can’t be the same. The new woman has arrived and as she is new she can only be described with eyes raised to heaven and bated breath – “her clothes! her furniture! her linen!” etc. No doubt she will soon fall from grace.
Well, sweet, that’s all the news for today. I’m feeling fine so don’t worry about me any more. There’s nothing wrong with me except wanting and missing you and that, I’m afraid, is a permanent state which only you can cure. Oh, darling, I do keep on loving you more and more and wanting you near me is just one long ache.
Now I must do some ironing. Goodnight, beloved. I adore you.
All my love, precious,
Stella

From Stella to Arthur: ‘I don’t need to tell you how much we will be missing you on Xmas morning’

Dec 211942
 

Monday
Home
My Darling,
I thought these slippers would make things a bit more homelike for you now that you have a civilised roof over your head for the next couple of months at least. Think of me when you put them on, and some day they might live in your own fireplace.
I don’t need to tell you how much we will be missing you on Xmas morning – always providing some last minute stroke of luck hasn’t landed you home! I’ll be thinking of you when the children open their stockings particularly – that was the high spot of Xmas day for us. Do you remember how our bedroom was always littered with brown paper and labels for days afterwards? And I’ll be missing you when I’m cooking the dinner and remembering how you used to wander in from the local with an odd pal or two, full of the Xmas spirit and holding up the dinner and making yourself a general (but very beloved) nuisance.
Oh, my love, you know without me telling you, all that I’ve been thinking today, and I know how much you’ll be longing to be home. Bless you, sweet.
All our love, precious.
Stella

From Arthur to Stella: ‘I was a very bad lad and slept in late today’

Jan 011943
 

Friday
Chiswick
Dearest,
I was a very bad lad and slept in late today so this will just be a very hurried note written on the train. You see I had the morning off and so had plenty of time. As is usual in such cases I just dozed and woke, dozed and woke, so that in the end I’m rushing wildly to get in on time to be paid. From this you will gather that as I haven’t yet been to the office there’s nothing new I can add on the subject of leave. I’m as anxious as you on this matter because there’s only ten days before the first watch go.
We had a very quiet New Year’s Eve. Just went down to the Packhorse and Talbot and had about four pints and a rum and home to wait for the New Year. Did Dave bring you a drink by any chance? I’ve written and thanked him for his Xmas letter, by the way, and also enclosed a brief note to Bill Black.
There’s no news today, angel, and I’m sorry this note is so brief, but as you have probably guessed it is being written on the train. I’m looking forward to seeing you in this “special” frock. What is it? An ordinary frock which can be turned into a maternity gown! Or is that wishful thinking?
Bye for now, my precious. I’m glad you’re feeling better. Take care and behave yourself for a few more weeks at the most. And only ten days if we’re lucky! The things we’ll do then! All my love, angel girl.
Ever your own,
Arthur X

From Arthur to Stella: ‘we went for a laugh to see Arthur Askey’

Jan 021943
 

Saturday
Chiswick
Dearest,
How the days are dragging. Xmas seems weeks ago and even New Year ages ago and yet it is only the second of January! Still, I suppose the days will pass; they always do.
We have just come back from the Gaumont, Hammersmith, where, at my instigation, we went for a laugh to see Arthur Askey in ‘King Arthur Was A Gentleman’. It was a very pleasant evening but I must confess that I don’t find Big as amusing on the screen as on the radio. He is definitely a radio personality. Still, I did enjoy the evening although this business of different closing hours in London still gets me dizzy and so, for that matter, does the geography of the place. In Hammersmith the closing hours are ten o’clock, but in Chiswick they are open until 10.30, so we jumped on a train, rode three stations to Turnham Green station (that’s three minutes from Dot’s) and, although it was 10.05 when we left the cinema, still got a drink in the Tabard at the bottom of Bath Road. As soon as we walked in, a woman began to sing ‘There’s Something About A Sailor’ so that I was all covered in confusion! Weren’t we lucky to get a drink so quickly! Yet the funny thing is that the nearest pub in the other direction – only about the same distance away – is in the Borough of Hammersmith and closes at ten o’clock and, as usual, of course, that sells the best beer. And there, I think, you have the whole of the news of the day.
Dot’s landlady, Mrs Fuller, has lent them a day bed, or divan, because she is closing up all but one of her rooms so instead of having to make my bed up on the bed-chair each day Dot is able to just cover it with a special cover. It’s a well-sprung bed and is really very comfortable, and I felt less like getting up than ever this morning, which is saying a lot! They are very useful pieces of furniture and Jack is very keen to buy it but Mrs Fuller isn’t parting.
Sunday
Do you remember me telling you that one of our young lads was married to a Wren in Glasgow Cathedral recently? Well he went in to the officer of the watch yesterday and volunteered for this draft which is going – or rather, has gone. That meant that one of the married men was able, at the last moment, to telephone his wife and tell her that he has had a reprieve. Apparently she is staying at a farm and she must have been feeling pretty blue because she was in bed when he rang at 8.45!
It’s Dot’s birthday today, of course, and she has had quite a lot of cards. As they are going to a 21st party next week, she was going to get herself a brooch yesterday but everything she saw was too dear. I think she has expensive tastes!
We have been talking about golf and I’m very conscious now of the fact that these days I get very little fresh air and I am seriously thinking of bringing my clubs back with me. Will you remind me when I come on leave? The great difficulty these days is getting hold of golf balls, which are becoming more and more rare. I could do with making friends with some Americans and getting them to have some sent over.
Well, my sweet, I am out of news. It only remains to tell you that I love you, oh so much. Angel, there are times when it hurts to love you as I do. I’ll be home to you the very first minute I can, but there is still no official mention of leave. I was talking to the Chief about it this morning and he says they are still waiting for the officer to decide the exact date we shall start – it might be the 10th, 11th or 12th – and which watch is to go first. Don’t worry, love, I’ll let you know as soon as I do. All my love, angel. I’m wanting you very badly again today. Thanks for the children’s letters. I’ll try to answer them tomorrow.
Ever,
Arthur X

From Arthur to Stella: ‘I wish I could draw – I’d send you a diagram of my intentions’

Jan 041943
 

Monday
Chiswick
Angel,
As soon as I pick up a pen to write to you, coma appears on the sky line! Just now I can feel my heart beating quicker at the mental vision I have of you. Precious, I love you. But first let me answer your letter.
Yes, I got a letter on Friday, thank you. I think you would realise that, even though I don’t think I said so. Just because I tell you to spend a couple of quid, you get as near the mark as possible, don’t you? 39/11, eh? Could have made it 39/11 and three-quarters could you? No nice handy bargains at 7/6 for you, of course! Must go spending every penny of it! Of course it’s alright, love. I said in my letter not to spoil it for the sake of 5/- or so. So long as it is what you want, I’m quite satisfied, but I’ll keep you to your bargain and kiss you in it one of these days. Not ’arf I won’t! It’s funny you should have bought a skull cap because I was going to get a green leather one for your birthday. You just spoke in time, young woman!
By the way, I also intend kissing you in your roll-on – and out of it. In the latter case, just above the navel, then slightly below it and then to the right and to the left of the lower target! This is one of the occasions when I wish I could draw. I’d be able to send you a diagram of my intentions. I don’t mind the “enemy” knowing my plan of campaign because I have a fifth columnist in the camp. Her name is Mary, and only me knows why! I resent the suggestion that I’m at the hungry stage. I passed that stage a long time ago and am now on the verge of complete and utter starvation. Of course *I* haven’t been to any wild all night parties over Xmas! And on top of that foul suggestion, she of the sagging maternity muscles has the cheek to tell me not to develop a corporation! Young woman, you need taking in hand, and I’m the lad to do it. If only I had my teeth I’d bite the lobe of your ear right off when I come home. Sweetheart, is it really only two months since I last nibbled your ear? It seems years.
When you said you wanted to push me into a chair and kneel and look at me I went funny all over because it recalled so exactly the atmosphere of our very nicest nights when all the unspoken preliminaries were so delightfully drawn out and you and I, enveloped in each other, lived apart in a little universe of our own for a little time. There are times now when you just come to me and envelop me so completely that nothing else in this world matters a bit. That is just how it is at this very moment. You know, darling, there are times when I think you really must love me a little bit.
Sweetheart, thank you for today’s letter. It was lovely. I should have loved to see you squirming on the pouffe. I had a very vivid picture of you. The line from your hips right to your bottom and Mary, going all wobbly and becoming so beautifully moist with her own emotion, and so sensitive too, that John, without guidance at all, would have found his own gentle way to the most secret and sacred and tender parts. Angel mine, if only my picture was flesh and blood right now!
I’m glad you like my plan for our first day. Dearest, we’ll do just that and perhaps we might even read those early letters you have! Eh? I love your own mental picture of yourself in the role of a virtuous wife following me all unsuspecting-like to the bedroom when I go for a sleep. Yes, I said sleep! I’ll bet I have hardly got into the house before you are insisting that I must be tired! Don’t forget to have a permanent stock of pennies on hand, will you? We’ll need them for the fire, you know!
I know what you mean about the never-failing thrill of coming home. I feel the same, too. And that, of course, is the greatest compliment we can pay each other for home to us means each other. For all that, my pet, no aspersions on the old days. We were very glad of doorways, and Town Hall corridors and walls. They meant a lot to us and even now, when I walk along The Mall at night before turning in to bed, I have a mental picture of you with your very willing back planted against one of the Admiralty walls! If I could have conjured you all the way from Crosby on one or two nights you would have been delighted to have put your back against one of those walls, I know. For a few nights I had to stop walking round The Mall and the park because the sight of the couples on the benches set my mind running on very disturbing thoughts and I did so want you to be here. If you can manage to get up here in spring I’d like to sit for an hour or so on one of those seats with you and see if my hand has lost its cunning. One night, weeks ago, you walked beneath the trees that line The Mall and I could feel from the periodic pressure of your ungloved hand in mine – you have such lovely hands, pet – that you were too sweet con to say a word. And I walked back to my narrow bunk, undressed silently and got into bed with a self-satisfied smirk on my face. The lads must have thought I had been out on the tiles!
Stella, my own, I must to the post and then to bed. I love you very very dearly and have missed you more this time than ever, I think. Leave can’t come a moment too quickly for me but there is still no news. Even at the very worst it can only be about a month off. We will have to stop these letters. They are upsetting us both but I love talking to you like this as I can’t talk to you in the flesh.
Precious, it’s time to say bye for today. See you tomorrow! Or rather, I’ll talk to you then. All my love, sweetheart. Take care of yourself and get really well and strong again.
Ever your own,
Arthur X
P.S. I misled you about the calendar. It arrived in plenty of time but I just couldn’t recall it when I was writing the letter! Sorry, love.
Take care of the solubles. Don’t let them freeze in this weather. And start collecting pennies, love. You’ll need them. I’m seriously thinking of moving the gas stove into the bedroom so that we can lie in bed while the dinner cooks! What say?

From Arthur to Michael, Wendy: ‘be a good lad until I come home’

Jan 041943
 

Monday
Chiswick
Dear Michael,
I have just been reading your letter again and am looking forward to seeing your big fort. Wasn’t Mr Black good to make it for you? It sounds, from what you say, as though it is a really nice one and perhaps we will both play with it one day when I come home, eh?
Could you feel your stocking on the bed when you kicked your feet on Xmas morning? I’m sure Father Xmas could not put the fort and the wheelbarrow in your stocking, could he? They wouldn’t even go in mine! You must have quite a lot of soldiers now. Do any of them ride on your tank? You certainly did get a lot of things and I’m so glad you had a nice time. Was Jennifer pleased when she saw her Golly? She would be surprised. Mummy stayed up late when she was at Grandma’s, didn’t she, and then was a lazybones – like you! – in the mornings. As you know, Daddy always used to get up as soon as he was called, didn’t he? Well, if not always, at least sometimes!
Who wins when you play snakes and ladders? For Xmas I got nice comfy slippers from Mummy, which I put on as soon as I come in every day; stamps from Wendy, one of which is bringing this letter to you; your cigarette papers, for which thank you very much and I will use them when Grandma sends me the tobacco; some pennies from Nanna (4/-); some pennies from Uncle Eric; some pennies from Uncle Bert (10/-); and some pennies from Auntie Geo (5/-). So I did get a lot of pennies, didn’t I? Auntie Dot and Uncle Jack gave me a case to keep my shaving things, hairbrush, soap, flannel and nail brush in. I’ll show it to you when I come home if I can find room in my case for it. And they also gave me some cigarettes and a diary. Wasn’t I lucky! Did you have a nice day in town when Mummy bought her frock?
Now I’m going for a little sleep. Bye, son. Be a good lad until I come home, which I hope won’t be long.
Lots of love,
Daddy

Dear Wendy,
Thank you for your letter, which I had been looking forward to receiving. I was going to write to you soon after Xmas, but I wanted to hear from you about all your presents. Somebody IS a lucky girl, isn’t she! I am so glad you had a nice Xmas and I only wish I could have been at home with you. Was the tree which Uncle Vic brought a nice one? The books I bought for you are written to help little boys and girls to learn to read and you must be getting a clever girl if you can read some of the words already.
On Xmas morning I did miss you all and I wanted to lie in bed with Mummy while we all opened our parcels on our bed like we used to do. I was disappointed that I couldn’t be with you, but I have got over that now and I’m looking forward to seeing you all when I come home on leave. We have to take turns in having leave and while the other men are away I will have to work harder, but it will be worth it. The man has not said yet when we can come home. They always take a long time to make up their minds, don’t they? Anyway, I think perhaps we might know when we go to work tomorrow.
You didn’t tell me how long holiday you have got from school. Are you still on holiday? Mummy told me you had a nice party at school. We used to have a lot of fun when I was a little boy and we had school parties.
Auntie Doris and Uncle Jack are at work and in a few minutes I’m going to lie down on my bed and have a little sleep because I’ve been working hard all night. I’m glad you liked the beakers Auntie Dot sent. They’re lovely, aren’t they? Well, Wendy, this is all for this time. Bye now. See you soon, I hope. Until then, be a good lass.
Lots of love,
Daddy
P.S. Thank you very much for the stamps. The one on this letter is one that you sent me. I should have said that first, shouldn’t I?

From Arthur to Stella: ‘we have three weeks heavy going in front of us’

Jan 051943
 

Tuesday
Chiswick
Sweetheart,
Sorry about this. The leave question is settled and, as we might have expected with my record, we have come out at the bottom of the list, which means leave begins in just about a month’s time – Feb 4. I could kick myself for having buoyed you up with the faintest hope of an early leave because I should, by now, have learned my lesson. There have been so many occasions when I have said that we wouldn’t count on anything until I was on the train for home, that I should have known better than to mention it at all. Actually, it means that under this arrangement I will be a week later than under the old one. When I saw the list on the board I was jumping wild, as you can imagine, more for the effect that it will have on you than anything else.
Although it is only about two hours since we got the news, I have accepted with as good a grace as possible and feel, in one way, relieved that we have at last got some definite news. Beginning on Monday we will have three weeks heavy going in front of us with 48 hours on duty and 24 off but, from my point of view, there are some advantages about the arrangement. One is that with so much to do the time will go quickly – I hope! – and the other is that, while on leave, I won’t be haunted with the feeling that I have got to go back to face a long slogging period of hard work. The only thing we can do now, my angel, is resign ourselves to things as they are for a time, forget all about the calendar at first and only begin to tick off the days as they get within reasonable reach of leave. Another point is that now the suspense is over and we know the worst, you will be able to settle down to the business of building yourself up properly. I hope you are taking your extract religiously still. Are you? Because in another month from now you should be heaps better. I’m trying to find all the good points about this business that I can! One way in which you can help is to make certain that you have vapours between now and Feb 4. You have been such a clever girl in that direction so far that I’m sure you will be able to manage it once again. Keep me informed on this point, won’t you?
Charlie and Jack, who are in the other half of our watch, are the first to go on leave!
Sweetheart, I’m so sorry that you should have this disappointment after you had kept your chin up so well over Xmas. I’m wild that I ever shared my hopes of an early leave with you for, as I say, I should have known better by now. Anyway, I promise you it won’t happen again throughout the whole of this war. I’ll keep all these things to myself in future. And I won’t write you any more “hungry” letters, either, for some time, although I will be wanting you just as badly as ever. I hope the reaction is not too bad, love.
Now I must be off for some dinner and then in to work again. Your letter telling me about the weekend will be waiting for me at home I expect, but I won’t be able to slip home today. Time is too short.
Dot has not been too well for the last couple of days and is going to get the doctor in today, so I suppose she will have a few days off work. She has had one or two attacks of migraine lately and is feeling a bit off colour, I think. Sometimes I have the feeling that running the house and going to business is a bit heavy for her, even though there isn’t a great deal of heavy work to do – and no children to look after, with all their ailments and feeding and clothing worries.
Well, love, I must be off. Try not to imitate the pricked balloon too successfully. I don’t want you to collapse completely! And remember the plans for our first day, like John, still stand! I’m always boasting, aren’t I, but not even this very cold weather can keep him down. When I think of you, he’d melt an igloo. That last sentence sounds like a title of a song, but I’ll present you with the idea. You, no doubt, can develop it – the song I mean, not John!
Bye, my angel, I’m so sorry. Do look after yourself and DO wangle vapours properly. We may yet find that had I got second or third leave part of it would have been “hampered” by vapours.
All my love to you and the children.
Ever your own,
Arthur X

From Arthur to Stella: ‘so I let you down in your dream, did I?’

Jan 061943
 

Wednesday
Chiswick
Angel,
Your last two letters, delightful as they were, have brought me some pangs because by now you will have had my letter telling you the date of our leave. And I’m afraid all your lovely day dreams will have to wait a bit now until they are fulfilled, won’t they? I’m afraid, too, that I have misled you a little bit in regard to leave, although in view of the month’s delay it seems very little to worry about. February 4th is the last time we are on duty, but leave doesn’t begin until 9am on the 5th. As we are actually on the job until 9am, and not just stand-by, I don’t see how we can get away early so it looks as if the 10.30 train will be the earliest I can catch.
So now we’ll have to rearrange the picture of the first day because I won’t be at home until the middle of the afternoon. Will you have a try, this time, at painting a word picture of our first night? You try and then I’ll see if I can add to it. I should say I’ll be home between 3 and 4. I’m so sorry I will miss your birthday, sweet, for it would have made a nice celebration. I am still kicking myself for helping to get you all worked up like this, angel, and then bringing you down to earth with a bump. The postscript to tomorrow’s letter will be vitriolic, I’m afraid! Never mind, love, you’ll soon be looking at the calendar and marking off the days with all the anxiety of an unmarried girl waiting for vapours. Sorry!
So I let you down in your dream, did I? I’m sorry, angel, but believe me I’ll do my best not to repeat that performance in real life. Your letter with all its references to your desires played hell with John who hasn’t been the same lad since. No wonder your body is one big ache. I love every little inch of it. Oh, angel, angel!
Apart from these things, one of the best bits of news I have had from you is that you have at last mastered the art of not letting Mother get you down. I haven’t written her yet because you have to be in the right mood for that, but I must get down to it. I wasn’t surprised to hear that Sunday went off without a nark. Those days usually do when other helpful people are there.
I’m interested to see Michael’s drawings. I think they are quite good, don’t you? For some time I haves sensed his reactions to school, just as you describe them. It is the reaction of most little boys I think, so don’t worry.
Thank you once again for the weekend letter. I had such a lovely picture of you in the bath, with your shy eyes. You are still shy of me, aren’t you, completely nude in harsh electric light, but not in the half-light of the fire. Oh, angel, I love that shy expression of yours, because it has, too, so much of your love in it. I can feel our still damp bodies pressed close together after a communal bath, even now. And I have a picture, too, of that little dark island, which is so much mine, waving as the tiny waves lap it. Oh, sweetheart mine, please, please be well and strong when I come home because you’ll need all your strength. Your description of your dress rehearsal was lovely and I got quite conceited to think I mean so much to anyone. Never mind, angel. In a month you’ll have eight full evenings in which to dress up for me, and eight more in which I can undress you! Yes, darling, I did get your letters and by now you will have had a letter full of heavy fun about the price of your frock. Of course the price was right.
Eric seems to be developing into the typical uncle and I’m glad. It will do him as much good as the children and I’m glad, too, that the children are gradually becoming natural with more and more adults outside ourselves. It will help to broaden and develop their minds. Wouldn’t Wendy love to have Ernest drawing for her for hours on end!
How are you feeling after your big wash? You only said what you had done to the clothes and not what they had done to you. Tell me honestly, sweet, what you think of yourself after such a heavy day.
Wendy’s preference for figures is weird, isn’t it? Most little girls shine more at drawing and reading than at sums. Easy to see she’s the daughter of a free-lance! Aye, the lance was free enough in those days, wasn’t it, even if you did hate the walls, and the hedges and the shore and the canal bank. You ungrateful hussy. Sweetheart, I just heard you sigh as you do when I take poor shrunken exhausted John out and I felt that little shudder run right through you too.
Precious, my own, I adore you, but the postman won’t wait while I write more. Darling, darling, I do hope your blues are not very bad. Try to keep your chin up for one more month. After this week time will begin to move again.
All my love, sweetheart, and do take care of yourself.
Ever yours,
Arthur X
P.S. I meant to say that your last two letters were two of the nicest you have written for a long time. I could feel the pep in today’s letter. Keep it up, sweetheart.

From Arthur to Stella: ‘a shooting star fell over Buckingham Palace’

Jan 071943
 

Thursday
Chiswick
Hello Sweetheart,
Here we are again and it’s good to be chatting to you again. Next to getting letters from you, especially such nice letters as they have been lately reflecting a more cheerful outlook on things, I like writing to you because on both occasions I can feel you so close to me. I knew you would be able to catch the atmosphere of my moods in The Mall at once and when you sat down to re-read it you only did what I often do with yours. Sweetheart, you do walk beside me here, and wherever this war may send me, there you will be. Unless things are purely masculine I always see them in relationship to the extent to which you would enjoy them and many’s the time I have pointed things out to you, including a shooting star which fell, one night, in a great silver arc over Buckingham Palace but you were quite peeved because you looked up just too late!
If we can manage it at all I would love you to come to London, if only for a long weekend. I doubt whether the money would run to much more than that for you hold my entire fortune in reserve! I’m so glad, and often wonder at our good fortune, that you do like being married to me. God knows, my love, there are millions of young couples with far more advantages materially than we have, but how few have that deeper treasure! Oh, my sweet, never let me cease to be your lover. It is because I am your lover, as well as your husband, that other women mean so little to me, a fact which constantly intrigues the other lads here – even the decent fellows.
I still want to make love to you out in the open air. Ever since we have been married I have loved doing that, as you know by the way I have taken you out into the garden or on to the concrete to kiss you sometimes. Some time we will sit on a bench in the dark. It may be a London bench, it may be a Crosby bench, but wherever it is will be all the same to us. But I should like it to be in London because then London would join the hallowed places – Formby (in some ways the nicest of them all), Shrewsbury, Wrexham, Aberdeen! All lovely places, aren’t they, my sweet? Oh, angel, I’ve tried to make up to you for all the little things so many suburban wives have which you have not got – a little car, a big vacuum cleaner, big heavy rugs on the floor, lots of lovely china and glass, lashings of clothes and, oh so many things I’m conscious of you being without. I’m afraid I’m a thriftless devil, Stella. Always I have been, and I’m afraid I won’t be young enough to alter radically when at long last I do come home for good. But one thing I have spent wholly on you is my love, which has grown for you bigger and stronger and deeper since its first tentative moves towards you in the ‘Bootle Times’ days, when its stirrings were so weak that I didn’t recognise them for what they were. Sweet, if I ever develop into a praying man, my chief prayer will be that both Michael and Wendy shall know a love as deep and lasting and precious as ours. You must carefully instruct Wendy in the art of waking three times on her wedding night to prod her long-suffering and newly acquired husband in the back! I, on my part, will have to teach Michael to achieve better results than I did, apparently, so that he won’t need wakening three times! You were an insatiable hussy – bless you! I suppose there’ll be a repeat of that performance about a month from now! Glory be!
Had we known about the leave earlier I would have suggested you coming from about now until the 12th. It’s too late now, of course, and there is no point in coming after that because we will be on duty 4–8 hours at a stretch and I’m bound to feel pretty well all-in by the time we get a day off.
Now, sweet, it’s almost post-time. So you have had snow? The weather has broken here, too, and for the first time since we came here there has been rain on two consecutive days. Still, I’m glad the children got some fun out of the sledge. They are more of an age to appreciate that now. I liked your fancy of the Jerry propaganda film, which was ruined by the British Restaurant, of course. A meal like that does you all good and is, of course, useful in keeping the children’s social education up to date. God knows how old I was before I ever had a meal outside the house.
Sweetheart, I must away to the post then get back for a bath and an hour’s sleep before I go back to work. Take care of yourself, love, and keep your chin up for a little time longer. Can you get to regarding this postponement as an extension of your time to get fighting fit? If you can it might help a little. I’m so sorry to have added to your wartime disappointments and I should be kicked for it.
Goodbye until tomorrow, love. I am still your lover and your husband, remember. You said so yourself, and you should know! All my love, precious. Take good care of yourself and give my love to the children. Did they like their letters?
Ever your own,
Arthur X
P.S. Dot’s off work for a week with respiratory catarrh but she’s not too bad, really.

From Arthur to Stella: ‘it’s good to be alive, though I’d sooner be living somewhere else!’

Jan 081943
 

Friday
Chiswick
Hello, Sweet,
You see, the days ARE beginning to move slowly by. One week of the New Year gone and the second started, so we are on our way towards leave at last. I know how you feel about not complaining too bitterly and I have the same feeling. There was a time, in fact, when I toyed with the idea of seeing if I could get someone from the other watch to change with me and then I decided that the best thing is to follow our avowed plan of not interfering with the plans of the unknown. There might be the danger that, if there was a draft between now and my leave, and I was the only one of the newcomers to have had leave, I would automatically qualify for it! So, all things being considered, I don’t think we will tempt providence by making any changes of our own free will, then, whatever happens, I can have no feeling of self-blame.
There isn’t a great deal of news today. I’ve been at work and I’m home for the day now and that seems to cover all my activities. I have just finished reading ‘The Yearling’ by an American woman, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. I read it in three sittings – the first book I have done that with since I left home, so you can tell I enjoyed it. So you have seen ‘Mr Pitt’ at last? I’m glad. And glad, too, that Mother seems to have given up nattering for a time.
Dot seems a bit better the last couple of days, but whether she will go to the twenty-first party they have been invited to for tomorrow or not I don’t know. She has just said, however, that she thinks she might go if only to get the “low-down” on Jack’s carryings on at work! Well, well, these husbands – you can’t let them out of your sight for a minute, can you? Jane sent Dot a cable today, just to give greetings.
I had another interesting letter from Hughie yesterday. He tells me that Allan Robinson has had an operation – for duodenal ulcers, he thinks. If that is right then Robbie will soon be in civvies for good because the service medicos hate any gastric trouble.
The weather here is delightful again. Blue sunny skies. Cold but very pleasant and it’s good to be alive, though I’d sooner be living somewhere else!
Comas are barred for the time being, I know, but you can’t stop me dreaming and last night I found the answers to several of my touching inquiries about clit – inquiries which have remained unanswered by you. Yes, she is still very responsive to me and, believe it or not, you enjoyed my dream as much as I did! You lucky beggar. So you see, precious, I still love you even when I am asleep and I evidently have the greater authority, or appeal or something, for you always come to me in my dreams. That, of course, is as it should be. And while on this subject, I think it a good idea that you should mention the matter of vapours to Rees. As you say, he will understand and by mentioning it early, there can be no fear of there being any doubts!
I have ordered some slops, among them being a towel which I will try to remember to bring on leave with me. I have meant to ask you several times if you found the second pair of my new underpants. If you did, are you wearing them and are they warm? I have some more on order but I’m afraid I can’t let you have those because I shall need them. My own are getting a bit thin now. I am getting a brown case like mine for Jack and Dot, and there are a few things I would have got had I known at the time that they were available. We get slops about once in three months here, so if I should be lucky enough to be here three months hence I’ll spend my full allowance. Would you like me to order a blanket for you? They are 18/6 each! I’m not going to get one to be sold to anyone else, but if you want one I’ll put one on my next order for you. Let me know sometime what you do want because we have to order well in advance. These things we are now waiting for – and for which I have paid this week – were put on order two days after we got here, so that gives you an idea how long we sometimes have to wait. I will be sending you a small parcel for your birthday in the next day or so and if it arrives before your birthday, don’t forget it has NOT to be opened before.
Well, my sweet, that is all the news, I think. No need to say how much I love you, is there? Take care of yourself and send me a full report of what Rees has to say, won’t you? I do hope he can see a definite improvement in you. And I’ll be interested to know what he has to say about vapours. Very interested!
Bye for now, my girl, and look after yourself. My love to the children. How are they? Are they behaving themselves lately? There don’t seem to be so many complaints about Michael these days. Has he got over his bad patch do you think, and does he help in the house at all?
Well, love, I must leave you, much as I hate to. All my love, dearest.
Ever your own,
Arthur X
P.S. Will the panto still be on in Feb? And what did Dave say about the photograph?

From Arthur to Stella: ‘sometimes I think we even owe something to this blinking old war’

Jan 081943
 

Friday
Chiswick
Darling,
A happy birthday to my girl. And ever so many more of them which I can share with you. I’m hoping that you have dropped Dave the hint so that he will have brought a drink to you tonight, just to cheer up things a little for you. For my part, you can buy me a pint when I come home! And I have been thinking that if you buy me all the pints you owe me you will not be able to pay the rent this month. There are several pints outstanding from my last leave, there’s one for not guessing what was in the chocolate box at Xmas, another to celebrate Xmas, another to wish me a happy New Year, and at least one for your birthday. That’s at least five pints and as you know what I’m like after five pints these days perhaps you would prefer me to spend my leave in one of the London service clubs? Please let me know in good time if you think you cannot stand the financial and physical strain of my leave! Stelly-well, my dear, I know you won’t have a very hectic birthday but I do hope it will go off without any undue narks. Do you feel bowed down with age now you are a year older? You will soon be as grey as me! Then what will you do? You know I only regard milestones like New Year and birthdays as little landmarks on the long road I have in front of me to travel with you. Some of them are on level stretches of pleasant roadway; some are at the foot of little and perhaps unseen hills; others, like this one, are on top of little hills of difficulty which we have climbed together. Whatever pleasures or difficulties may lie ahead of us in the future, my love, there is no one with whom I would sooner share the one, or face the other, than my own Stelly-well. Precious, thank goodness for the great and priceless gift of mutual trust and confidence. That, as well as the other secret you mentioned the other day, is one of the cornerstones of our married life. You, I think, did more than I to build that great sense of trust and I’m happy, more happy than you know, to think you are reaping your reward of my deep and abiding faith in you in all things. Perhaps the most difficult subject so far as we two were concerned in the early days of our life was the thorny and vexed question of religion. You know, only too well, the picture I had of people coming round and trying to inveigle you into taking a stand for the church against me. Well, they did come when I was out, didn’t they? But you never failed to tell me, love, that they had been, and what they had said, and what you had replied. Nowadays I sometimes think I failed you horribly in the Alexandra Road days, perhaps from thoughtlessness, perhaps from preoccupation with the very worrying business of getting us a living. But you never once failed me, did you? Many another woman, in the same circumstances you know, would have either yielded to the importuning of their visits or, even had they stood out against them, would never have mentioned the visits. The fact that you did both made me more vividly aware of your loyalty to, and faith in, me than anything else and it was on that beginning, I believe, that we built the policy of trust and confidence which has stood, and will stand, us in such good stead. In those early days, my own sweet girl, you built far better than you knew and my only wish is that I could go over them and relieve them of some of the loneliness – or aloneness – that I know now you felt. I was a very preoccupied young man in those days, wasn’t I? But since then, perhaps since we went to Crosby, we have drawn a lot closer together. And sometimes I think we even owe something to this blinking old war, for it has taught us to value each other even more than we did before. All of which is intended to show that, apart from your deep physical and mental attractions for me, there is a great and abiding faith in you which means an enormous amount to me. You and I will often see things from a different point of view. Now and in the future you may make decisions with which I don’t agree, but always I will have that inner satisfaction of knowing that whatever decision you have made has been made because you believe it to be right. God knows that if all this world had that same faith in their fellow humans then all our troubles would easily be solved.
From all of which, angel girl, you will gather I have not merely a great love for you in the accepted sense, but that I love and cherish very dearly so many of the other attributes you possess. Perhaps this is not the way most people would say “many happy returns” to the one person on earth. But it is the way I want to say it tonight because I want you to have at least another half century of birthdays with me. To whom else could I turn in moments of trouble and doubt with the same implicit faith, not that they would necessarily agree with me but that they would first be honest with me and only secondly would they try to comfort me. My sweet I know I have caused you pain in the past, I know too that it is ten thousand to one that I will cause you pain in the future because we are both human, but I know too that come hell and high water you will always be my own Stelly-well and will stick to me and help and comfort and guide me. So you will see that really, boiled down to their very essence, my good wishes to you on this day are also very selfish hopes for my own future for I find it impossible to visualise a time when you do not march side by side with me.
And now to the contents of the little box. I do hope you will like them and that they will be useful to you. The cigarettes will save you a bob or two I hope, and I hope that they will be a little treat as a “nicer” cigarette than you normally smoke. I only thought, after I had bought it, that as I didn’t get one for you at Xmas you have probably bought yourself a rain hood. I hope not, but tell me if you have. And the scarf will help to keep your neck warm in that brown coat which has no collar. Now with these things you have me all around you from your head almost to your feet and I would have done the job properly by getting you a pair of house slippers but I thought your clothing coupons sufficiently emaciated! I do hope you will like these things which come with all my love on a night when I am separated from you by only four weeks. I have already begun to mark the calendar, you see! If I can squeeze them in, I’ll also enclose my Xmas cards for you to see and the children to play with. I thought you’d like to see them.
And now, angel, I must to my bed for my eyes are like the proverbial holes in the snow! Sorry to be crude. Night night my sweet and all my thoughts are with you today. You know that. I only wish I might have been home but we still have that to look forward to. I wonder if I shall dream of you tonight? Take care of yourself, angel, for I do love you.
Ever your own,
Arthur X

From Arthur to Stella: ‘when I get home I will put you on a course of MY injections!’

Jan 101943
 

Sunday
Chiswick
Darling,
You see we have reached double figures in the date so we must be making progress! And there is only one more working day for me before the leave rota actually begins and that means three weeks or more of real hard slogging for me. I must confess I’m not really looking forward to it, but it will make the time pass, I hope. I’m beginning to miss the fresh air now and I think I’m beginning to lose my colour a bit, but that is only to be expected, working as we do. There is one thing – it is going to be difficult to write every day when we get on to this 48 hours shift, so I hope you will understand if there is an occasional gap in my letters. Still, I will do all I can to keep up the flow. I will tell you how it is working after we have had some experience of it.
I’m really glad that the books are so helpful to Wendy because as you had not referred to them I thought they had become just a few more story books to be read to her. From the hurried look I had at them I thought you would find the explanations at the front quite helpful. Anyway, you seem to have helped her a lot and I can see her getting the book habit quite early. She has my sympathies on her difficulties in recognising otherwise familiar words when they occur at the beginning of a sentence, for I have a vague memory of something similar. I feel as you do about her sums! Must run in the family!
You seem to have been a good girl in regard to the use you have made of the “free” mornings and it is really encouraging to know that you have taken full advantage of them. The rest will do you good and if you can get really well rested you will have greater resistance to any odd flu and cold germs which may be lurking in the atmosphere during the winter. The usual run of flu seems to have begun here, for several people are down with it and the P.O. of the watch had to go off early in the afternoon yesterday. I do hope I don’t touch for a dose of cold or flu on the eve of leave. That would be the last straw! And for goodness sake don’t you get a cold or vapours are certain to be late then! If that happened I would go mad. Thank you for telling me what Mollie said because it is comforting to have the opinion of a really unbiased person. I’ll be super-critical of your appearance when I do come home, you know, so don’t think you can get away with it by merely saying “Honestly, love, I feel fine”! Anyway, I’m standing absolutely no nonsense. The very first thing when I get home will be to put you on a course of MY injections! They will put you on your feet – or your back! – again. And, on that subject, I’ll tell you something that will surprise you, because if I didn’t know I’d say you were pregnant. Have you guessed? For the last three days I have had a touch of morning sickness! What do you think of that?
About the blackout. Before it ends I would like to utilise it just once! What a nice feeling it would be to woo you as of old in the open air. You would have to remember to wear the right kind of clothes and I would bark all the knuckles of my left hand as you squashed it between you and the wall, just as you used to do. So will you look out and report on the condition of the evidence.
Sweetheart, I love you so. I’m looking forward to this leave and I’m going over in my mind so many things I want to do with and to you! And yet sometimes I think I just want to sit and hold you and feast my eyes on you. God help you if you look worn and strained when I do see you at long last. I stop sometimes to wonder exactly what time I will get home and the exact position I will find you in. Will you, I wonder, stand with your hands on the table, as you did when I came home unexpectedly in September? And there is no doubt, of course, how you will welcome me. I know, darling, I can hear the words now, and the exact tone of your voice. Just now it is but a dream, but less than a month from now I’ll be seeing that dream come true. But I mustn’t dream too much now – it is too early. About the end of the month, say about twenty days from now, I’ll be able to let my imagination run riot again. Until then it can only come up for air occasionally.
Did you get your little parcel? I hadn’t time to wrap it myself before I left on Saturday, so I hope you’ll forgive me not addressing it myself. Jack tied it up for me. I sent my Xmas cards because I thought you’d like to see them. There is one unused, which you may as well save until next year!
Now, sweet, I must go. I feel tired this morning and I think I’ll grab a couple of hours sleep. Bye for now, love. Take care. Give my love to the children and tell them I hope to see them in four weeks time. All my love, darling.
Ever your own,
Arthur X

From Arthur to Stella: ‘all my blues used to disappear after two or three hours in the open air’

Jan 121943
 

Tuesday
Chiswick
Hello Angel,
As soon as I woke up this morning to the melodious call of the wakee-wakee man I said “happy returns” to you. I wonder if you heard me? Your parcel didn’t arrive too much ahead of time, did it? And I hope you liked the things. I am returning your clothing coupons and hope you won’t be too shocked at the emaciated state of it, but apart from the things I bought for you and Michael’s scarf, I have only used two coupons for things for Dot’s birthday and Xmas. I hope you haven’t been waiting too long for them.
Well, my sweet, the first of the lads have departed on leave and time will begin to go more quickly – at least for me it will. Instead of only one day passing between each day off, two will have gone, which means that we will only have three days off before the first lot of lads are back from leave and the second lot are away. Whoopee!
About the possibility of your trip here – it will cost the two of us 4/- a night (between us) for bed only at the Union Jack, which is not too bad because towards that, if you were here a week, I’d have the 25/- billeting allowance I pay Dot. I have made a point of paying her the full amount, in face of great argument, so that in the distant future there can be no argument and in the present there can be no sense of obligation. On top of the 4/- a day there would be meals – the heaviest item of all because you would not be able to feed with me at service canteens. We could, of course, have some meals at Dot’s, but I don’t see how we could live here completely. I doubt whether both of us could get on the day bed and get any real rest! As if we would, anyway. The only possible solution would be for Jack and Dot to give up their bed for us and one to sleep on the bed-chair and the other on the day-bed and I don’t think they have enough bedclothes for that. Anyway, it’s all in the distant future. First of all we will have to get leave over before we plan for March or April.
By the way, have I told you that we get leave every four months and not every three months as the Army do? I want you to get that quite clear. The other query about Nancy Parnell will be dealt with nearer the time. There’s no point in doing anything too early.
From something you said in one of your letters, I have got the impression that my “coma” letters are having a bad effect on you. Are they?
I’m sorry Dave is making an outdoor picture. I would have liked one with the Xmas tree and toys round it. An outdoor picture would have been better later in the year with you and the children in more “summery” clothes. Still, I suppose beggars can’t be choosers.
I was interested to hear of your long walk and hope you feel better for it if it hasn’t taken too much out of you. If you could do that more often you would probably be better because I’ve always been a great believer in walking and fresh air as a real tonic. I know that all my blues used to disappear after two or three hours in the open air. I’m also very glad indeed to hear of Michael’s improvement. He’s a good little chap really, and I think he has been better since he shed his curls and became a little boy. Perhaps the thing that has helped most, funnily enough, is your illness, since when they have both had a more responsible feeling although Wendy, bless her, has always been a good kid, hasn’t she? I’m looking forward to seeing the things you have made for her when I come home. Incidentally, with all those things on hand, just when WOULD you have made a jumper for yourself? No nonsense this year, young woman. You’ll get one made in the summer or I’ll know the reason why! Damn, am I always to be defied? Well, perhaps I am!
I had an interesting letter from Glyn Rees at the office yesterday. And I WAS right about Molly! Am I good, or am I? Glyn tells me she talks of a Swede boyfriend – as big as the side of a house – and calls all the lads in the office, rather contemptuously, a lot of “dead-beats”. She’s ready to fight anyone, I gather. See what a difference a little bit of what you fancy does for you! But this Swede must have more than the regulation six inches. Are you jealous?
Glyn’s letter is full of office gossip. He himself wanted to go in the Navy but was, surprisingly, graded 3 which was a bit of a shock to him. He is likely to go into industry. Wynne Jones has gone into the Army a week or two ago. Rita’s husband, Denis, is on his way home from India and is to be invalided out of the Army with T.B. from what I can gather, although Glyn was very guarded in what he said. I told you Allan Robinson is also expected to get his discharge, didn’t I? In fact the office seems to be likely to become a cripples’ home, for Mrs Buckley’s husband has also been off for some weeks with some sort of shin trouble and Bertha has been going round the office weeping. Although she is such a hard woman on other people, one can’t help feeling sorry for her in some ways because Tommy Buckley has not been really fit for years. I think that is all the gossip of people you know. The rest is of people whom I don’t think you have met yet.
Some time ago I said in a letter to Hughie that I was not going back to nights and Glynn says he heartily endorses that stand and so does everyone else in the office who has to take a turn on my old job – and they only get it once in five weeks! I have wondered a few times lately if you couldn’t cash in on this staff shortage next year when Michael goes to school, by covering Bootle courts on a retainer-plus-lineage basis. The courts don’t start until 10 o’clock and if the children stayed for dinner you’d be saving rations and work and perhaps picking up a few spare bob. We’ll talk it over when I’m home, but if ever you did decide on anything like that in the distant future it would be a good idea to have a heart-to-heart talk with Molly first. Now don’t start a lengthy and involved correspondence on the subject. Just let the idea simmer in the vacuum for a time!
Before leaving the subject of the office, it has occurred to me that I haven’t seen Algie for about six months so I may call in there during the daytime and have a chatter to him for half an hour while I’m home. Perhaps we might both be in town for an early evening one day and then we could have a drink in the Grapes before we came home – getting home, say, about 7 o’clock. Will you try to think of some way of disposing of the children until that hour? Would Mrs Reid have them from, say 3 or 3.30 until then? It’s just another suggestion for your consideration.
And now, my angel, it’s time to leave you. I have written to Geo but I’d like to answer Glynn’s letter today because I don’t suppose I will feel very letterish in the next three-and-a-half weeks – you see it’s well below the four week line now!
Oh, sweet, I love you ever so. Try to remind me when I come home to tell you of the dream I had the other night when we accomplished something we have often tried to do and never yet succeeded. It was one of the nicest things that has ever happened – and you loved it! Take good care of yourself, my girl, and despite what I have said on the subject, I’m looking forward to the photographs. When will they come? I love you very tenderly today, sweetheart. All my love.
Ever your own,
Arthur X
P.S. What about the allotment? Will you give me a horticultural letter some time because I’ll have to do something to that when I come home.

From Arthur to Stella: ‘I’m so glad you are looking better’

Jan 131943
 

Wednesday
Chiswick
Dearest,
I think we will have to come to live in the south after the war! The weather this afternoon when I left work was glorious and there was quite a definite April warmth from the sun. I believe now, more than ever, that London gardens are months ahead of ours.
You are a silly girl to have left yourself without medicine for a few days! I’ll spank you good and hard when I come home, although I won’t say what with! Seriously, though, do try to keep a little in stock because as I have never tired of telling you, the secret of having a course of medicine is absolute continuity. Taking stuff in fits and starts is no good at all because your body can’t adjust itself. Still, I am glad you are making a real effort to get plenty of sleep for that will help a lot. Don’t worry about my sleep on this 48 hour stint. I’ll get plenty of that but I’m not so sure about fresh air. I never seem to get any at all these days.
I’m so glad you are looking better and if you can say that yourself then there must be an improvement because I think people are always the last to notice any changes – for better or worse – in themselves. I want to see you put on a stone in weight before next winter begins and then I will feel a lot happier about you. Don’t worry yet about feeling the effects of a wash day. I’m still convinced, as I have been from the start, that you will come on splendidly once spring comes and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find this had cleared up a lot of little things and that you will be better than ever by the end of the summer.
All my love, angel. Be a good girl for a few more weeks and then you can be as bad as you like!
Ever your own,
Arthur X

From Arthur to Stella: ‘that pub, so close to the docks, is generally full of pros’

Jan 141943
 

Thursday
Chiswick
Sweetheart,
I’m so sorry about your birthday! I do want kicking, don’t I? All along I knew that two anniversaries – your birthday and September – didn’t fall on the 12th, but for the life of me I couldn’t think of the 16th. Precious, I’m sorry if it hurt you, but you know what my memory is. I’m afraid I can only apologise and explain that you didn’t get a letter on Tuesday because there is one in the parcel of course! And I thought I was being so clever arranging the posting so that it only arrived one day early. Poor old girl, I’m so sorry.
Today is the first of our “second” days on duty and I’m getting ready to go back for 1.30. We finished work at 3, were up soon after 9, and are due back on the job at 1.30 until 8. Then up again at 3 and work until 9, by which time it will have dropped to exactly 3 weeks from leave. So time is passing, love.
While this business of long hours is on I don’t suppose there will be a great deal of news because I’ll spend nearly all my spare time sleeping. However, I’ll have to try to follow your advice and get some fresh air, which I am really missing a lot. Laziness is largely to blame, I suppose.
And talking of fresh air, we might get some one night down near the river, as you suggest! I wonder if that same gateway is still there and, if it is, whether it can still be approached or if it is barricaded off. We’ll certainly pay a visit to The International, for even if we don’t get to that doorway we’ll find somewhere in the neighbourhood. Just a warning about The International, though. You are not likely to enjoy the atmosphere there these days, for that type of pub, so close to the docks, is generally full of pros! Anyway, we will call in because we can always go elsewhere and I’ll do my best to graze my knuckles in the approved style. I wonder if, after all these years of luxury, you will find outdoor oats – in that position, anyway – an anticlimax? We’ll settle the question once and for all, anyway.
I didn’t realise that night starvation was upsetting you to the extent of making you feel so badly about everyday things like the weather. My poor old girl. Still, just hang on a bit longer and I’ll do all in my power for you then. Just the thought of holding you once more is, at the moment, almost enough, for even now I can feel the warmth and virility of that dear body held close to mine and I can feel the flood of your love enveloping me in a deep sweet peace. You mean so much to me in so many ways that I don’t know how I ever managed without you, and even have to have you out of reach, hundreds of miles away, is infinitely better than not having you at all.
Last night I spoke to Eric on the phone and the great thing in everything he said was that you are looking better. In fact he thought that in some ways you were looking better than ever before. He seemed to think this treatment was doing you a lot of good.
Well, angel, I must away. All my love, Stell.
Ever,
Arthur X

From Arthur to Stella: ‘we were so busy that I had no time to go for tea’

Jan 151943
 

Friday
Chiswick
Hello Sweet,
Just a very brief note to say I love you and to wish you, again, a very happy birthday. As I wrote your birthday letter so long ago – a week! – I feel I must do that. I only wish, my sweet, that I could say it in person for then I’d be able to see that you had a happy birthday! And, as you know, one of the first things would be to give you a dose of the medicine which is apparently so efficacious with Molly. Dear heart, I’m sorry I cannot be with you for you know that if it were humanly possible I would be there. Never mind, pet, for three weeks today I’ll be in your arms once again – perhaps, by very good fortune, by this very hour: 3.45!
Your letter didn’t arrive until the afternoon post so after I had had breakfast I turned in for 40 winks and didn’t become conscious again until about half an hour ago, which is a shame because I should have got out into the lovely spring sunshine for an hour or so. I must confess, though, that I don’t feel so tired after this first 48 hours spell as I expected. And it can’t be through lack of work for we have never been busier. We were absolutely snowed under with work. We were so busy that I had no time to go for tea and we had to get one of the Wrens to get it for us.
Thank you for your newsy letter. I’m dying to see the photographs. You didn’t by any chance tell Mrs Gardner that Dave was going to take them did you? He’s a bit touchy, you know!
One sentence in your letter intrigued me. It was the one on which you say you were sure it was the cause of Molly’s rejuvenation – although she denied it! I should have thought Molly would be the last to discuss sexual matters with anyone else. By the way, I believe she kissed Wynne Jones goodbye – although very chastely – so through the medium of Glyn Rees I’ve imposed a fine of a pint because she didn’t do the same to me! I’m going to have a whale of a time on free pints this leave, aren’t I?
Stell, much as I love you, I must away or I’ll miss the post and I also want to collect my boots from the cobblers – 7/6 gone west! Darling, I want to linger and say all sorts of nice birthday things to you, but most of all I want to lean over you, so that occasionally as you open your eyes I can look deep into them and see that wonderful expression I always feel belongs only to me. And, darling, I want to see that contented expression in your eyes which inevitably follows an injection! My darling, you are all of life to me and so I say, once more, a very happy birthday, sweetheart, and may this year bring you full health and strength. With good health, and not a little courage, we can manage to get a fair amount out of life even while parted, you know.
All my deepest love to you, angel. Thank God you’re mine!
Ever,
Arthur X X (an extra birthday one!)
P.S. You were a good girl not to open your parcel!

From Arthur to Stella: ‘have your legs filled out again?’

Jan 161943
 

Saturday
Chiswick
Sweetheart,
Well, love, how now? Another weekend gone by the time you get this and only two more to go! I’m glad you feel that laggard time is at last moving along a bit and in case you feel it will help I’m enclosing a list of our duties so you can tick them off if you want to and then you will also know just which duty I’m on. If at any time you should want to reach me urgently – and I hope you won’t – you can wire me at work. The address is (with service rank and not “Mr”, of course) c/o Admiralty W/T Station, Whitehall, London SW1. You can write me there if you want to on the second days on duty because I don’t go home at all those days.
It cheered me up no end to hear that the nurse thought you looked better and also to hear of your cheerful outlook on Thursday. From that part of your letter I feel the cheerful spring note and almost see the early spring sun on the allotment. I’m glad you have started out there again and that you have started because you WANTED to and not because you felt you ought to. So you have been really sensible and taken things easily? I’m so glad and glad too that you feel some benefit from it. Keep going on in that way and things will go well.
I will do all I can in the plot when I get home so some time before I do get home will you let me have some of your ideas on the subject, with a little plan to illustrate where you want things. Will you also decide whether or not you are going to have potatoes or not? And if so whether you will have them on Russell’s plot to try to clear that more thoroughly of weeds and wireworms, or whether you would sooner have them on the left-hand side of our plot? I want to get a mental picture of the work to be done throughout the spring. In the short time available I won’t be able to make a great impression on it and, in fact, the whole of the land that is free should have been turned over when I was home last. Do you think that before I come you could, in easy stages, crush the mothballs down to a fine powder – or as fine as possible – so that I can get it on some of the ground to clear some of the pests out? Will you also make some inquiries about manure from both Betty and Neville? We want to lay hands on all we can so that you won’t feel stinted. I rather think that some of the disappointing results you suffered may have been due to insufficient food for them. If the weather is anything like decent I’ll have a good go at it and also get the manure if you make the arrangement beforehand. If, however, you feel that you can get a supply in by getting one of the lads in the road to cart it, so much the better. The ideal method, of course, would be to persuade Neville to deliver a decent load one day while I’m home! I wonder if you could manage that?
I feel a lot better for getting all those queries and suggestions off my mind, where they have been lying for about a fortnight now, probably because of the mild weather we have had here. How does your weight compare with normal? It’s good to see a move in the right direction but I’d like you to keep on putting on weight for some time. Have your legs filled out again? You gave me a dreadful shock that day I moved you to Limedale and I do hope you are filling out a lot. A full stone won’t hurt you. You’re not built on Chris’s lines, you know, and will never run to fat so there is no need to worry on that score.
I got the tobacco from Limedale today, so let May know, will you, until I get a chance to drop a line.
I do know how you felt about your vision of that day of days, Feb 5. So far as I am concerned I expect the last 48 hours will crawl by on leaden feet and I know the 3am to 9am watch will be sheer murder. Still, we have some time to go before we reach that stage!
Sunday
There is not a great deal of fresh news today. I have not been home so I did not get up until about 10 o’clock after tossing and turning in my bunk for a couple of hours. I seem to find some difficulty in getting off to sleep on this particular watch, possibly because when we finish at 3am there’s no chance of getting a breath of fresh air before we turn in. In addition to that we were absolutely mad busy. One of the fellows here says that in the two years he has been on the station he has never seen such a load of work. By a peculiar chance I have had a good deal of the heaviest stuff and for seven solid hours I sat typing away with never a break of more than two or three minutes to reel up the tapes. The last two or three watches have been the same. It’s not due to the three watches, it’s just a coincidence but the great advantage is that the time fairly flies past.
I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s post because I’m hoping that the photographs may arrive then. I do hope Wendy’s hair wasn’t like a mop of straw and her stockings down round her ankles as she usually has them!
By the way, have you made inquiries about the panto? Wendy asked specifically for ‘Cinderella’. Is that the Empire panto? Or was it one of the three usually run by the Pavilion? If it looks doubtful whether there will be a show when I’m home, will you take them? I should hate them to miss it through me.
Well, sweet, I don’t think there is a great deal more to say, except that I love you still and that it is now less than three weeks to the day when I’ll be able to show you just how much. Take good care of yourself until then, and then I’ll be able to take care of you for a few days.
All my love, angel.
Ever your own,
Arthur X
P.S. I feel so full of beans that I’m just waiting to see what is going to take the smile off my face! Something usually does.

From Arthur to Stella: ‘both of these incidents got the lads a bit rattled’

Jan 181943
 

Monday
Chiswick
Hello Sweet,
Another two days of duty finished – and what a couple of days! Sheer murder, to say the least of it, and this morning finished on a real annoying note. The bloke next to me – the best worker in the place by far – suddenly had dumped on him about half as much work as I would get through in a watch. And that only an hour before we finished. Just to spite them he cleared the lot in 50 minutes! I sit fascinated just watching him when he’s in that mood. He is such a good sort, too, and is particularly thoughtful of people who can’t move at his speed but are willing to pull their weight. About the same time our officer of the watch came along with a bloke, who was evidently a big shot although in civvies, and it turned out they had been timing messages through all the departments. Our boss seemed satisfied, thank goodness, but I don’t suppose it occurred to him to point out to the civvy bloke that we were then within half an hour of completing 48 hours! Both of these incidents got the lads a bit rattled.
I had so been looking forward to your letter this morning because I thought the photographs would be in it! I’m not grumbling, love, your letters are always welcome, but I just thought Dave would have given you the prints by the weekend. Send some on as soon as you do get them, won’t you?
What bad luck about Wendy. Do you really think it is the old stuff breaking out again, or isn’t it more likely that she has been re-infected from some source – school books, for instance, are ideal “carriers”. I hope you manage to confine it to her hand this time.
Fancy Stanley having been in the Navy for six months. It doesn’t seem anything like that time. Somebody should kick Audrey in the pants for the way she treats him, although I must say I think he has largely got himself to blame. I’d like to see you getting on a bus just as I came home! Don’t worry, my love, if ever you were to give me a welcome like that, it would be the last leave so far as you were concerned.
Sweet, I’m not trying to back out of the panto, you know that, but as it may be years before ‘Peter Pan’ comes again, I’d like you to take the children to that instead. Wendy is absolutely at the right age for it. At the age of ten – and she might easily be that before she gets another chance to see it – she might easily be in the doubtful stage about fairies and that spoils the show for them. Perhaps a day or two beforehand you could tell them the story of Peter Pan again just to refresh their memories. I would far sooner they saw that this year if it can possibly be managed.
So you are worried about being an old hag of 28? That must mean that you are tired of – or disappointed with – being married to a decrepit old gent of nearly 36 with, so to speak, one foot on the borderline of middle age! Don’t be daft. You are a smasher at 28 and will be at 68! To me 28 seems to be a bit of a girl! I hope you enjoyed the pictures and that the children enjoyed your party! What a business when you have to throw a party to pacify the kids. Still, it’s a good habit that may yield some good excuses for a binge when Michael gets a bit older and starts bringing “old hags” of 28 home. Only 24 years from now, love. How do you like that thought? And the picture of me playing risky games with them at 59. I only hope Michael will be strong enough to lift me on and lift me off.
I’m glad you liked the things and that the hood came in useful so early. I was worried in case you had already bought one.
You will know by now that we had a raid last night – and another in the early hours of the morning although as we were deep down we didn’t know anything of that one. We had just started supper at Westminster YMCA when the guns opened up so we hurried through our meal and went to see the fireworks. It wasn’t a very good night for seeing things, but even so this new defence seems pretty colourful. We were discussing how few people were killed or injured by shrapnel last night and dismissed the chances as being very remote. This morning we heard that two people were killed on Westminster Bridge by shrapnel – a couple of hundred yards from where we were! It was only then that I recalled the official warning issued some months ago about the added danger from shrapnel since this new defence was introduced. I know you never take any risks in raids but thought it as well to remind you and perhaps you’ll impress the children if there’s any likelihood of day raids. The lads amused themselves during our walk trying to count how many Yanks they could see out watching the fun. We had no difficulty. We saw two!
Well, love, there’s nothing more to say except, of course, that I still have a slight affection for you and am, in many ways, rather looking forward to seeing you! I’ll say! All my love, sweetheart, and take care of yourself.
Ever your own,
Arthur X

From Arthur to Stella: ‘I miss all the fun these days for I have never heard Michael’s attempts at song!’

Jan 191943
 

Tuesday
Chiswick
Sweetheart,
Thank you for a nice long letter in which you say so many things I don’t deserve. You are an angel, you know. The main thing which emerges from all these letters, and all too brief leaves, is that we have an abiding love and a deep and steady trust in each other – possessions not to be bought for fabulous sums.
I’m glad your birthday went off reasonably well, even if the “party” did fall through at the last minute. Your description of the serenading was most amusing. I’m missing all the fun these days for I have never heard any of Michael’s attempts at song! Let’s hope they are better than mine, or he will be having a rough time when he’s married – unless, of course, he gets a doting wife!
What a messing business Wendy’s scabies have proved to be! You had better warn Michael against playing on her bed or you’ll have more trouble with him.
What a pity the pictures have been held up. In another week it will almost be time for me to come home! Still, I’ll be glad to see them as soon as you get them.
I got my slops issue today, by the way, so will bring that towel with me. Dot will be jealous when she sees it. By the way, will you drop her a line soon? I think she is due for one, isn’t she?
I’m sorry this is such a scrappy letter, love, but today has been very uneventful and there are not many points to answer in your letter, nice as it was. Bye for now, angel. I do love you so much.
Ever your,
Arthur X

From Arthur to Stella: ‘this is the best place in the world for getting stuff’

Jan 201943
 

Wednesday
Chiswick
Dearest,
Things have been very quiet again during the last 24 hours except that we have been invaded by a shower of civvy girls for training by our girls. The first day, of course, they have all been as sweet as pie to each other, but what they will be like at the end of the week I can’t say! The lads are greatly intrigued, as you may imagine.
Today is halfway through already and we have only been up for an hour or so! We were flat out, as is my wont, when we got a hurried alarm that the charwomen were on the horizon. We got over to the Crypt just in time to miss breakfast and are now going for a walk to work up an appetite for dinner!
I haven’t had a letter from you today yet so there’s nothing to answer from that source. I’m looking forward to hearing your ideas on the plot. This warm weather here keeps making me think in terms of gardening.
The latest rumour here is that we are to work 48 hours permanently. It is quite possible because I do know that the people here have been trying to get a bigger staff of tapists and as they can’t get them they may try to meet the shortage in that way. If that happens, I don’t know how they will work leave in the future. But I suppose we will have to get this leave over first! Still, the fact that they are so short-handed means that they are not likely to be in a hurry to get rid of us. One reason I am anxious to stay is to get hold of a good stock of things from slops. This is the best place in the world for getting stuff if you are only sure of being here long enough to collect them.
What did Mother have to say when you saw her? I wrote about two days ago and she wrote back to Dot a couple of days ago and funnily enough Dot didn’t, as she usually does, show me the letter!
Well, love, as I said at the beginning, there’s no news. Bye until tomorrow and take care of yourself. All my love, precious.
Ever your own,
Arthur X

From Arthur to Stella: ‘he had to dive into a pub doorway to avoid being machine gunned!’

Jan 211943
 

Thursday
Chiswick
Sweetheart,
First of all, many thanks indeed for the photographs, which I got at work yesterday when I went back from dinner. They were probably there earlier but as we were rushing to get out to try for some breakfast I didn’t go down to our office after having a wash. I think the photographs very good indeed and very like all of you. Just one suggestion arising from them – isn’t it well past haircut time for Michael? Sorry, pal, but you must do something about it!
Both of the children look very fit indeed, but of the two I think Michael has the greater change since I saw them last. He seems to be getting very sturdy now, while Wendy is just a slightly bigger edition of what she was last year, on comparing the two photographs. Get last year’s out and have a look at them, you’ll be interested. In the latest picture, Wendy has adopted a real little girl pose with her hands behind her back. Of the two pictures of you, I like the one looking to the left best because it shows a better laugh – dimple and all! If you lay the pictures down so that they are facing each other, it is the right-hand one I mean. You look really nice in it and I like your frock very much, although the little pockets are just a shade too high to be of real use to me, aren’t they? Again, comparison with last year’s pictures shows that you have lost weight and with the pounds you have dropped have gone your several chins. Look at the golf course pictures! Anyway, love, you certainly are looking better, and much more cheerful, than when I last saw you and altogether I think the pictures very good. Dot hasn’t seen them yet, of course, but I have no doubt that they will want one of the children when they see them. Please say “thank you” to Dave for me and tell him I’m delighted with them – as I am. I’ll drop him a note as soon as I can.
Now to answer your letters. So Rees was facetious, was he? I can well imagine it. Still, I’m glad he really thinks you are looking better and even if you do have to continue with the medicine for six weeks, it is better to get properly built up again than to stop now when you are evidently well on the up-grade. Six more weeks will help you along towards spring and it is funny what a faith I have in that time of the year. Yet it is nature’s period of renewal, isn’t it?
About vapours, sweetheart, let’s get this straight at once. I’m not merely making the trip to Liverpool for a sexual orgy alone, you know! I’m coming home to be with you, dear heart, and the children too, for a few days. And I’m coming home to feast my eyes on you and to hold you close once more. Now, it would be silly of me to suggest that I won’t have a more or less permanent desire for you in visible form – because I will! But if oats are out of the question then it will not ruin my leave, even if leave is not quite what we now hope (against hope it seems) it will still turn out to be. Two “don’ts” on this subject: don’t talk nonsense about blaming yourself, because you have been a very clever girl indeed so far; and don’t let yourself get all irritable about it, because that will only set you back again. If you can manage to persuade your menstrual wotnots to function in the old cycle, then so much the better; if not, we are just unlucky this time. I know I won’t find it so easy to theorise lightly on the subject when you are lying in my arms! Sweetheart, even the thought of it is so delightful. But I’ll have to make the best I can of it. And talking of leave, I’m glad the children are so interested. I will try to come home at a time when they can meet me, but I’m rather afraid Wendy may still be at school. Still, we’ll see about that.
A fortnight today I begin my last day of duty – at 1.30pm, and my last watch at 3am in the morning! Yesterday B watch went on leave and today Jack and Charlie resumed duty. I feel infinitely superior to them, although I must say they both look heaps better for the change.
I never fancied Michael as a dramatic orator and am rather surprised to hear of him making such an impression. It just shows that you never can tell.
Like you I’m jumping from point to point in this letter, but I’d be glad if you would send letters to the office on my afternoon watch. It’s pleasant to keep getting letters daily and this week in particular because as I’m on on Saturday afternoon I won’t have time to get out of here, which means I’d not have your letter until Sunday. Although I think you are an angel to feel as you do about the panto, I’d still rather the children saw ‘Peter Pan’ if it’s at all possible. There are sometimes quite long lapses between the productions. You seem to have quite a full social diary this week! Nice work, love, the changes will do you good. My love to May when you go, and say many of ’em for me. By the way, did Molly write to you?
OK, love, I’ll ask Dot about the spool and needles. Did you ever get the other part? If you didn’t, you will lose it. It must be nearly six months since you took the part there. You are silly, you know. Tell Wendy I’m glad her spots are better and please thank Michael for the ships! And that, I think, clears up all the points in your letters.
There is very little news here just now as I’m doing nothing but sleep and work. People are deeply angry about this day raid in which the school was bombed and blame our own defences as much as anything else. Tom Oliver lives at the top of the road where the school is and swears that the plane was so low that it had to climb to avoid striking the school before dropping the bomb. We were having dinner at a Toc H Club opposite the Commons at the time and there was gunfire a good five minutes before the siren went. No wonder parents are playing hell about it. Somebody needs what is termed in the senior service – very rudely – a bollocking over the whole job and I hope they get it. One of the most cheerful lads in our place, an old stager with a perpetual wide grin, was evacuated because of a time bomb dropped in the previous night raid. He was on his way home from work yesterday when he had to dive into a pub doorway to avoid being machine gunned! As valid an excuse as I know of for going into a pub!
Well, my angel, that’s about all the news. I hope you will have a nice weekend, and remember that I’ll be home a fortnight after this letter. Whoopee! Time is beginning to move now. My love to the children, and all my love to you, sweetheart. Do take care of yourself and remember to take your medicine regularly!
Ever your own,
Arthur X
P.S. We were at work and knew nothing of this morning’s alerts.

From Arthur to Stella: ‘I’ve gone and got myself a first-class cold’

Jan 221943
 

Friday
Chiswick
Angel,
Calamity has befallen me! I’ve gone and got myself a first-class cold, so I hope you won’t mind if this is a brief and, I’m afraid, not very interesting letter. My cold is just at that unpleasant, miserable stage when my chest is raw with coughing and not getting anything up, and I keep going hot and cold. You know all the miserable signs! Anyway, I went down to see the doctor this morning and I’m getting treatment at sick-bay each day so I’ll be OK by the beginning of the week, so don’t worry about it.
I’m glad you saw ‘Mrs Miniver’ because everyone who has seen it speaks very well indeed of it. Funnily enough, you will find, within eighteen months of the end of this lot, that the conditions under which you live now are difficult to recall. As proof, just try to recapture the atmosphere of the raid season when you were bringing the children down night after night, and I’ll bet you can’t without the help of searchlights and the other etceteras.
By the way, one of the lads dropped a bombshell today when he informed us the railway drivers have given the legal three-weeks notice of their intention to strike and the notice expires Feb 5th! What do you think about that? Still, it won’t stop me getting home. You’re a sweet girl, my love, the nice things you say about having me home. It won’t be long now, love, and it can’t come too quickly.
Take care of yourself, precious. All my love.
Ever,
Arthur X

From Arthur to Stella: ‘yesterday was one of the most miserable days I remember spending’

Jan 231943
 

Saturday
Chiswick
Dearest,
It’s a long time since I welcomed the end of a day so heartily as I welcomed 3am today. I dropped into bed and was dead, to all intents and purposes, until after ten o’clock. When I woke I still had a touch of that fluish soreness but the cold on my chest has broken and I can cough now without feeling that I’m ripping my chest to pieces. In fact, apart from a little muscular soreness due to coughing, I’m feeling very perky and two more days will see me back on my feet again. Yesterday was one of the most miserable days I remember spending, but I’m OK now so don’t worry. I have always been like that with colds – quick to get depressed by them but, once the peak has passed, quick to recover.
I went down to the W.T. room before I came out this morning but your letter had not arrived, so I expect it will be waiting for me when I get back at dinner time. From all accounts we are going to be mad busy so the day should pass quickly, but I always hate the second day of the 48-hour stretch – it seems to drag so. We have not heard anything definite about the suggestion of permanent 48s but I don’t suppose that will be settled until nearer the end of the leave rota – probably just before we get back from leave.
Well, love, there’s only about 12 days now before I’m on my way – or that’s all there will be by the time you are reading this. This next week will go pretty quickly I think, but the last few days will fairly drag along, I expect. Still, the days must eventually pass, I suppose.
Dot was delighted with the pictures and preferred the one of you that I like. She thinks the children look fine and was most struck by the change in Michael who, she said, is much sturdier than when she saw him last. It’s funny that she should have used almost identical words, isn’t it?
Sunday
Yes, your letter was waiting for me when I got back at 1.30. Thank you for it, love, and I’ll answer it tomorrow if you don’t mind, because I have only dashed out for a bit of breakfast while waiting for the doctor to come in at 10 o’clock. I am off all today, of course, and I’m going to ask him if he’ll put me off duty tomorrow, which will give me a clear 48 hours. The latest development is that my cold has gone wet and my nose is running like a tap. I went and had a few beers with the lads last night and that probably helped. Anyway, whether they helped or not, I enjoyed them! Well, love, I’ll leave you for the moment. Don’t worry about me, it’s just an ordinary cold I’ve got and now that it is moving, I feel heaps better. Take care of yourself, sweetheart. One more weekend only! Whoopee! All my love.
Ever your own,
Arthur X

From Arthur to Stella: ‘I’m going to love you more than ever in that frock’

Jan 241943
 

Sunday
Chiswick
Dearest,
I feel bubbling over with conscious virtue for I have done all the “sensible” things today. I saw the doctor this morning and told him the tale but he thought I was over the worst of my cold now and said as I was off today I could go and see him again tomorrow! He gave me some tablets to take during the day and there you are. As it was very cold and foggy he thought I’d better stay in and have a hot bath to take away the aches and pains. I have done all these things and also done a little writing, and a little sleeping and sewed one and a half badges on my jumpers. Now aren’t I a good lad? And here I am, at 11pm lying in bed writing to you and glancing over to the mantelpiece to say “howdy whacker” to your picture, as I do a hundred times a day. I love you lots and I think I’m going to love you more than ever – lie down, John! – if that’s possible in that frock. It looks lovely, and so do you my angel and I’m wanting you so much today.
And now I must answer your letter which I got on Saturday, but before I do that there are two things I must mention before I forget them: (1) Will you let me know by return what size camera the two films are for so that I can try to borrow one here; (2) Dot has made enquiries about the sewing machine but was strongly advised not to buy anything without the shuttle, or spool case or whatever you call it as it is not so much a question of size as of shape of spool. So, once more, will you get that damn shuttle back and send it to me before I go stark staring mad and run round Hyde Park in my vest and underpants yelling “Frister and Rossmann spools wanted” at the top of my voice! If you don’t get it now, I’ll give the damn machine to the bin man while you are at the shops! Better now that’s off my mind but I’ll be much better when I get the dirty water off my chest! And what a chest. Second only to yours, my angel. Happy thought. In fact, two happy thoughts – a right one and a left one. Love, you’re playing hell with me tonight!
Now to answer your letter, even if briefly. I get your letters at dinner time, generally. Yes, they were Masterpiece beans and I’m glad you’re buying early. Did you hear Mr Middleton today? Next winter and the following spring are going to be the testing times on food, he says! That, my love, is spring 1944! So you still get tired quickly? Well, Stell, it’s all we can expect I suppose, and I’m ever so glad you are dropping things if you find them a bit too much for you. It’s far better than trying to do too much just yet. You seem to have made absolute beasts of yourselves at the British Restaurant. No, I didn’t get book 7 in that series but if I get a chance I’ll slip along to Oxford Street one day and try to get the others so don’t you do anything for the time being. I’ll see what I can find and let you know. I’m really pleased that they have been of some definite use and I only hope Wendy doesn’t feel that she has been done out of one solid Xmas book as most children get. I agree with you about Michael; he’ll have a big advantage through Wendy’s scraps of information. I’m looking forward to hearing her on a new book. Her difficulty with “d” and “b” is the same as she had at first with her figures. Remember how mad I used to get when she wrote 7 backwards? Poor girl! What a shame it was.
Well love, like you I’m very very sleepy so I think I’ll turn my back on you. See you tomorrow, sweetheart.

Monday
Back with you again, sweet. I was very late getting out this morning and your letter came before I left so I was able to read it on the train – a most unusual treat for me. I’m glad you have fixed up but you don’t say which day it is for. We’ll soon have to have some sort of schedule for this leave. Eric (fix with them will you?), the panto, Mother and May will take four days! Or part of four days at least, which won’t leave a lot of time free. Your other frock makes a nice present from May. Is it coupon-free or did you have to give Mrs G coupons for it? So, Michael had had his hair cut had he? Well, he was a month overdue for another haircut the day after you took him! He can’t always wear a great mop of hair like that, love.
Thank God you’ve got that spool at long last! You have escaped rape and murder by a narrow margin, the former to your deep regret no doubt! OK, sweet, I’ll ask Dot about the needles when she comes in and will you let me know if you want me to bring a few with me if I can get them?
Well, sweetheart, that’s all the news. There is one little point in which you may be interested. It is that ten days after you get this I’ll be up your way! Only three more days off and on the fourth I’m on my way! Won’t be long now, my angel, and I’ll soon have you to my self again for a few days and nights. It’s a good job you are getting plenty of sleep now, because you will probably be needing all your reserves of energy. Are you still taking your medicine very regularly and not missing a single dose? I hope so. I am not going into a coma. Can’t afford that yet, but it’s nice to see the days going by. Let me know by return if there is anything you want bringing or doing because my free time is very limited now and is almost wholly occupied with sleeping or writing to you!
I’m sorry Wendy has got a cold and I’ll be most annoyed if the house is full of half-dead people when I get home. For goodness sake don’t let that happen, love – I’d go crackers. Take good care of yourself my angel, because I’ll be seeing you soon. All my love.
Ever yours,
Arthur X

From Arthur to Stella: ‘I’m sorry to hear you have a code id the doze’

Jan 261943
 

Tuesday
Chiswick
Dearest,
Many thanks for your letter although I’m sorry to hear you have a “code id the doze”. Mine is a good deal better although the cough seems to hang on pretty grimly. Look after yours properly, without it dragging on and on as so many of your colds seem to do usually. You can’t afford to take chances with them now, you know.
I’m glad the panto looks so promising – I’m looking forward to it. Whatever it is like, the children will enjoy it.
Mother made a half-hearted gesture the other day when sending some things to Dot, by enclosing some stamps for me with a note to say that she was writing later. She’ll come round, don’t you worry, although I do know that probably one of the main reasons she is narked is that I don’t write to her about once a week. She as good as said so in her last letter. Don’t you do anything in this matter at all. Don’t take sides even, or make excuses. I can handle her alright, although to be honest I have probably neglected her a bit in regard to letters since I came home. For that matter I have neglected about everyone, I think. The letter you sent on, by the way, was from Ralph. He and Percy are now somewhere in Dorset. Apparently they had a whale of a time in Warrington.
I’m glad you let me know about the books because I was going to try to get them tomorrow. I won’t bother with them now, of course.
Sweetheart, the weather is lovely here today and if it’s like this tomorrow I’m going for a long walk if I can manage it and see if some fresh air will help clear this cold up. It usually does. The weather is so unsettled this last few days. Yesterday was cold with high wind and driving rain. Today is mild and balmy, so we don’t know just where we are.
I have now got to that stage where time is fairly going to fly past because I have such a lot to do before I come home. Little things to do to my clothes and letters to write to Dave, Hughie, Fred Stephens and a few others and it is going to be a job to get them all done. I mentioned the needles to Dot but we were rushed getting tea and then rushing out to work again but I’ll try to get them to you by the weekend.
Must be off to lunch now, angel. Take care of yourself and nurse the family’s colds properly. Everyone fighting fit on Feb 5 you know! With your cold I suppose it’s hopeless to look for the V sign on any of your letters now.
While I remember. I have pyjamas at home, haven’t I? I hope so because it will save one bulky article being packed. The days are getting fewer now, my sweet. Soon the last watch will be away and then it will only be a few days before we’re off too.
All my love till then, angel.
Ever your own,
Arthur X

From Arthur to Stella: ‘when are you going to write me a long, exciting, oaty letter?’

Jan 271943
 

Wednesday
Chiswick
My darling,
No need to tell you what a clever girl I think you are, for your letter today meant so much. As you were so good, I’m sending you today TWO letters, only one of which is written! The other is to be treasured for an open air fete. I can tell you now that it is just John’s size, because I have just tried it on in front of the gas fire and John ALMOST cried for you. Still, he did look a big lad in his long suit. You would have loved him, I’m sure, as he throbbed in pride – the conceited devil. In another nine days or so, you’ll be able to take some of the pride out of him, however! Oh, my love, I do want you. Just the sight and feel of the evidence has put all sorts of ideas into my head which I’m sure not even a gross of solubles, nice as they are, could have done. When, my sweet, are you going to write me a long, exciting, oaty letter? In time to arrive on the fourth? Then that won’t leave too long before it is fulfilled! But it would give me food for thought on the long journey home! And what thoughts. They won’t, I’m afraid, need a great deal of stimulating!
Talking of the journey home, the last watch begin their leave tomorrow, a very definite milestone. Now, will you do your best to remember these arrangements? Although I don’t think there is very much chance, I’m going to try to slip away early on Friday morning and catch the 8.30 from Euston. That should get me home for 1pm. If I find I can manage it I’ll send you a telegram overnight so that you will get it with the morning post (there probably won’t be a letter that day). If there is no wire, I’ll be catching the 10.30 which will mean I’ll be home about 3 or soon after. At the last minute after I’ve sent the wire I might miss the train but if I’m not there at one you can forget me until 3. And that, I think, clears that first point up.
Angel, I’ve just been reading your letter again with particular attention to the postscript. You are a clever girl. I can’t say definitely how many pints you are due for, but off hand I should say about ten! John’s almost wasting one of them now and I’m doing your trick of wriggling! I’ll bet you make me wriggle a bit when I come home, too. Wasn’t it funny that I should have got the evidence from sick bay this morning? I might have known. Seriously, there is another very encouraging side of this business. This is the first time for ages that you have been anything like “regular”, which shows the pigs’ blood is doing you good. Eric wrote a short note today and said you were looking well and also he asked us over for an afternoon, so will you, or have you, fixed up definitely with them?
Thank you for all the news of the children. I do hope Wendy will grow out of her left-handedness because, say what you like, it is awkward in a right-handed world. When we were doing Morse it seemed my fate to be seated next to a left-handed person – there were four or five including Frank Patterson – and they were a darned nuisance.
You achieved quite a victory in leaving Michael alone even for a short time and it will give him confidence in himself. He seems to have improved enormously lately and I’m very glad because had he been “difficult” in the last few weeks you would have been at the end of patience with him in no time.
I do hope the panto comes up to expectations for them. In another year, when they can both take an intelligent interest in the radio, as they are apparently learning to do, they will enjoy a lot more things in the way of stories, plays and pantos, although such a little of the radio time is given to children, isn’t it? I’m sorry you had to move the Xmas tree but I remember that we had one like that before, didn’t we?
How are the family colds, love? I hope they are improving. Is yours any better? You sounded cheerful enough in today’s letter even before you knew about vapours! I suppose you feel like slapping all your women friends in the middle of the back and asking if they don’t think vapours the most marvellous arrangement? I’m very impatient to try blackout oats! I’ll bet you play hell because my hands are cold. Since you wrote about vapours, the grin on your photograph has expanded by a full quarter of an inch, you hussy! You do well to stand on the mantelpiece taunting me. You’re another one I’ll have to deal with when I get home. Will you have your new frock and French knickers on? Hope so. Whoopee! I can feel your frock weighing on my forearm now as I insert the practised hand! That makes you wriggle, I hope. And you’ll say, damned hypocrite, “Don’t love, the children are here!”
Angel, I must leave now or I’ll miss the post. There’s only five minutes left. With breaking off to daydream so often, and to try on the evidence, this letter has taken up a very pleasant hour and a half. Bye, my angel, I still adore you.
All my love, and thanks!
Ever,
Arthur X

From Arthur to Stella: ‘when you hold yourself like that you have a really beautiful body’

Jan 281943
 

Thursday
Chiswick
Dearest,
Last night was the first chance I had of seeing Dot about the needles. Did you think I had forgotten them? Anyway, here they are, and I hope they are OK. Will you let Dot know if they are alright?
Only by the greatest chance did I see your letter in the rack at work today because this is not the usual day for being there all day. I suppose that means I’ll not get a letter now until I come home on Saturday, but as there will then be two for me, I’ll let you off. Anyway, if the list is wrong will you get it straightened out? We are off on Saturday so perhaps you can work from that point, although there will only be a few working days after that. Whoopee!
I wrote to Mother last night and it was posted this morning. When I came in I found a letter from her, so will you explain that our letters must have crossed?
One day when I was off I wrote an article for the ‘Echo’ on service flu and civvy flu. Today I had a note from Prince thanking me for it and saying he would try to use it in the next week or two – “although it is not one of your best. Still, I don’t suppose we can expect the best with flu!” So if you do see an occasional ‘Echo’, keep an eye open for it. I have signed it MAT. I must confess it isn’t good and I won’t blame him if he throws it away. And my cold, by the way, has gone almost completely but has left the cough behind it.
Like you, sweetheart, the most I had hoped for was either that you would just be finishing vapours when I got home or that they would be delayed until the last day or two. I never hoped that you would be clear of them by a week, and would thus be fully recovered from the physical strain they always impose on you. Now you will have a chance to get properly rested and to get your hair done and your body anointed for me. Or will you anoint yourself fresh from the bath? I love to smell a faint clinging scent on your naked body. Oh, sweet, I can see you now standing naked in the glow of the fire, your chest expanded so that your breasts stand out firmly, and your dear head held high in triumph. That, I think, is my favourite picture of you, for when you take the trouble to hold yourself like that you have a really beautiful body. I can see, too, the long flowing curve of your thigh running up to your hips and waist; and the dark little copse which hides the temple of our love and where John reigns supreme, at once high priest and supplicant! Sweetheart, it’s a lovely picture which I see too seldom, for too often do we just go straight to bed and I love to worship your beauty. Well, my sweet, worship it I shall on Feb 5, which will be just a week from the time you get this. Darling, make one promise. That you won’t let me be too impetuous! I want you so much that if you were to walk into this room now I’m sure I should lose one pint merely at the sight of you! I don’t know if I will ever be able to stand the sight of you, let alone the naked touch of you in the bath, without losing my self-control! Right now John is weeping small lubricatory tears for you. My own sweet girl. I love you so.
Yes, love, the query was about the panto and I didn’t realise that it was not quite clear. Nor did I realise from your letter that it was the last day of the Pavilion show. I thought that remark applied to the Empire.
Thanks for the camera information – I’ll ask Dot about hers tonight. We might save one or two films to use while I’m in London. I have no London snaps to add to my travelling collection and there aren’t any of Glasgow, are there? Pity, that.
I wrote Mother and Dave last night but still have to write Hughie and Fred Stephens. I don’t suppose Eric will expect a reply to his note. He tells me Bert is a full Lieut. in the Home Guard Ack Ack. Quite a lad, eh?
Sweetheart, I must go. I’m glad your cold and Wendy’s are improving and I hope Michael isn’t going to disturb your rest too much. Did I ever ask you if there is a clean pair of pyjamas for me to wear – in the mornings! If there is, it will save me carrying a pair. And would a Thermos flask be of any use to you? I have bought one but Dot and Jack want me to get one for them if I can. If you don’t want this, I’ll let them have it. If you do want it, I’ll get another for them. Will you answer any queries in this letter by return as time is getting so short – thank God!
Take care of yourself for another seven days, my love, then I’ll look after you for a time. My love to the children. Tell them I’ll see them next week. All my love to you, angel. I’m literally running over with love for you today!
Ever your
Arthur X
P.S. I’ll bet you thought the evidence was needles!

From Arthur to Stella: ‘I’m feeling top of the world today’

Jan 291943
 

Friday
Chiswick
Dearest,
This will be the briefest of brief notes just to say how-do? and then to leave you again until we start the final few days of the vigil. Time is fairly flying past now and there are only two more off days before we are off for nine full days. I’m feeling top of the world today, thank goodness, which only shows how much better my cold is. The weather, too, is all in favour of cheeriness for once more it is a beautifully bright and warm day. Soon we’ll be seeing the flowers and all manner of things springing up. It’s good to be alive today but it would be much better to be alive in Crosby! Never mind. Only a few more days and then I will be there. Sometimes I can hardly contain myself at the thought of it. We really must make the most of leave this time for if everything does go well it will be the first time on which there has not been a snag of some sort.
There is very little news today except that yesterday I put in a very full day’s work for the first time for more than a week – another sure sign that I’m feeling a lot better – and the result was that the time fairly flew by.
So far I haven’t had a letter from you today and, after getting one at work yesterday, I hardly expect another there today. I wonder how that confusion came about? You are trying to rush the clock round too quickly, love. I’ll try to drop the children a line before I come home but if I do – and don’t make any promises to them – I’ll have to make it a joint note. There won’t be time for separate letters.
Well, love, I must be off now for some dinner. Take good care of yourself until next Friday – that is for six days! Whoopee. Bye till Sunday and all my love.
Ever your own,
Arthur X

From Arthur to Stella: ‘I want you sexually, physically and spiritually’

Jan 311943
 

Sunday
Chiswick
Darling Girl,
You are a perfect pest, you know. Last night I no sooner got into bed than you began rubbing your pubic all over the base of my spine, and you know what that does to me! Or had you forgotten? Anyway, I’ll let you off for you stopped that and put your left arm round me and I fell fast asleep holding your hand, as I always do, and with your warm yielding body so close to mine. Even your knees were tucked up under mine. Oh, angel, it was so nice and homey to be sitting on your knee in bed again, and to hear your sweet con sigh as you snuggled close to me. Sweetheart, sweetheart, it can’t be long now, can it?
Are you going to get my early letters out for Friday night, or are you going to save them for another night? I’m glad the sight and touch of the evidence “did” things to you. That’s why I sent it. Yes, I remember only too well the night they were so christened and have often thought of that and the other evenings we spent in Arthur’s office. What height of luxury that appeared to us, didn’t it? Oh, angel, I do want you so these days. I want you sexually, physically and spiritually. I just want to lose myself in you and to feel you all round and about me in every way. Never mind, sweet, it won’t be long before I catch you backing out of the oven with the dinner in your hands! At this moment I can see you bending down and my hand goes out to caress you as I have so often done over the stove and over the bath.
When you get this there will only be four full days left before I’m on my way. As we will have to revise the schedule for the opening day of the carnival, perhaps you’d like to draw up a programme and let me know, would you? I wonder if you will have remembered to send Monday’s letter to Whitehall? Anyway, don’t forget that your last letter to me, the one I will receive on Thursday, should go there. Just imagine it, love! Work tomorrow then a day off and then I start the last two days of duty. Then – home like a shot from a gun! Angel, I can scarcely wait.
I will probably send a parcel home addressed to myself. Don’t open it before I come. It will contain chocolate and cigarettes, the latter bought at canteen prices to last me through leave. A parcel made up of those things will save a fair amount of room in my case and I want to try to remember to bring my rubber boots home for the plot as I don’t think I have anything else fit to wear, have I?
Now tell me how Michael is, love. Is he better? You’re right about children. There seems no end to their troubles and, as you say, I expect the doctor will begin another series of “epidemic” visits in the spring. You seem to have had a trying time with Michael and I do hope he is better now. Vapours and something like that WOULD coincide! How are vapours, love? Have they made you very tired? I hope you are feeling better and that by now you have had a couple of decent nights’ sleep. From what you say, I can’t see you being “fair wore out” after a couple of nights’ exercise! I can, really, because you have always insisted on doing your share, haven’t you? What will you do if your legs go all jellyish in the middle of Friday’s oats? I’ll have to send over for Mrs Gardner or ask Mick for the loan of Betty! You had better appoint a first reserve, just in case. Oh, sweetheart, just as if! Even if there was no possibility of oats, I could just sit and gaze at you. At the moment – but how long it would last I can’t say – I’d like nothing better than just that. Just to sit in a big comfortable chair with you on my knee and to feel John throbbing for sheer joy at the nearness of you. As I say, I don’t know how long I would be satisfied to remain like that! Not very long, I’m afraid.
Well, sweetheart, there’s no real news. Dot said “thank you” for the letter and pictures. Both Jack and Dot are at work today and I’m just going to shave and then get some sleep. It’s blowing a full gale today and has been since yesterday morning. The worst weather we have had, by a long way.
Tell Michael how sorry I am to hear that he has been ill and I hope that by the time you get this he will be almost better again. Remind me to deal with him for being sick in my bed!
Now I must go, angel. I’ll only be writing you three or four more letters after this. And then there will be letters of a different type! Take good care of yourself, my own, and don’t forget your medicine! I’ll soon be home now to give you those injections. My love to the children. Soon I’ll hold you close again and feel that crazy rhythm of your heart.
All my love, sweet.
Ever and ever,
Arthur X

From Arthur to Stella: ‘I’ve given the fellows a treat by wandering round singing at the top of my voice!’

Feb 021943
 

Tuesday
Chiswick
Hello Angel,
I’m really getting the leave atmosphere now and have given the fellows in the office a treat by wandering round singing at the top of my voice! There has been a holiday spirit in the office generally because there has been less work to do than I ever remember, and the people who took over from us today will have almost nothing to do so far as I can see. The result was that the time dragged a bit, as it always does when you’re not mad busy. I hope the work is stacked to the ceiling when we go in tomorrow, for then time will fly past much more quickly.
So you like the way my thighs fit along yours, eh? You forward hussy! And that first quick plunge, too! Dearest, I can hear now that indescribable little gurgle of pleasure you always give when John comes into his own again. But I know another thing you like, too, although I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to do it on Friday night, for I’ll be too full of the joy of spring for that. Still, one night I will do it, I hope, and that is to keep John well forward, only half in and half out, so that each movement plays hell with clit until you say “Oh quick, quick dearest. In! In!” and then your pubic will be hard against the rest of John and John’s sensitive head will go deep into the embrace of Mary until he is brought to a stop by that tiny circle of the womb which he will promptly anoint. Isn’t that a nice picture? Judging by his antics, John thinks so! How’s Mary?
About Friday, dearest, while I think. As I have already said that you are right about the bath (which, after all, is a pleasure deferred), I do want to worship you in the firelight. If we haven’t already had oats by then (I’m making no promises, even to myself, for you may be hearthrugged at the first opportunity!), I don’t want just to dive into bed. I’ve just caught sight of you laughing at me from the mantelpiece, but I mean it. I want to love you in every way on Friday, and oats is only one way – but such a lovely way! Such a lovely way indeed that I’m almost on the point of masturbation this morning at the mere thought of you, beautiful in all your nakedness standing in front of the fire with all your loveliness eager for my caress.
If you are arranging for Betty to come in, will you arrange for her to come as early as possible? I don’t know what you think, but I was wondering if you would like to go out in the blackout with me? We can go to Bootle, or to the International, or to Litherland. Anywhere except the Endbutt or the B.S. where we will meet too many people who know us. If we get out early we can get back early because I’m bound to be fairly tired and if I get too much beer, after the abstemious life I’ve been leading, I’ll fall asleep in the middle of oats. How would you like that? And that reminds me that I have not yet told you of the dream in which we achieved something we have not yet managed. Remind me to tell you that I have two theories which may help us to manage it, if you are really interested.
Well, dearest, I must get my parcel packed and posted and then back for shut-eye, which is a shame on a lovely day like this but, like you, I’m keeping my strength up! No letter from you so far today. You haven’t sent it to the Admiralty, have you?
Just staring at your photograph I’ve got such a hungry feeling to take you in my arms again. Darling, I’ll kiss you so long and so often that you won’t have time to say anything in the first hour except “stop it” and all the usual feminine chatter about “the children”. Oh, my sweet, I do love you so and I’ll try to show you how much when I come home. Precious, I never cease to marvel that you do really and truly belong to me. Soon we will be together again. Dearest, if only I was coming back to you for always! I wonder what that day will be like? That must surely be the thrill of a lifetime! In the meantime we have this leave to come and I’m going to wallow in that concrete fact without worrying about the future.
I left this letter open until the last minute so as to answer your letter if it came by the dinner time post and it did so. Poor old Michael. He seems to have had rather a nasty time. I do hope he is feeling better now. Will he be fit to go to the panto, do you think? I’d hate him to miss it, but I’d rather that than take any chances. Anyway, I’ll see what he’s like when I come home, by which time he will have had a few days in which to recover his strength, for it’s a good long journey for kids who are not feeling quite at the top of their form.
Your news of food shortage surprises me, and worries me, too, because I’ll feel as if I’m pinching your food. There doesn’t seem to be any shortage here at all. In fact we do very well for meat one way and another. I must remember to bring my ration book with me because I don’t think we get the little cards when we have the full books.
So you’re jealous of my dreams? All right, I promise, no more dreams until I’m in bed with you and by the time I get to the dreaming stage you’ll have taken the edge off my appetite so no damage will be done. Oh, angel, just to feel you next to me in bed as we settle down for the night after oats will be heaven. It’s heaven whichever way we lie – with your arm round me and your breast close against my back, or with my arm over you and your left breast snuggling close and warm in my hand. What a pity we can’t do both things at once! Sweetheart, I’m getting really tired with this permanent erection! I must leave you now and go to the post. Take good care of yourself, my love, and I do hope Michael will be better by the time you get this, for then there will only be two more full days! Whoopee!
All my love, sweetheart.
Ever your own,
Arthur X
P.S. A nice long oaty and vision-producing letter on Thursday, don’t forget, or there’ll be trouble! I love you so.

From Arthur to Wendy & Michael: ‘I hope it is a nice pantomime with a lot of funny men in it’

Feb 021943
 

Tuesday
Chiswick
Dear Wendy and Michael,
I have a lot to do today getting ready to come home because tomorrow and Thursday I will be at work all day and will have no time to spare. But I thought I would like to tell you how much I am looking forward to seeing you again on Friday and taking Mummy and you both to see the pantomime on Saturday. I hope it is a nice pantomime with a lot of funny men in it because I love pantomimes, don’t you? I wonder if you still remember the one we saw last year, not long before I went to be a sailor? Do you? There were funny men riding big bicycles and a goose that laid big eggs. Remember? And everyone sang ‘Say Little Hen’, didn’t they?
I will be glad to be home again because we have been working very hard lately and when I get home on Friday I will have been at work since Wednesday, so I don’t think I will want to get up very early on Saturday. Today a man came round with a book and we all put our names in it and told them the name of the station we want to come home to so that they will get the right railway ticket for us. We will probably get our tickets on Thursday night at work. We will finish work at 9 o’clock on Friday morning and then we will have a wash, go for breakfast and run for the train. I will be getting on the train while Wendy is at school and probably while Mummy is shopping at half past ten.
I am sending a parcel home but it has not to be opened until I come home because it has some surprises in it.
I do hope Wendy’s spots and Michael’s cold are better. What a terrible family I’ve got! There’s always someone ill. I think I’ll have to tell the man that I can’t be a sailor any longer because I have to stay at home to make sure nobody gets ill! Shall I?
Now, I didn’t have time to write you a separate letter each so there has not got to be any squabbling over this one. Understand? Mummy had better put it on the mantelpiece when she has read it to you, I think.
I must be off now as I have a lot to do today and I want to have a bath and a shave and a little sleep before Auntie Dot and Uncle Jack come in because I’m very tired. Be good children until I come home. Only two days, after you get this! Isn’t that nice?
Bye until Friday.
Lots of love from
Daddy XX

From Arthur to Stella: ‘you know full well that a real sailor must get completely sizzled on his first day home’

Feb 031943
 

Wednesday
Chiswick
Hello Angel,
The time is about spent for this is the last letter I’ll have time to write and the day after you get it I will be home to pester the life out of you for days and nights on end. That will take some of the superfluous energy off you!
Thank you for your lovely vision-producing letter. I didn’t realise that you still believed in miracles. You say “while a certain throbbing protuberance promises beautiful things for the next hour”, thereby implying (a) that you believe either of us could stand the suspense for an hour, or (b) the bigger compliment that, once the opening ceremony had been performed, that John could perform for an hour! John and I thank you for the compliment and there’s nothing we should like more than to perform solidly for an hour because then we might get a little peace! Oh, sweetheart, I can see now the light in your eyes when I do sit down in the chair and you go on your knees. Angel, it’s such a lovely picture I have of you in that position and it seems almost too good to come true.
By now you will have had my letter suggesting an early drink and home early. Knowing myself I’m not making any promises about seduction on or before any given hour. All I can say is that I want you madly now and it will be a matter of great surprise to me if I don’t whip you over for a table-ender the minute I walk into the house, children or no children, so be prepared and keep your legs crossed!
Yes, I like the idea of a tape-cutting ceremony! Seriously, if I don’t get home until 3 or 3.30, as seems likely, I won’t go for a sleep because that would mean the children would see nothing of me at all on Friday. If the children are going to look out for me don’t encourage them to think of anything before 3.40 or 3.45. It will probably be later than that. For the remainder, I like your programme of the day except for one point and that is your insistence over a COUPLE of drinks when you know full well that a real sailor must get completely sizzled on his first day home. I’m not at all sure that it wouldn’t be a good idea if you did seduce me on the way home. That is one way in which you would be sure to enjoy blackout oats, no matter what the weather was like! Well, love, we’ll have to leave all these little details to sort themselves out. We have the broad outline for Friday and that’s the main thing. Dearest, I’m so looking forward to it that I keep thinking tomorrow is Friday instead of a really heavy day at work. The last 24 hours is always tiring and I think that with anything like luck I should get some sleep on the train. I hope I can.
Now to answer your letter. I’ll ask Dot about the machine although I only see her for a very short time tonight while she is getting tea ready. Usually there is just time to grab my tea and then dash out. Anyway, if she has an instruction book I’ll ask her for the loan of it. Dot had some trouble with hers at first and when it went to be overhauled here they found the needle in the wrong way. Could that be the case with yours?
I am glad that Michael is improving. Will he be alright for the weekend do you think? When the subject of the panto first came up I knew Mother would be annoyed because she was last year. She’d like to consider herself automatically a member of any annual outings like that, you know, including holidays if we ever get into the habit of regular holidays away from home!
Now just before I go let me say that your letter was only one of two exciting documents I have read today. Just let your imagination dwell on this for a moment: “Gently insert the applicator into the vaginal passage as far as it will go.” Whoopee! Or again: “Not longer than one hour should be allowed to elapse after it has been injected.” One hour! What monuments of patience they must think we are. And finally, just for your peace of mind: “Once sealed with the preparation, the vulnerable area is effectively protected for the rest of the time.” So your “vulnerable area” seems quite safe! Interested? I hope you will be. And now, having aroused your curiosity, I must dash for the post. Only one more day after you get this my love, and then I’ll be attacking your vulnerable area. Till then, all my love, sweetheart.
Ever,
Arthur X

From Stella to Arthur: ‘Tragedy! The family’s one hot water bottle has sprung a leak!’

Feb 241943
 

Wednesday
Home
Darling,
I’ve been working really hard outside today so am feeling full of virtue and very blistery on the hands – I must be getting soft. This afternoon I dug quite a good slice of the plot, I should think about a quarter of the left-hand side. I don’t mean just the part up to the line of sprouts, but right across to Russell’s, where the peas and a path were. Where it was very overgrown I skimmed off the sod and used it to make a low wall. If someone is going to have that land we’ll need a proper line of demarcation. Then I lined it all and divided the rhubarb as you suggested and retired for a cup of tea and a sit-down.
I didn’t intend to do any more, but we had tea early, and I was at a loose end afterwards so I had another shot at the garden. I’ve got all this side tidy, which was something of a job if you remember how overgrown it was. I’ve got an absolute mountain of grass out of it. So altogether I feel I’ve broken the back of both the plot and garden today and if I go on at this rate we’ll soon have everything ship-shape. And I forgot to mention that I put some muck on the rhubarb. My precious spade has been put away as clean as it was in the shop – I don’t know how long this zeal will last!
What a nice long letter yours was today. You know sometimes I can hear your voice in every line so that I feel that I’m listening to you rather than reading a letter. Oh, my love, you’re such a nice understanding sort of person and you’ve left the “bored subject” just as I wanted you to, as a distinct possibility for the near future. And don’t worry that I’ll let this obsess me. After the first day one quickly gets over the disappointment. Not because of shallow feelings but just because it’s no use getting fussed about things that can’t at the moment be altered. For the next couple of months I’ll be using my urges, biological and sexual, in hard work on the plot. You remember what a source of interest and consolation it was to me last spring. It was the one thing that saved me from going gaga during those first awful months. So please don’t think I’m all depressed now, sweet. I’m not, and I won’t be, but heaven help you next time I’ve got your not unwilling body within my reach! Oh, darling, darling, you’re so sweet in everything you say in today’s letter, and I do love you such a lot tonight.
Thank you for your suggestions about walks. I thought of that Thornton walk but I haven’t the foggiest idea just where we got off the bus. Can you enlighten me?
I’ll try and remember to clean up your golf bag tomorrow. I doubt if there are any balls around the house now for I sent all I could find to you in Aberdeen. I’ll let you know in tomorrow’s letter whether there’s a lock on the bag.
Michael has looked much better today and has had more fresh air than he usually gets. He’s not eating much but you know how the slightest upset puts him off his food for ages.
Tragedy! The family’s one hot water bottle has sprung a leak! I’ve dug out that tin one I got and it seems quite efficient but I like something soft myself – not that you’ve noticed it!
Well, love, I think that’s all the news for today. By the way, I’ll send a letter to reach you on Sunday this week.
Goodbye, precious. I do adore you. Had a nice dream about you last night, not sexual but you were very nice to me.
All my love, dearest,
Stella

From Arthur to Michael: ‘the bears sat up and begged for pieces of bread and cake and biscuit’

Feb 251943
 

Thursday
Chiswick
Dear Michael,
I’m sorry to hear that you have not been very well and hope you are better now. I went to the zoo last Sunday and do you know what I saw? Lions and tigers, and wolves, and bears, and penguins. Oh, and lots and lots of birds. Little birds – much smaller than a sparrow – and eagles, which are great big birds which can fly as high as an aeroplane. The lions and tigers were given their dinner by a man while we were there and do you know how much they had? More than Mr Johnson gives Mummy for a whole week! And they ate it all in about ten minutes; and it hadn’t been cooked in the oven.
In another house there were lots and lots of monkeys in cages. The monkeys in one cage, if they were given something to eat, would show it to those in the next cage as if to say “Look what I’ve got, and you can’t have any! See!” And then the monkeys in the next cage would get annoyed and would rattle the bars and it just seemed as if they were naughty children crying “I want some too!” The little monkeys would put their paws through the bars of the cage to beg peanuts from the people, but the very big monkeys, who were buried in straw nearly all the time, were behind windows so that people wouldn’t give them anything to eat in case it made them ill.
Do you know what else we saw? Giraffes! One was so big – 15 feet high – that his head would be bigger than the top of our stairs. He was a great big fellow. We watched a soldier who had his little boy with him feeding the bears – there were white polar bears and brown bears from Canada – and the bears sat up and begged for pieces of bread and cake and biscuit.
How would you like to spend nearly all day in a bath of warm water, almost without moving? Well, that is what the hippopotamous did and you would have thought he was asleep, he was so still, except that you could just see that his eyes were open.
Before the war there used to be a house – the aquarium they call it – full of glass cases with fish swimming round in them, but this has been closed since the war. I was sorry because that was one of the things I liked best. Still, we did see a lot of interesting things and I only wished Mummy and Wendy and you could have seen them too. Well, perhaps we may one day, eh? Bye for now, son. Get well soon, won’t you, and be a good lad while I’m away.
Lots of love,
Daddy

From Arthur to Wendy: ‘he wanted me to stay there all day scratching his nose!’

Feb 251943
 

Thursday
Chiswick
Dear Wendy,
Did Mummy tell you that on Sunday I went to the zoo with another sailor? Instead of going home to Auntie Dot’s for breakfast, I stayed in town, wrote to Mummy, had my breakfast and went on the train to the zoo. It is in the middle of a lovely park and on the way there we bought a bag of peanuts to give to the animals and birds.
There were ever so many things to see – almost as many as there were before the war, but the elephants on which people used to be able to ride are not there now and the children’s zoo, where the pandas and other pets for children used to be kept (including little lion cubs!), has also closed until the war is over. But there were lots and lots of animals and birds. There were little black Shetland ponies which still pull carts for the children in the summer. And one of the lovely deer kept pushing his head against the bars for me to scratch his ear! A great big camel also pushed his head against the railings for me to scratch his nose and he wanted me to stay there all day scratching his nose! Some mothers who had brought little boys and girls with them had bags from which they took cabbage leaves – the sort you cut off the outside and don’t eat – and all the deer and the horses and even the monkeys loved them. And they also liked the carrots which people brought. Next time I go I am going to take some vegetables with me because peanuts are so small for big animals. You would have liked all the beautiful birds – especially the parrots and cockatoos and when we were going home we saw a big parrot flying about among the trees. He must have got out of his cage. Wasn’t he naughty?
I’m going to go to the zoo again some time and perhaps when the war is over we will all be able to go to a zoo. Would you like that? Now I must go because I have a lot to do. I hope you are getting all your lessons right. Are you?
Lots of love,
Daddy

P.S. I like your photographs. Do you?

From Arthur to Stella: ‘progress slowly and dig deeply, that is undoubtedly the great secret’

Feb 251943
 

Thursday
Chiswick
Dearest,
Thanks for your long and interesting letter from which I gather that you have been bitten rather badly by the spring gardening bug. I’m glad you have got a decent spade and if you look after it – and the fork too – better than I did, it should prove a bargain and last for years. All these things break off at the shaft because the rust from the metal weakens the wood. They should really be wiped and oiled, but as you know, I never bothered at all so I can’t preach at you! Anyway, there’s no doubt sharp new tools do infect you with enthusiasm but be careful not to overdo things. Progress slowly and dig deeply. That is undoubtedly the great secret. All that land was due for a good double digging last back-end and would have got it had I been home, but it is heavy and uninteresting work and tiring on the back, too, so once again – be careful! If you are going to pay special attention to one side I should give it to the left hand side because where the potatoes were should be alright with a good forking over to get up any odd bits of grass I may have missed, but I think I did it fairly carefully when I lifted the potatoes. If I were you I’d leave the blackberries alone. With loganberries and rasps you’ll have quite enough trouble keeping them within bounds. Where are you thinking of putting the gooseberry bushes if you get them? Remember they’ll throw quite a lot of shade on other things. You are probably right about the temptation to get things in too early, but you want to take advantage of the decent weather to do as many short spells in the allotment as you can. Even half an hour’s forking or weeding in the morning and the same in the afternoon every day will make an enormous difference. We didn’t have any luck at all with onion seeds remember. What about those you planted in the garden? Can’t you recognise them? A start like that makes all the difference you know in the real growing and ripening season. Get what muck you can as soon as you can and either add it to the present pile or start a new one somewhere with an eye to its site for growing stuff next year. Well that’s about all on the allotment, but keep me posted with your progress, won’t you? You know I’m interested and I think that, given a spell free of trouble, you may do very well this year. Try giving the greens a lot more muck this time, even if it means fewer plants.
As you will see, I have written to the children telling them of the trip to the zoo. I could probably have written a lot more but the great trouble is trying not to write more to one than to the other – a great restriction, I always find, which cramps one’s style a lot. When the war’s over, we really must go to the zoo at Chester, or wherever it is. We will both enjoy it just as much as the children. The colouring of some of the birds is almost unbelievably beautiful.
I’m feeling a lot better for getting a little fresh air on my day off. There is a warm breeze blowing and it is a lovely afternoon so instead of sleeping I’m going to post your letter and then take the train to Hammersmith and walk back along the bank of the river to a point near the spot where, in peacetime, the Oxford and Cambridge boat race finishes. Everywhere in London seems to mean something, doesn’t it? One day I’m going to have a look at Wormwood Scrubs which is not very far away from here! There’s nothing like having a Catholic taste, is there?
Well, my love, I must be off. I do hope the vapours are improved now. Don’t forget to natter at Rees about it, will you. And tell me all that he says, especially regarding conception. All my love to you, angel.
Ever yours,
Arthur X

From Arthur to Stella: ‘the season is definitely coming when action will be in the air’

Feb 261943
 

Friday
Chiswick
Dearest,
Many thanks for your nice cheery letter which was as good as a tonic to me. It’s good to know that you are feeling cheerful and energetic. The new spade seems to have been your salvation, doesn’t it? I’m glad. But once again – don’t overdo things, for heaven’s sake!
There’s little news today. I spent part of yesterday roaming round the district helping one of our lads to try to find a new house or flat. What a business. We were in half a dozen estate agents and none of them had a single place at a reasonable figure. There were one or two houses going between £1500 and £1800 but he wasn’t interested!
We are getting much busier now and I’m wondering if anything is boiling up anywhere. The season is definitely coming when action will be in the air. The next six months will be very important, I should think, but all we can do is wait. It must be great, just now, to be at the centre of things and to know what is in offing. The worst part, I think, is just going on doing a deadly monotonous job like ours for months on end. For all that, I find the time passing quite quickly and can hardly believe that we will be at the beginning of March on Monday. In a month or two you will have the allotment pretty well stocked, I expect, but the great thing is to be content to make haste slowly and when you are digging to take your time and do it thoroughly. You’ll be well repaid in the end. I do hope you get decent results this year. Don’t forget to mix some soot and lime when you are planting out greens to prevent club root.
Well, love, there’s little more news and the post goes in ten minutes. Dot has the afternoon off today and is at home so I haven’t been able to get down to your letter as early as usual. My love to the children. Tell Michael to get properly better quickly because you want him to get loads and loads of manure. By the way, how many new rhubarb crowns did you get out of the old one?
I can’t tell you what the name of the bus stop is but I think there’s one opposite to the gates of the hall in Ince Woods. If you get there and walk up the boundary wall of the hall some distance you should find a spawn-bearing pond or ditch. But you’ll have to turn back again because it is taking you right out of your way. Come back on to the main road and, on your left-hand side as you go towards Southport, you should find a footpath over a stile leading back to Little Crosby. I know there’s one on that side somewhere skirting the edge of Ince Woods.
Enclosed is my sweets coupon. Please let me have it back as soon as possible. As you will see, I have used one quarter on dragées. Getting a real devil, aren’t I? Bye for now.
All my love, sweetheart. You and your dreams did things to John this morning!
Ever your
Arthur X

From Arthur to Stella: ‘in those buildings are the remnants of men blasted and wounded in the last war’

Feb 271943
 

Saturday
Chiswick
Dearest,
I’m starting this on Saturday night and it’s getting on for ten o’clock but even if I get only a little written tonight I wanted you to share in what has been a really pleasurable day. Soon after lunch we all three took the train to Richmond which, after hearing what Jack has said about it, I have wanted to see for a long time. It really is wonderful but, like most British things, the fine things, the views, the open spaces, the river path are all haunted by the fact that close at hand is the Star & Garter group of buildings – the headquarters of the British Legion. That doesn’t seem much, but in those buildings are the remnants of men blasted and wounded in the last war. You can see them everywhere. Sitting on benches, racing each other up the hill in motor invalid chairs, flat out just like the young pre-war motorcyclists in Ince Woods. That is a shadow, but a depressing shadow at the back of the day. For the rest, it was lovely. Richmond Park has been taken over by the military and little left for the public, but even so we saw a couple of deer lying beneath the trees.
From there we dropped down to the river towing path along which we walked all the way back to Kew, but stopped at Richmond for a cup of tea in delightful tea rooms where I saw a lovely little doll. It was about 8 or 10 inches long. A French type of doll with a “sunburned” body and an obviously hand-crocheted frock and hat. A lovely little thing which would sit beautifully on the deckchair Dot and Jack have bought Wendy for her birthday. But they wanted 10/6 for it. Do you think that is too much, and have you any other idea for April? Let me know, will you, because time is getting on.
Altogether Saturday was one of the most enjoyable days I have spent. When we got back from Kew Bridge we called in at the Packhorse & Talbot where we had tree or four pints, then home to a supper of sausage sandwiches. Plenty of fresh air, a few pints and never a bit of “stage managing” by Dot. Really a red-letter day. I’ll spend a lot of time sleeping and reading by the river if we are here for the decent weather. Next weekend I will be off on Sunday and, weather permitting, Hampton Court seems to be indicated.
Well, love, that’s all the news just now. Your letter, by the way, has not arrived at Whitehall and it’s now Sunday afternoon. What happened?
How’s the gardening going? I’m so glad to hear that you don’t feel “all out” after your strenuous start. It’s the most promising sign yet. Must be off now. My love to the children. Hope you are all fit. All my love.
Ever your own,
Arthur X
P.S. There should be some golf balls – perhaps in the sideboard drawer – because I brought at least one home from Glasgow.

From Arthur to Stella: ‘you have a hidden husband and I find I’ve been living in sin for seven years’

Mar 011943
 

Monday
Chiswick
My darling,
I always love you, you know that, don’t you? But I love you to distraction when I receive letters like your two weekend ones. You are a darling girl to give me long-range erections and deep-down yearnings for you such as I have had since I got your letters, and such nice letters they are, too. Apart from loving you, I’ve had a very contented mind lately just through knowing that you are really well at last, and I’m so glad my crocus-time prophecy has come true. We’ll have to have your new spade silver-mounted for it seems to have been your lucky talisman, doesn’t it? It’s good to think that once more you can do a long spell in the plot, or a day’s washing, without feeling absolutely all in. Next thing is to get a couple of decent walks in and then you will be getting all the exercise you need and, with the plot, will have the advantage of some real interest in life apart from the family and books. That’s what is really needed to keep you fit.
All your gardening news was very interesting. I always found that bank a devil of an eyesore and a real handful to try to control. If you can get the grass pile by the manure dried out, that with the old raspberry canes and the big dead weeds from the bank should make quite a good bonfire, but don’t pull the weeds – those dry and thoroughly dead ones – until you can put them right on to the fire. That will save transplanting their seeds on to the plot. Once again, no matter how great the temptation to see the surface looking properly cleared, don’t rush this business of digging the plot, and especially the left-hand side. Be satisfied to do a little at a time and do it well. I have always thought the method of muck-spreading rather wasteful where manure has to be conserved so closely, but it may be worth trying. What that ground could do with is a good layer like that in the late autumn, or even this time of the year, and then manuring in the ordinary way as the stuff is put in. I think last year’s very disappointing crop of potatoes shows that the nature is going from the ground. So get all the manure you can from both Batty’s and Neville and hoard it and add every possible leaf from the kitchen to it so that next year you will be able to give it a real feed. By the way, have you given your spring cabbage a touch of nitrate of soda yet? I think you could give a few a little filip now. It’s March, you know, and the start of still another month nearer leave!
It seemed to me that the mere newness of the spade handle may be responsible for the condition of your hands. The shaft is probably shiny and slippy yet, and it is the very slight almost imperceptible slipping that helps to give you blisters.
Naphthalene seems to be the answer to the pests, doesn’t it? I’m glad you had a chatter to Yacksley. He’s a nice fellow and the only way to learn is from other people’s experiences and, generally speaking, gardeners are only too pleased to swap experiences. I’m glad you are going to have a few flowers, too, and that the children will have an interest on the garden. Let me know how your marigolds turn out. Why not line the plot path under the blackcurrant bushes with flowers, and use your parsley for filling some other odd corners? Or try the experiment of lodging a few flower seeds in the face of the bank. Just a few. They might take there and would look very effective if they did. How big was the rhubarb crown, by the way? Did it look really mature? And how are the blackcurrant bushes looking now? Will you get a much better crop this year? If you get some gooseberry bushes from Milly, try to remember to plant them somewhere so that when they grow bigger they won’t shade a lot of other stuff.
Jack and Dot are almost certain to get that other flat and will probably move in some time this month, but not a word to Mother! If they do, Jack is talking about getting a plot. I hope he does because I’ll be able to do quite a bit on my days off and I’ll feel more at home in a way. Dot is very keen on the idea, of course, as you may imagine.
Now to non-gardening subjects. I’m glad that, in the sum total, vapours were not excessive. That, of course, demolishes one of your cunning pregnancy arguments about the inevitability of the loss! Do have a really serious talk to Rees about this and DO tell me all he says. I’ll be interested, too, to hear his reactions to the fact that vapours fitted in with leave so well. That will probably tickle him to death. Yes, I’ll try to write Wendy in script some time, but don’t promise her anything as my script is lousy and I’ll have to experiment. It might be best in pencil.
So my stinking body has impregnated the bed? I do get the compliments, don’t I? You are an angel to think so nicely of me. I wish you had slept in my bed because then I’d have somewhere to nuzzle, too. And would I nuzzle – especially while I had you here. And I’m glad to have the somewhat tardy and begrudging admission that your sexual urges were satisfied to some extent. Mine aren’t for I get a smashing erection each time I re-read your letters. By the way, something came unstuck and I didn’t get your letter at Whitehall until this morning. I can’t understand it because it is postmarked Saturday 1.30. It must have just been carelessness by someone.
I’m more pleased than I can say to hear that you are writing something at last. Don’t bother sending me an original. Let me have the carbon and stick the original into the post the moment you have done it. If you send it to me you’ll waste nearly a week. Where will you send it? To the ‘Echo’, or to one of the nationals? Would it make a broadcast? That’s the stunt to get into if you can. If you don’t sell it to the papers, quickly bung it off to the BBC. Get it done without waste of time, love. I’m dying to see it.
You’re a devil for parting us, aren’t you? First it’s Beryl and I; now you have a hidden husband and I find in my innocence that I’ve been living in sin for seven years, nearly! You produce any hidden husbands if you dare, you hussy. I’ll swing for them, but first will shag you to death. Oh death where is thy sting?
Now, angel, it’s nearly four o’clock and I want to get an hour’s fresh air and have a bath before tea. Oh and talking of tea, can you send me an occasional quarter, please? They have stopped us going down to the canteen now and we want to make our own. If you can let me have some fairly soon I’d be glad. And I think perhaps you had better send me 10/- out of the old oak chest by return because I’m going out with Jack and Dot and a pal of theirs to dinner on Wednesday and that will probably cost me few bob in drinks. Cigarettes run away with my money, as you can imagine. You can’t buy many at 1/6 for 20 when your sole income for all purposes is about 23/-. I’m not moaning. Just stating facts, love.
And now, sweetheart, I really must go. Again, many many thanks for two lovely and cheerful letters. Sweetheart, I love you more and more and that’s why it means so much to know my girl is well and strong again. All my love, my own.
Ever your
Arthur X
P.S. I have at last written to Geo. No baccy from the Grapes yet is there?

From Arthur to Stella: ‘I don’t envy you the job of handling the naphthalene’

Mar 031943
 

Wednesday
Chiswick
Hello Sweet,
Although why I should call you nice names when you boast that you neglect me in order to doll yourself up for the gratification of other people, I don’t know! Does this orgy of sewing mean that you have got the machine working? If not, either go and see Fred Durband or else tell Mother that he didn’t come and ask her if a dressmaker pal of hers will look at it for you. She was going to come but I told Mother that Fred was going to look at it for you. He’ll come like a shot if you ask him, you know. It’s just plain nonsense if you are doing all this work by hand when you have the machine.
I don’t envy you the job of handling the naphthalene, the odour is so all-pervading and, as you say, you can even taste it. Still, even if it doesn’t kill the wireworms and doesn’t even chase them away, it should stop them from increasing and should discourage other pests from gathering in the soil.
On the question of the doll, we had perhaps better wait until we see what the cost of the London trip is going to be and how much we will have left then. It has only just occurred to me that whatever else happens, you’ll have to be at home for April 6th, won’t you? No, Dot won’t be able to put you up in the new flat, even though she’ll have an extra room. The trouble is the shortage of a bed. When we move there we’ll be without the bed divan, which belongs to the landlady here. That means I’ll have to sleep on the bed chair again, but I always found it very comfortable.
How right you are on the question of comas. It’s far too early for that yet, delightful as they are. When I get your letters I can’t help the urges which rise within – and without! – me, but apart from those moments I keep such thoughts sternly away. I’d be a nervous wreck in no time if I didn’t, you witch!
Just as we were leaving work this morning, a batch of new Wrens arrived, presumably for our room. There were far more of them than those who have gone on foreign draft – I did mention that yesterday, didn’t I? – so life will be even more congested than ever. There are rumours of fresh drafts for some of our fellows, but will know tomorrow if there’s any foundation in them.
Well, sweet, that, such as it is, is just about all the news for today. I’ve got to iron my jean to go to the Strand Palace for dinner with Jack and Dot and a pal of theirs, although I must confess I’d sooner stay home. Dot, of course, wallows in such stunts! And one can’t really blame her.
If I don’t go, I’ll never get to the post and be ready. Many thanks for the 10/- which has just come in time. Bye, my love, and do take care of yourself. All my love.
Ever,
Arthur X

From Stella to Arthur: ‘I’m going to buy myself a really seductive nightie!’

Mar 091943
 

Tuesday
Home
Dearest,
Many thanks indeed for the sweet-pea seeds. I was lucky to get them for the envelope had split right across. And that reminds me – did the tea arrive safely? It was posted on Friday and it has just occurred to me that you haven’t mentioned it.
I haven’t done anything in the garden today. There doesn’t seem to have been any time. This morning I was working and also had to go to the butcher’s, and intended to put in the afternoon on the plot when it suddenly dawned on me that my library books were overdue. Then Wendy came home and said they had the afternoon off and as she doesn’t get to the park much these days that settled it. I also took Cynthia. When we were half way home they found they had left their skipping ropes at the library so we had to go all the way back! Michael sailed his boat and the weather was really lovely.
The holiday was for Pancake Tuesday, by the way. Actually we celebrated last week by mistake so I had to make pancakes again today.
Do you remember me asking you about the mysterious thing with prickles and pink buds? Well there are hedges of it in the park.
Michael’s legs are covered with spots which I’m hoping desperately are spring heat bumps and not scabies. Having kept him clean all this time I’ll be wild if he starts it now. If I’m still in doubt I might as well ask Rees about them tomorrow.
Once again I’m writing this in the tea–bed interlude, though I’m afraid most of the time went before I started your letter because I got too interested in my book. It must be time to call the children now so I’ll see you later.
Knock at the door came then. It was Mrs Allen with a message from your mother. I wrote to her last Friday in case she should make a journey in vain on Sunday, and I said I would call as usual on my way back from the doctor’s on Wednesday. The message is, not to call as she is going to a meeting in town! Sounds a bit odd to me but there you are. I asked Mrs Allen if your mother was better and she looked rather astonished and said she hadn’t been ill!
Later.
I don’t know how you can bang those machines of yours for hours on end. When I type a few hundred words I get a crick in my neck.
Well, love, I’ve been a good girl tonight. I’ve written and typed those samples of what I’m calling “garden gossip” and typed a covering letter to the Editor of ‘Home Notes’. I think I’ve achieved the right “chatty” style favoured by women’s mags at which I was aiming. I really do think there’s a market for these things somewhere because it is a new field that hasn’t been exploited yet. It’s only a question of being lucky enough to tumble on the market before I lose patience. Personally I’m more inclined to the women’s papers for these things than to the general press. Unfortunately it is hard to tell, when almost all papers are ordered and not on show, which are still going. I don’t think any of them have actually disappeared, but a lot of them have amalgamated since the war.
I’ve also typed the part of the article that didn’t carbon last night, so I’ll enclose that with this letter. Don’t you get sick of the sight of a thing when you’ve re-written it a couple of times and typed it twice? I bought a bob’s worth of typing paper today – four sheets a penny – just to show that my intentions are good!
Bed now, my sweet. I do love you and am just longing to see you again. If I touch lucky with any of these things I’m going to buy myself a really seductive nightie! That’s a promise.
All my love, darling,
Stella
P.S. Wednesday morning. Have just been “signed off” by the doctor, who thinks there is a vast improvement since he last saw me. I had a talk with him of which I shall tell you in full tonight. All I’ll say at the moment is may heaven protect you next time I get my hands – and legs – anywhere near your body! Oh my darling, tell me quickly when I can come to you or I’ll be jumping on a train and arriving unannounced one of these days!

From Arthur to Michael: ‘men put a great big bomber very close to where I work’

Mar 101943
 

Wednesday
Chiswick
Dear Michael,
Mummy wrote me a letter yesterday and told me all about your visit to Grandma’s. Did you have a nice time, and did you like the caves? Mummy tells me that you were a very good boy and I’m so glad because when you are good, Mummy is a lot happier, isn’t she? Are you better now? I was sorry when I heard that you had been ill in bed again, but if you have been to the pictures and to Grandma’s you will be getting better won’t you? Did you like the pictures the last time you went?
Last week a lot of men put a great big bomber – one of the biggest in the world – in a big open space very close to where I work and lots of people pay sixpence and then go all over it. On Monday a lot of sailors, soldiers and airmen and air raid wardens came marching along the road to see it and they had three bands with them. There were so many people watching them that the buses could not get past for half an hour.
Have you been helping Mummy in the garden lately? And have you got any manure this week? Is your new barrow still going or has the wheel broken again? And do you still help Mummy by carrying the potatoes in your barrow? It’s such a help, you know, because the potatoes are very heavy for Mummy.
When are you going to write to me and tell me all you have been doing in the allotment and at Grandma’s and in the street? I like the letters you and Wendy write, you know. Well, bye for now, son. I’m glad you are better now.
Lots of love,
Daddy

From Arthur to Stella: ‘the mental picture of that first moment is blissful agony’

Mar 101943
 

Wednesday
Chiswick
Dearest,
I hope the divil may fly away wid yez and that right soon. As you will see, I have written to the children, but that effort at script for Wendy was a real labour. And then you have the damned cheek to tell me that they can’t afford the time to write to me because they are playing in the street! Seriously, I only hope she will be able to read it after all the trouble I took. I kept lapsing into ordinary writing in the first effort I made and I’m not sure now that all the letters are right. If not, will you tell me which are wrong and send correct examples, please? And for the love of mike if she can’t read my scrawl, tell me, but if she can then it is worth the effort I suppose.
Many thanks indeed for your letter, love. I was interested to hear all the garden news, but very sorry to hear what Batty is charging for muck. Have you asked Neville what he does? You may find you can get a good load from him for 10/- or 15/- which would really be worthwhile because it would be a good basis for your compost heap and would probably see you through next year with what you have got and additions of every scrap of green stuff that comes off the allotment and the garden. Have you put the loganberries up on the bank? If not, you and whoever has Mason’s plot will be in for a hot time next year. The damned things run all over the place, you know. I’m glad you have another hollyhock. That is another inducement to get back to civvy street! By all means replant that bed if you can get the plants. They mask that wall so well, don’t they?
I’m glad you have got that article away at last and I’ll be interested to hear its fate and also to see carbons of your other articles. Don’t make them too long as space is very precious these days.
A gardening point I meant to mention was that it would be a good idea to get the hedges cut right back as far as possible before they get too sappy. You’ll find them easier to do now than, say, in June.
It’s all very well for you to tell me that you were doing all sorts of nice things to John and then add the order “Lie down there!” Things aren’t as easy as all that. It took me nearly an hour to get him under control and in sheer desperation I had almost to ask assistance of one of the Wrens! If I had done, you would have been to blame, you know. Oh, angel, it will be good to sink him to the limit again and to feel I’m fast in Mary’s warm embrace once more. I can feel now that lovely moist embrace of hers; warm, loving and so contented to have him back once more that just for an instant she stops all else to sigh a little sigh of sweet con. That’s what you always do, you know, first time. Oh, my love, just the mental picture of that first moment is blissful agony and John is in torment. He does weep for you on these occasions. So much so that I can almost do with a bath after them. Sweetheart, I’m yearning so much for you that I could almost jump on the Merseyside express instead of going back to work tonight. But go back I must. And right now I must go to the post.
All my love, angel. I do love you so much, sweetheart.
Ever yours,
Arthur X
P.S. I’ve never said thank you for my tea! Thank you, love. But don’t send more, I can get all I want now.
Golf balls? Lock? WHEN OH WHEN?

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