Dear Bessie

“Because sending a letter is the next best thing to showing up personally at someone’s door. Ink from your pen touches the stationary, your fingers touch the paper, your saliva seals the envelope, your scent graces the paper. Something tangible from your world travels through machines and hands, and deposits itself in another’s mailbox; their world. Your letter is then carried inside as an invited guest. The paper that was sitting on your desk, now sits on another’s. The recipient handles the paper that you handled. Letters create a connection that modern and impersonal forms of communication will never replace.”

I was browsing through facebook and came across this sweet love story that revolves around letters.

"In the autumn of 1943, a 29-year-old former postal clerk from north London named Chris Barker was serving as a signalman on the Libyan coast. Most of his day was routine: after morning parade and a few chores, he usually settled down to chess, or whist, or letter-writing. And then his life changed.

One of his letters, to a woman he knew only vaguely called Bessie Moore and her boyfriend Nick, received an unexpectedly enthusiastic response. Bessie, enduring the London Blitz, wrote that Nick was no longer on the scene, and that she had always harboured a soft spot for Chris.

By their third exchange, it was clear to both of them they had ignited a passion that would not easily be extinguished. More than 500 of Chris and Bessie’s letters survive (although many of Bessie’s were burnt by Chris to save space in his kitbag and conceal their intimacy from prying eyes). Chris and Bessie married after the war, had two sons, and lived happily ever after.

January 29,1945

My Dearest One,

I have just heard the news that all the Army men taken POW are to return to their homes. Because of the shipping situation we may not commence to go before the end of February, but can probably count on being in England sometime in March. It may be sooner. It has made me very warm inside. It is terrific, wonderful, shattering.

I don’t know what to say, and I cannot think. The delay is nothing, the decision is everything. Now I am confirming in my head the little decisions I have made when contemplating just the possibility. I must spend the first days at home, I must see Deb and her Mother. I must consider giving a party somewhere. Above all, I must be with you. I must warm you, surround you, love you and be kind to you.

Tell me anything that is in your mind, write tons and tons and tons, and plan our time. I would prefer not to get married, but want you to agree on the point. In the battle, I was afraid. For you. For my Mother. For myself. Wait we must, my love and my darling. Let us meet, let us be, let us know, but do not let us, now, make any mistakes. I am anxious, very anxious, that you should not misunderstand what I have said. Say what you think – but – please agree, and remember I was afraid, and I am still afraid.

How good for us to see each other before I am completely bald! I have some fine little wisps of hair on the top of my head.

I love you.

Chris

I remember that when Bramina went to America, I felt so terrified that I wold lose her completely. And then one day I received a blue letter in a snowflake envelope, with her days written in her handwriting, and a quote at the end saying that every day passed was one day closer to seeing me again.

I also remember posting a series of postcards when I was in England, and feeling so excited at the thought that those little labours of love were being gathered by a post man, and flown to Singapore, and slipped in the post boxes of my friends in the morning. Would that be the first thing they read when they woke up?

Every birthday, my Great auntie sheila and Grandma and Auntie Sarah send letters to me, their love signed in the X's and O's at the bottom of the page, their prayers written in blue ball point on the stiff backs of cards. Auntie Sheila also sometimes sends aerograms, magical envelopes that are also letters at the same time, scribbled all over in her old-fashioned handwriting with its' swooping 'g's and 'p's and 'j's and 'q's and 'y's.

Still waiting for my neighbours to reply to the letters I sent out.