This was much to mother's annoyance, as I clumped my snowy boots across the hall rug. I ignored her and once outside I tried to step only on the patches of soft untouched snow at the edges of the rhubarb patch. I love the quiet clean feeling that a fresh covering of snow brings. The world sounds and feels different; not muffled exactly, more like a kind of peace to me. It feels like the whole world has been freshly remade anew. It is a hopeful feeling, especially when you know that the ground below will be refreshed in a couple of months ready for the colour of spring and replanting. It is as if the white of snow cleans the canvas ready for the fresh bright colours of the next season.
I stood there alone for a few minutes under the stars and wondered about where exactly you were at that moment Jimmy. Were you still underground? Or were you, by the merest off-chance, observing the very same stars as I? I stood and watched the twinkling great saucepan that is the constellation of 'The Plough' and thought of you. I wished you could have been standing there with me Jimmy, on our vegetable patch. You would have liked it I am sure. And, from what I could see in the moonlight, you would have thought that Dulcie's snowman was rather splendid too. Thinking of you as I stood there made me smile.
Having a larger garden means that we don't have to go far to grow our own produce. Sally has to travel to Watford to tend the tiny patch of allotment that has been assigned to her family. It's harder for those who live in the low rise flats with no garden, or in the prefabs where they cram two or three houses onto a site that used to have one house and a sizeable garden.
We grow all kinds of things, and like lots of people our spring and summer evenings are often spent with planting and tending the crops. You must have done the same with your mother.
Mother added some of our precious supply of potato and onions to the rib broth. I watched the slender strips of meat satisfyingly fall off the bone as I surreptitiously stirred the boiling pot; Dulcie too hovered in the kitchen, much to mother's annoyance, sniffing at the pot in delight. When she finally brought it to the table we all sat in silence dunking slices of bread into our bowls. The bread came out with a delicious meaty coating. Although I will be honest Jimmy, none of us could identify exactly what kind of meat it was, but it was certainly not pork like you may have expected.
Then, this evening we sat around the fire with the wireless on. I do so love the radio; I wonder if you ever get to hear any of the broadcasts at the Front? If there is a power cut we can connect it to a battery and we sit in candle light listening to the home service. Dulcie loves it most when they play the popular singers and sometimes the odd recording of an American singer. Like mother I prefer a good classical concert. Mathilda likes the music but she seems much more attentive when the news is on or listening to the latest pronouncements from the Ministry of Communications. Of course Dulcie is bored by such things so we play cards or do a jigsaw together.
Right now I have left Dulcie with a puzzle and am sat at the dining table in the back room writing this letter to you; I can hear them talking above the wireless in the front room by the fire. I had to tell Dulcie yet again that on no account was she allowed to read what I write in my letters to you!
Soon it will be time for bed and Dulcie and I will retire to our room; we share a room currently, while Aunt Mathilda is staying. She sleeps in the box room at the front of the house. This was Dulcie's room previously but she doesn't seem to mind sharing with me in the least. We keep each other company and keep each other warm.
Downstairs mother and Mathilda will potter about, after we have gone to bed, and it comforts us to hear them talking in hushed tones through the open bedroom door. Dulcie likes me to read aloud to her, usually one of the novels that we have read together before. I always have to read the same sections over again, partly because she loves them so and partly because she is usually asleep long before I finish reading. We lie together in the big iron bed and I pull up the large tattered eiderdown over her and straighten the several grey blankets piled on top. You know, the scratchy Government issue blankets that everyone has; dark grey with light grey and red stripes at each end. I imagine you in your hammock deep underground cuddled in such a blanket.
Mostly I sleep well and all is quiet in the world, although Dulcie sleeps the soundest of all of us.
When there is the occasional air raid we are all well versed in what to do. After all, like you and everyone else, we all grew up with it. The local hand cranked siren wakes me, and I have to shake Dulcie awake. Then we all wearily trudge down the garden path in the dark. Luckily we haven't had to do that in the snow yet this year. Our way is lit by the comforting shafts of the search lights that strafe the sky. Over the years mother has made sure that our Anderson shelter is very comfortable. She always has the stove ready to light and we even have a second battery wireless. At night they play soothing music in between the safety announcements and we are all soon asleep again in our bunks under our grey blankets, with the quiet calming music singing in our ears. Well that is unless the bombing is close by. There haven't been many raids for some time now, which is good. Perhaps it is a good sign and, like the news says, their fuel supplies are hampered by the blockade and our brave flyers have crippled the Luftwaffe, damaging their bombing capability. We will see.
I don't get to go out so often in the evenings, before the curfew, apart from the occasional trip to the cinema, which like I said is more difficult since the Odeon was bombed. It doesn't look they will be rebuilding it anytime soon. Mathilda, though, has purchased tickets for me to see the Women's Symphony Orchestra when they set up their big top in Victoria Park in February. She is so marvellously kind. I don't know how they will find room in the park to construct the tent to be honest. Last time I was there it was full of allotments, like every other park. But I suppose people aren't exactly growing much in February. I don't know how Mathilda did it, getting the tickets I mean. They are so very hard to come by. The orchestra is doing fewer dates than they originally announced. Anyway, Mathilda seems to have all kinds of connections up in the city. When I asked her how on earth she had managed to get the tickets, she just smiled, winked and said that sometimes knowing the right people pays off. Apparently the orchestra is to play some Ralph Vaughan-Williams and Benjamin Britten. Do you know of them and their works and perhaps like them Jimmy? I cannot wait, it will be marvellous. My first ever real concert, and with a full orchestra! It would be lovely if we could go to a concert together one day. Is it terribly unrealistic of me to imagine such a thing Jimmy?
I suppose I had better finish this letter now. It is getting late and mother is calling; saying that it is time for Dulcie to go to bed. I know I have to get up in the morning but I feel reluctant to finish writing; it's as if I were actually talking to you. I wish the letters didn't take so long to reach each other. A week after I post this I know I will be anxiously waiting for your next letter to arrive. I do hope you are safe and well and thinking of beautiful things in your deep dark place. Remember my promise to you that I shall reply to your every letter.
Best wishes as always,
Esme
X
M.O.D Approved. This letter has been censored in accordance with War Office Directive 728/4. All content of a sensitive nature has been removed by order of the Ministry of War.
Remember - CARELESS TALK COSTS LIVES!
076938964
Ypres Zone
Middlesex Regiment
Sappers Unit 2064
13th February 1962
Pvt. 761382 J.Fitzpatrick
Dearest Esme,
Thank you for your last letter. I liked it very much, especially when you describe thinking of me. It is heartwarming to know that you think of me in such a way. I think of you every day.
I have some good news; well not so much necessarily good news as a merely a change in our circumstances and they say a change is a good as a rest. Though this is not so restful I must admit. The unit, in fact the whole regiment, has been moved. Another unit will now have the job of digging those wret
ched tunnels. My unit is still to be designated as 'sappers' but I am now, at long last above ground again. Just another part of the infantry. For now at least. It was such a revelation to see the sky and the sun again.
It happened about two weeks ago, strangely about the time you were writing to me, so perhaps I did happen to be looking at the stars, on my first evening out of the tunnels. Perhaps I looked at them and thought of you just when you were in your garden. In truth I cannot say if I actually did that and I am not one who is normally given to believe in such fated things. However at the same time I am much attracted to the romantic notion of a kind of connection between us. A connection that can transcend things; a connection grown through our words that can float off into the clean cold air and cross the waves of the channel and the white snow filled land of England. So I like to think that I was thinking of you and looking at the same stars from this foreign field, at the very same time you were. It is entirely possible that I was, as I think of you so very often. Perhaps I even glanced unconsciously at 'the plough', who knows?
I can easily convince myself that I can feel the closeness of your presence across such distance when I read your words and press my pen to