An End of Poppies

unsavoury and devoid of love and beauty. Do you think me foolish? I do hope you don't mind that I think of such things and that I think it would be impossibly beautiful to kiss you. I hope I don't make you blush too much. Thinking of it gives me an aching feeling in my stomach, a mix of hope and fear. Fear that kissing you will never come to pass. Hope that it will.

  I do not think it unrealistic of you to dream of us attending a concert together. I think that would be marvellous. A lovely hope. We don't get much entertainment here at the Front, apart from that provided by the French that I have described. We certainly don't get the wireless. You asked about me smoking - well I didn't used to. Not before I came here, but after that first few weeks and after losing Billy, it was a habit that I fell into. I guess to fit in.

  So, I suppose all that I can say for now is that my days continue. It is routine and more routine here just like it always is in the army although, apart from the odd attacks, it is less taxing physically than the tunnels. We all know however that this is simply a stop gap. This whole vast campsite a holding pen; cattle waiting for the slaughter perhaps, before we get orders to move elsewhere. I don't suppose it will be long before we are sent back to the Wall in some capacity or other. For some great push or battle I suspect. I imagine that by the time I write to you again we will know the next fate to befall us. I continue to hope for a leave so that I may visit you somehow. Still no word about my mother, she also fills my thoughts daily, I do so hope she is well. As I hope that you and yours are well and safe. Please write soon. The sooner the better.

  Yours with hope,

  Jimmy Fitzpatrick

  X

  M.O.D Approved. Home Office Approved. This letter has been censored in accordance with War Office Directive 728/4c. All content of a sensitive nature has been removed by order of the Ministry of War.

  Remember - CARELESS TALK COSTS LIVES!

  Miss E. Wilbraham

  41 Whitefriars Drive

  Harrow Weald

  Greater London

  (Defence Zone F)

  HA3 5HW

  Thursday 22nd February 1962

  Dear Jimmy,

  Your last letter seemed to come quicker than usual, perhaps because you are no longer billeted right at the Front. It was such a joy when I found it on the mat this morning, so I just have to write straight back to you the very same day. So, firstly I must apologise that I cannot send you a parcel this time, but please know that I am collecting things that I think you might like for next time. Is there anything that you want?

  So much has happened since your last letter. Some good, some bad, although I will save the bad for later, as the good news is so much more heartening.

  I wonder if you have heard the news Jimmy? Yesterday it was announced and I am sure you will have heard about it by the time this letter reaches you. The wireless is saying that the Russians have sent a man into space. Outer space! Imagine it! A human being inside a large rocket that circled the whole Earth. A rocket that is not a glorified bomb. I can scarcely believe it. A man in heaven looking down upon us all. It makes me feel so small Jimmy. We must all feel like that now, all of us on this tiny planet. I suppose you must feel small sometimes too, in amongst all those thousands of men, all working towards victory; like so many ants as you describe.

  There is a lot of talk about what it all means in the newspapers and on the wireless. And how the people are gossiping about it on the streets!

  'Scaremongering' is what Aunt Mathilda calls it. She has decided to stay with us for the foreseeable future. The railway line to Dover still isn't mended and she says she likes being up in the city. It is where everything is happening she says. Don't you think it's delightful she is staying Jimmy? I am sure you would love to meet her. I think mother is pleased she is staying because she helps us out so. She has money and she has connections in the city. In the evenings she is always appearing with some kind of treat or other. Last week she got a leg of lamb from goodness knows where. A whole leg of lamb!

  Dulcie and I love having her around simply because she is such irreverent fun, with her blond bob hair and constant smile. She has an opinion about everything, and often a contrary one. Secretly I love her mischievous nature. I think that is the part that mother doesn't like so much.

  Anyway, the papers are making a big fuss (or 'scaremongering' like Aunt Mathilda says) about what it all means; this man going into space. Yuri Gagarin is his name. I do so like that name 'Yuri'; it sounds heroic somehow. Dulcie drew a fine picture of what she imagines he looks like. She copied some of the diagrams from the paper that show what they think his space capsule looked like. Her picture showed his face smiling through a little porthole window, the stars and moon shining behind the little tin can he floats in. I can't imagine what it must be to have no weight. The Daily Mail says that 'weightlessness' or a lack of gravity must feel a bit like what it feels to float under water, like a scuba-diver but with no current or waves to rock you about. I have never been swimming and don't know how to, but I imagine that it must be such a wonderful feeling. It must feel like heaven.

  The papers say how this Soviet advance in technology might lead to a new pact between the Soviets and the Germans. I suppose they are worried that the Germans might acquire the technology of such a large rocket and maybe turn it into a weapon somehow. They also say how the Americans find it very worrying too. I suppose there are fears that the war might spread to these two mighty nations, although Mathilda says that she can't see that President Kennedy would want to commit America to anything more than the aid it already gives us. After all, he was elected on a promise of keeping America out of the war, just as all the presidents since 1914.

  As for the Soviets? Well, who can tell what they think, with their secret communistic ways? Mathilda, I think, is quite sympathetic to the communist cause but again it isn't something she would probably discuss in public. Mind you she says she doesn't trust that Nikita Khruschev as far as she could throw him!

  I can't help but think it’s rather marvellous though, the idea of a man in space, whatever they say about it. It is as if we are one simple group of humans all together on our lonely little planet. Maybe one day people will all live together in harmony, especially if we can see how very small we are in the face of God's creation? It must have been wonderful to look down from afar at the clouds and mountains and deserts and oceans. Do you think that's awfully unpatriotic of me to think like this? Of course I realise that we need to defeat the Germans first; someday, somehow.

  In your letter you talk of us being flippant in the face of God's creation in this war. I can certainly understand what you mean. But we must remember the evils that the Germans have committed mustn't we? Having said this I do feel that it isn't such a bad sin for you to take that pocket watch from that poor dead German soldier. Besides someone else would have found it anyway wouldn't they? And I suppose that realising that it might be a sin and that your motives are not one of a thief makes it alright. Don't you think that confessing it to me in your letter is a bit like Catholic confession? Perhaps you think that a silly thought, but I think that God can see that you are a good person Jimmy.

  You ask if I think you are foolish Jimmy. I don't suppose you are any more foolish than I myself am, although I hope you do not think me so. I do not think it is foolish to long for companionship and love. I will be bold and tell you that I too have thought of kissing you and I think it awfully flattering that you wish to kiss me. I am not such a childish girl that I do not know about sex and relations between men and women. I am a young girl I know but it would be amiss of me not to explain that I do have experience in these matters. I do hope you aren't shocked and don't think me too forward to talk of such things.

  Aunt Mathilda talks of how she had a lover when she was twenty-five. An older man from the Ministry of Food. She met him when he came to oversee the Kentish farms and he stayed for a while at her bed and breakfast place. Mother says that she shouldn't talk of such things in front of Dulcie and I; that sh
e will put ideas into our heads. But Mathilda is a strong character and simply tells her to hush and that putting ideas into our heads is exactly the point.

  It is interesting that they are sisters, mother is usually so strong-willed and single minded herself, I suppose all women who are bringing up children by themselves have to be. I know mother disagrees with Mathilda often but she always eventually acquiesces to her, perhaps because Mathilda is her older sibling, or perhaps simply because underneath mother agrees with her but cannot bring herself to admit it. I am all too well aware that I share the same traits as both of them; I am from the same stock after all. I wonder which of them I will most be like. Although most of all I wonder what I have inherited from my father. How many of his traits have yet to show themselves? I wish I had known him.

  Mathilda says that her time with her lover was the best time of her life. It is most scandalous really; he was a married man with children. He didn't go to fight because he suffered from rickets as a child which softened his bones. He was too prone to fractures, so they discharged him with two broken legs, pretty soon after his basic training. Mathilda thinks he was one of the very lucky few not to go. You can imagine how mother scolded her for such unpatriotic