Letter from Harry Massey to Barbara Massey

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Letter written by Harry Massey from the No. 6 Palestine company at the Bluffs to Barbara Massey.

This is a scanned version of the original image in Special Collections and Archives at Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vt.



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Major J. H. Massey, 6 Palestine Coy, The Buffs, M.E. F.

Letter No. 72. Thursday 18 Sept 41

My own darling -

I am not really writing a letter to you tonight - it is 11 o'clock & I am sleepy. But your letters 48 & 51 - missing - turned up yesterday, & I have just been re-reading them, & I want to get another letter under way. And so I am doing that, no more & saying goodnight to you. God bless you darling H. xxx

Friday - 19 Sept. Your first two A.Gs arrived today - dated 19th & 24th August, so they are much the same speed as p.cs. But it was lovely to have them & they are of course easily legible. I also had my first letter to arrive from Frank Stanier. He had just heard about Max & sounded very pleased. He seems to be working v hard & not very happy. Miss Wrexham appears to have rather fallen through - & his frightful wife not to have fallen through at all. I think we have made a friend for life in Frank, & that after the war he will be popping up to see us at all sorts of odd times: I hope he won't become a nuisance. But he was a very good friend to me & to both of us, in the 5th - even though he did get me into a bit of a mess because of his hankering for young female company! I also had a wonderful piece of news from Eric James - Frank Macaskie is not dead, but wounded & a prisoner of war. I had always hoped for this possibility & wrote the Red Cross organisation for news some time ago, but have had no reply so far. I replied to Eric's letter last week, & told him about Frank & what I had heard. He made enquiries in Cairo & that was what he found out & he let me

Last edit over 2 years ago by Helper21
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2. know at once. As you can imagine, I was relieved & delighted, & once again we have the possibilities of a very good & interesting friend after the war. I hope he gets into a reasonable P.O.W camp & is adequately fed.

I have had a tremendous day in Tel-Aviv today - shopping for you & for the Coy & arranging the Coy accounts & my own with the Bank. I have bought you a pair of slippers which I hope may arrive near to Christmas time. I went to shop after shop, but could not find anything really pretty or exciting - they were all rather trashy & junky & merely gaudy. I eventually found a higher class kind of place, & a pleasant little pair of dark blue slippers, with a white line running around - those solid heels which you like, & no back to them, & the usual (sort of) hole in the front through which your big toe pops. They are really quite pleasant & probably comfy - & I hope very much you will like them. And they cost 9/- which is not so killing. But I am still sorry I could not find some thing really lovely. And they should more or less go with the Cairo dressing gown. I think I will enclose in the same parcel the remaining three pairs of stocking which are 9 1/2 I am glad to say - & then it will be a little more of a parcel, even if you do have to pay some duty darling. And at last I have found some dried fruits - 2 1/2 lbs each of prunes & dried apricots - which I pray will arrive in

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3. decent condition, & be of some help, & be enjoyed. I managed to get to a wholesaler & I had Ben with me - but they seemed to be darned expensive - 9/6 for the 5 lbs. It seems a shocking price - but then they have come from California, so perhaps that is why. The people in the shop were real----. Talk of exact weights - well! He took out one prune, deliberately, in order to make it balance exactly - the same procedure with the apricots. Ben put the prune back in the paper bag., he looked really browned off. Then there was a big argument about how much it was going to cost. The sum was a little complicated, kilos & grams having been converted into lbs & ozs in order to give me my lb parcel, & then having to be converted back in order to arrive at the price. Everybody behind the counter was in it, & the customers joined in too. And finally, they reached it - to the nearest unit which is 1/4d. They are funny people these Jews -seems to be unavoidable for them to be anything other than 100% businesslike& exact & yet, when all this was over, the man got hold of a good cardboard box & lots of string - in spite of me saying never mind.

Before all this, I had been to see the Jewish Soldiers Welfare Committee, & they promised me for the Coy, a wireless set, a drum, & to go halves in a second hand piano. The wireless & the drum I bought this morning, & they are looking for a piano, & then spent £50 of the Coy

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4. funds A/C - this comes from officer's & men's subs & mainly from Naafi rebate - on football kit, boxing gloves, deck tennis, ping pong, & stop watch for sports.

Saturday 20th Sep. I had an interrupted evening yesterday, & this was as far as I got. Also, the men were having a concert in the canteen which is about 25 yds away from my room. I did not go because I wanted to write to you - this did not work out - & also because the concert consisted of two artists only. One a volunteer all by himself & without a piano accompaniment. And two, a fat & ugly old ----- of 50, an actress, who did excerpts & monologues. The previous Friday there had also been a similar sort of dud concert. All this is provided by the Jewish Welfare people, & I am going to complain strongly to them, & tell them that my men are just as human as anybody else, & supposed to be soldiers into the bargain, & would like to see some pretty girls with nice legs - & somebody cracking rude jokes - & somebody else knocking hell out of a piano accordion. Don't you agree, darling, for soldiers some good music is lovely from time to time, & nobody enjoys it more than I do - & for myself I should be quite happy with nothing else. But these people need cheering up & to be given something to talk about. And jazz & swing music certainly seem to me to be more natural & healthy for them.

Training in my Coy is now well under way & in full swing. And the men are having to do

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5. continuous, hard, & concentrated work, & more or less for the first time. They are rather surprised & browned off - which is ridiculous & annoys me a great deal. when I consider the interest which the Jews must have in our war effort & victory. One of the troubles, I am afraid, is, that the other Coys are run in a very much more idle fashion than I care to run my Coy. The men are allowed far more freedom & more leave & time off. And the Majors - British officers are willing to accept a lower standard from these Jewish soldiers, both officers & privates. The result is that they behave & go on in a slack & sloppy & idle way themselves, & this is passed on right through their Coys. I am more than ready to admit that these European & Palestinian Jews do not come up to the standard of British troops - but to me that seems to be all the more reason why one should exert even greater efforts in order to do one's best to bring them up to standard. And of course, my men meet these men from other Coys & they compare notes & my people decide that are being ---- on & how unlucky they are. But I think, & hope that my various lectures & speeches are convincing my people that they are not really as badly off as they may think at times & that hard work & training are the only possible means by which they may

Last edit over 2 years ago by Helper21
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