Letter from Harry Massey to Barbara Massey

Letter No 83 - Thursday 20th Nov.

Major J.H. Massey 5th Palestinian Coy, The Buffs M.E.F.

My own darling sweetheart

Having sent off an Airgraph on Monday morning to tell you that your no 59 & photo were missing, they arrived during the morning - & so I sent off another A.G. straight away. You started your letter by saying how much you miss me & that you had had a cry in a field thinking about me.

Oh darling - I miss you beyond bearing too - & how I long to be with you to comfort you, love you & make you happy & enjoy all the love & sweet faithfulness which you lavish on me. I am longing for the opportunity to tell you myself, what I can never hope to convey to you in my letters, how much I love & adore & worship & admire you & how much my whole life & being depends on you & centres round you.

Oh God, but I hope it will be soon - being away from you is a constant torment. I wish I could cry too - but I seem to have lost that faculty since my first few weeks away from you. I think that it was when your letters first began to arrive that I became stronger, & had no more cries. Its not important really, but I sometimes wonder who is worse off - you or me.

Presuming that we both start from being equally miserable & unhappy - which of us has the greater amount of compensation & distraction? I have any amount of distraction in my work - & you have much compensation in Maxie. And you have very little distraction & I have practically no compensation. So there we are - still very unhappy & missing each other - & apparently no nearer to any solution. But now things are

2.

moving at last since you wrote your letter. And the news burst today of our new push into Lybia. I made the remark in my last letter to you that things would happen soon & last Thursday I made a [?] prophecy that the Lybian push would begin by Monday night. It began at 4-0 am on Tuesday & so I was not far out. We shall see what will happen during the next few days & weeks, but I feel sure that this is the real thing & that we should not have begun unless we were certain that we could go right ahead & finish in this part of the world. And there may be all kinds of developments from this - in regard to France in particular. She may come up against us & if she does not it may mean that Vichy is resisting Hitler at last - & if she does, it may show a weakness in the Nazis position in France & if this is slower France may get up again - & if France does that, we may go in too. And if this happens, what else may happen, in Holland, Norway, etc. & maybe in Italy & even in Germany itself. It is all very interesting & I think perhaps Churchill knows the answer. And it does make matters more hopeful, darling when nothing is happening, I feel quite dead - but now I am all alive again & watching every move. I think that

3.

this Lybian push will be very quick & final - but I am afraid that it will not mean any reduction of our strength in the M.E. There remains the [?] & we may go into Italy, or even Southern France. In any case, we shall now be showing Russia by our actions just what we can do - though I really do feel that they understand our policy & higher strategy.

I had a very pleasant evening with Barstein yesterday & he brought quite a pleasant wife along too. A good dinner was had & then we went to "Pimpernel Smith" with Leslie Howard. I wonder have you seen it? It really was excellent - wonderfully well acted, very interesting & most exciting. Leslie Howard is really very effective. There was also a Russian propaganda, war news film showing. It was rather crude & seemed to have been put together in a bit of a hurry - but maybe it had been badly cut. The most interesting part was of thousands of Russian women & children & old men building fortifications & making track ditches. It has probably been shown in England by now.

Fancy Kenneth losing one of his balls - or at least having it permanently out of action & dead. Wretched man - what a specimen he is - it seems just the sort of thing that would happen to him. But I do not think that it renders him impotent. I remember a frend of mine at school called Nicholls, who only had one - born like that - & we used to

4.

laugh at him about it - & he always indignantly said he was alright which made us laugh more, as it showed that he indulged in this "me & me" business. They will probably make him an R.T.O. or E.S.O or some thing, in other words, the sort of officer who could not get my luggage up from London in September - or could not get us on the home boat in August - what a come down for the silly wimp from the Hussars & the Royal Armoured Corps. Do you think that there is much chance of my not seeing him again? It would be a good arrangement. Though I hope to see your giggly young sister from time to time. You are a funny set of sisters, really darling, don't you feel that? The pretty but silly Peggy. Betty, soured & selfish & unsympathtic & so on who is so clever & intelligent & yet has such a boor of a husband & is ruining Roger & you who are so sweet & lovely & kind & intelligent & such a marvellous & wonderful mother & wife! No, I'm not being partisan, darling, its quite true & you must have a rough idea that it is. I wonder what I am & what I have done to deserve such a wonderful & beautiful wife as you, my darling. From almost the first moment

5.

I met you, I have loved you & I have never ceased loving you, not for a moment. You remember, at your party at Clearbrook, I arranged to meet you in Kuddesfises - & I wrote & confirmed it & we did meet. Our first evening out was lovely - me dying to kiss you. You talking like anything to stop me. And the next Sunday, I told you in so many words that I wanted to marry you & when I came down to Clearbrook, three weeks later. I did tell you. And when you did say you would, that ghastly fool, Jimmy, spoiled things by his nonsensical talk aobut it being too soon after my appointment at Norths. And then for a long time, you would not have me & yet in spite of many rebuffs & rebukes, I kept on & you did have me. Oh darling - I can feel now the flood of happiness which poured over me & into me when you said you wanted to marry me. And I promise you solemnly, here & now, that always & for ever I will love you & cherish you & do all in my power to make you happy & content.

I have got, today, the print & englarement of your bathing dress negative & it is lovely darling. You are so pretty & it nearly drives me crackers to look at it. And your figure looks lovely &