Letter from Harry Massey to Barbara Massey

Letter No. 87 Sunday 14th Dec.

Major J.H. Massey 6 Palestinian Coy. The Buffs

My own sweet darling Barbara

I am terribly anxious to write you a loving happy really interesting letter because I feel that my letters for the last few weeks at least have been far from bright - rather dull, & bitter about everything in general - not very loving either. But it is difficult darling especially to be interesting & cheerful. It is not easy to be loving when I feel so flat & miserable, lonely & sexless. I'm very sorry we ever left the last place now. I had the Hopkins to go & see there where I could relax & chat & be chatted to by reasonably intelligent people & the H.Q. staff people were pleasant & good to work with & there was excellent 'restaurant' to go have a meal from time to time; & everything was handy & easy to reach. But here it is all very difficult - the Area Staff are dull & silly & boring. I have no friends - & my determination to have as much money as possible is so strong, that I just cannot bear to spend 10 of it to go into Tel Aviv, where everything is so bloody expensive when you get there. And this place is so damning great flat piece of ground surrounded by barbed wire. And this camp is foul too - the heavy rains have now started. It is a vast sea of mud. And the mud is of a kind which you have never seen before- it sticks & you only have to touch with your boot. You have at least a pound stuck to the soles. And as soon as it begins to get dry again, down lashes the pelting rain again. And my room is so old & miserable & tonight I am wearing my great coat to keep warm as I write. With its concrete floor & composition walls & corrugated

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of the doors & windows which fit about as well as those reach - no 4 dozen suits you used to want me to buy. The roof is just suspended over the top of the walls not fixed on at all & so the wind just comes straight through But I suppose my lot is a comparatively good due, I do get 3/0 per day Field Alowance.

[image: handrawn house with rooftop not touching the walls, indicating 8" opening)

I set out not to do at the beginning of this letter but seeing I cannot help it. If only I could see you & Maxie just once every few weeks - what a difference, it would make.

Hanging on for a reply to my application is also very wearing. It is now over 3 weeks since I wrote my letter by all calculations, the reply, if any, should be any day now. It is also 3 weeks since I had a letter from you & my mind seems to be full of nothing else. And perhaps because of these things, I seem to have lost interest & enthusiasm in everything. I seem to take things so seriously & heavily my letters to you are perfected. And I seem to have lost the art of just chatting along to you in my letters. But there is this one all important thing in my mind all the time & nothing else matters. Since the answer which I receive is a sickening negative you will have had my No first. I'm afraid you will find my ranting & grumblings rather boring- But I cannot

help myself. Oh darling - I do love you & miss you so. I shall go to bed now & try again tomorrow. XXX H. Monday 15 Dec Thank you - the silence broke today & I had your letter no. 66 of Oct 18 - also p.c. posted on Nov 30th but dated Nov 26 by you. So darling, you can imagine that I now feel very much lighter in [tears ?] I'm hoping that more will follow in reasonable succession, so that my awful oppression will be lifted for a few weeks & I may write you long & lovely letters. You were saying in your letter that you felt guilty on account of writing me miserable letters & making me sad & unhappy. Well, the guilt if such it is, seems to have transferred itself to me now. I am doing that very thing to you. But darling, I feel that you will understand & certainly not want me to force myself to write & I did not feel, in any case. I could not do it, as you know me well enough. I certainly have nobody else to unload onto, and it does help quite a bit. Naturally I would much rather that you had been able to write happy letters before Maxie was born but as you could not I much prefer that you should write me what you feel & were going through than that you should have to pretend & not pour your heart & soul too, any body at all - in

or else to someone else. And now I know that you are back in Beaconsfield & have already been there for 6 weeks. It seems a pity in a way to have left a lovely place such as Noss Mayo. But the general at [ ?] should now be more interesting & stimulating, as you are able to meet some friends again, & most important, get to London from time to time. And I suppose too, that if the Nazis ever do try an invasion, it is better to be away from the coast, & especially the South coast. I hope the Tabble's house will be comfortable & easy; it does not sound too luxurious for you. I do wish you could have two or three rooms of your own & just as you want them. I shall look forward to having letters from you about all this. I suppose your Ma is with Joan again. How dreadful about Michael & Andrew, I do hope the poor boys are alright - & please tell Betty how truly sorry I am. I must now try to tell you a little more of my news about the Corp - I do not seem to have told you very much lately. The Corp is dropping its British people one by one, becoming more & more Jewish as a result. Last month, Sgt Griffith went to be C.O.M.S. in another Corp. Sgt Kiley should have gone at the same time, but he stayed on doing CRM's Jack's

job until he comes back. When Jack did return, Kiley was very last to leave, and he dreaded going back to the Depot, & seems to be rather attached to the Corp & to me by now. So I put up a case that he should stay, & this he is being allowed to do, until Jan 2nd. C.Q.M.S. Hemmings left today, en route to the O.C.T. I was sorry to see him go, as I got on very well with him. And so Col Fich is now C.Q.M.S., which is quite funny in many ways - he is so unlike one, with his girlish figure & ways, & wavy black hair, a R. Colman's moustache, & lovely white teeth. (Solomon calls him "Petunia") But he is 100% [efficient underlined] & he will certainly do very well indeed. Jack went into Hospital today, to have his teeth out & his [ ?] scraped etc & will be away about two weeks & so poor Kiley is all alone with 6 Jewish sgts; I shall have to have him across to my room, for a beer, from time to time. I have had to switch round my orderly room staff again too - Golun having, in spite of being, a M.A. was about the dullest witted clerk imaginable & I eventually could not bear it any longer. So I pushed him out, am trying that chap Pessah, about whom I have written to you. At the moment, he is equal in rank, L/cpl, but inferior in knowledge, to Spitz. The little Spitz is really