Dearest…
Here we are on a glorious evening, it being eight of the clock and me having been reading Barnaby Rudge and shall do so after.

A mellow golden evening and a little cool but not much.   We have temperatures up to 105 here just now, and it is very hot and, being a flat district, it saps one’s verve.

Today is the Feste of San’ Giovanne, and everyone Italian is gay.    I officed all the morning and slept until three and then Channon and I went ten miles up the coast and bathed and swam in warm clear sea and sprawled in the sun and back to the club for tea and then here for dinner.    I played cricket yesterday and yesterday evening found myself attracted down to the Saviozzi house.   I pine for the company   of civilians and artists and children, must be domestic instincts.   We read picture books on Rome and the sillies gave them to me, so they’ll be nice for Dickie and for you.   We played the piano and sang a little and joked a lot and Giorgio practised English and I was put through my paces with Italian verse and we supped and jested and it was pleasant. I am not going this evening, one not to be there too much, and two because I want to see my little Yugoslavs for an hour, and also because I am having a pootling about evening and the others are at the cinema. Next Sunday, when Giorgio has finished his examinations, I have promised him a day out by the sea, with English food and bathing and I shall sleep and read and scratch and he is going to tell me Italian history which he likes.

Jimmy came today, very friendly and fond and drank beer with us. He says he is going to import me into HQ, when this business is over and he and I will run the group. A formidable pair, his brains and verve and confidence and my writing! A niceish job to finish off on.

I wrote to your Uncle Fred this morning, for no reason, but because you like him and I like him too.    I also wrote to Mrs. Lloyd a few days ago.

The Age groups are ticking over quite well now, up to eleven is taped for the next few weeks. There will be a pause then. But we’ll have our turn. Fortitude. The worst is over anyhow!

I like the plans for the garden, the garden plot as it were. You are a wondrous good seneshal, guarding all, watching all, improving all, and with your Dickie-dodo as well.   How I shall gaze and look and touch and watch and sniff and listen and observe that manikin.  He will find me a large eyed man, this Daddy from Italy. I hope he realises that it is the exigencies of the Service which keeps me here and not lack of interest. You know that, convince him please.

A little letter this.  Mi dispiace. But a lot of love.    Idle days these,   but it is slightly stale we are and idle in temperature and tempo.   Natheless I think always of you.    And Trevelyan’s book is masterly, last thing at night I read it.All my love, dearest, and to my small son, my love as well.
ever. . . .
Your
David

Two good letters yesterday, splendid. Uncle Fred and the Youngs had been to see you and you were awaiting a polotical directive. Since then two good quiet waiting days. Yesterday a busy morning arranging things about postings of Officers and the same this morning, and won my point and all stay as we are for now. Yesterday afternoon cricket and a nice bonny game it was but so very hot. This afternoon I slept, and now an evening in. It is very very hot here. Phew ! At tea time who should walk in but Jimmy James ! He used to get on my nerves a little but I like him and it is very good to see him here. He becomes Admin. Major for the Group and I think he is being groomed to go up one in a couple of months. Certainly it is nice to have so energetic and clever a friend at Court ! He is cleverer than anyone else I have come across here and is very affectionate. I think he is partly Jew and like his race, if that is so, he is very genecous to his friends and indomitably unforgiving to his enemies, of whom he has many here. He will certainly be a millionaire, he makes money wherever he is and is wealthy now. But he is amusing and came eagerly to see me this afternoon and is a link with Peter and 1021, We are dining out soon to talk of old times and of the new. I may go to H.Q. with him now that he has come, if they can find a capacity for me to go in, I shall belong here for a time yet, anyhow.

                        Oh, Politics. I am all for freedom of the individual and would not try to affect your choice or opinion. For me, please vote straight Conservative. My reasons are quite simple. I am convinced that Churchill is a great man and a great Englishman. It is Foreign Affairs which will matter for the next ten years, the next four vitally so. Europe, the little people, look to Britain. We want courage, and power, and the nerve to say Boo to any goose, Eagle or Bear too for that matter. Churchill we know, and his Foreign policy will be brave and real. A Socialist Foreign Policy would quit likely be amateur and theoretical and that way would lie much misery, world misery and maybe war again. So because Foreign Affairs are everything for now, give us a Government of seasoned men who will win the respect, and trust of the little countries, and there is trouble brewing in the MidEast and India if we aren’t careful, and there again we need seasoned men. More generally it seems to me that the socialism which we all hope to practise comes best from the Conservatives than from the socialists who tend to inflict petty control and feudal domination in the name of Freedom, and love committees and little bosses. The country has been better fed, better cared for and better managed in these years of war under what was by influence a Conservative government than ever before. That’s what I think. Finally, these Rigns and Circles are not Conservative products. The Cooperative Movement is one example, so is such organisations as Cadburys and Levers. As an individualist I see more chance for free living under conservative than under socialist control. So please, vote for the conservative bloke even if it isn’t Eden unless he’s a complete juggins.

                        In breif, It is my opinion that having clung to Churchill as we have in our hour of peril it would be foolish and ungrateful to throw him out now that day has come. He was right to demand an election now, if before the end of the war, because otherwise the Opposition would have been carping and yapping all the time to throw him out and that would have presented a sorry picture to Europe. They are cross because their chance to whittle down his party is taken from them. In theory, socialism; in real life the socialism of Conservative Government. Responsible seasoned men and guts now to see through the many problems which will be set us. So there we are, I am anyhow.

                        Dickie can do as he likes and wave whatever flag he wishes. I’ve read no political speeches and judge this all on my own opinion. I fear more than anything Big Busineas and Big Persoanl ambition working behind the puppets which a socialist majority might put into power.
Went to Butterfly again 1ast night. This time as Guest of the Savoizzi crowd, who had a proscenium box. In the box were Marina, liable to bubble into song, next to me. Giorgio possessively on the other side, Giancarlo his brother next to him. Poppa behind with two stray friends, it was a box with a little withdrawing room so in the second interval we had a party there. In the first I went behind and talked with La Moretti who was singing Butterfly, of course, and Assante who did a good Pinkerton, and very pleasant it all was. Back to the Savoizzi home for soup, spaghetti, meat and fruit. A jolly evening.

                        The Gold Block arrived safely yesterday and bless you for it. John Cotton or Country Life are my favourites, but this is very good and has got me back piping again, whereat I am happier. Thankyou, fair goodwife.

                        Yes, a good policy of yours, Happy Responsibility. I am all for being capitistic minded over your son Dickie, and having a margin of safety. And I think you are very shrewd when you suggest that it is in the boy’s interests not to be an only child. But he’ll have a good start and he’ll be able to Lord it over a brother or sister if there are only two. A batch to stand together to resist the magnificent’s authority would be better. Bless us all, we shouldn’t wonder ! We will see. But I am for reasonable quiet living, good food, honey as well and not too much unnecessary frills, and our home orderly and fresh and not crowded out. Have we too many things ? The army has taught me the value of keeping to essentials. It will be great joy to restart our life, we must br brave about it and free of the past, for It is new.

                        Now a letter to Mama, and then some reading of Trevelyan. Dear you how I love you, so very very much, and your bimbo. Do you, like Butterfly, call him Dolore now but Gioa when his father comes home? And will you deck the house with flowers ? Oh dear, what an occasion. Its a thing I dream of constantly, yet cannot really conceive or understand. You and Candy and my home would be enough to strike me dumb with wonder and Dickie thrown in as overwelght is terrific. Has he any new dimensions by the way ?

                        Bye bye, my dear, sorry about the outburst of politics. I avoid discussing them usually.

C/O   H.Q.   No. 5 Port Operating Group R.E.   C.M.F.

 Dearest….Here we are again, and a warm evening.   I shall probably filter vaguely down to spend a couple of hours with the Saviozzi crowd and may not.   One feels unsettled these fine warm evenings.   This afternoon a goodly cricket match, which we won by eight runs, and the last overs were quite nerve-wracking, however we did it and felt pleased.  So I remain at first wicket down where I have stayed for a long time for the odd twenty every time and take my three wickets a match, which may be a childish cause for gratification, but it pleasant as a mark that old age has not got me yet.   Indeed I am as lively and fit as ever I have been and leap about quite happily.   So that’s a good thing;

A letter from you yesterday which was good. You’d been to see Fitz and liked it and Mrs. Jeavons had been dreadful and the garden was nice and Dickie Dickyish.   Yesterday I had my day off and took Suzy Moretti and her Basso profundo to Taranto and Giorgio came too and we went off while they were negotiating and found a charming bathing beach and swam in the warm deep clear sea and lay in the sun and ate herrings on bread and butter and drank red wine and ate peaches and chocolate and all was nice a happy.   The Basso Profundo bounced about in the back quite contentedly.   In the evening I read and then called on the nice Gaons and stayed until all the children were in bed and made a little love to Bianca and so home and tired to bed to sleep soundly as I do in my cool little room.

Still no change in the situation, we abide our orders and there is nought else to do. A silly situation indeed: But there is nought we can do about it so we just carry on: I have got over the sadness now and am reconciled to it all.

I should be writing you know and of a sudden I will. This going out makes me feel guilty, but I think St. Anthony means it well, it is a stale life sitting about and tends to dullness. To move about breeds verve and your David without verve would be so unworthy of you.   And It is you of whom I mostly think and do.   More anon.

Anon.   I did go down, having telephoned and spoken to them all in turn, and being ordered to go because they were having Pezze Napolitane.  So I ate much too much and we teased and talked and so to bed where I slept stormily having dined a l’Anglaise at half seven and supped a la Napoli at ten.   Sort of ommelette of Pasta with tomatoes, parsley, olive oil onions and all sorts. But so much.

More cricket tomorrow. Really I am pleased that I can bowl a dozen overs – with results, field hard and bat for half an hour or more at my advancing age. Some stationers get scanty on the top, flabby at the middle and hairy at the ear tips at nearly forty. So I shall not be too elderly for you and Dickie.

Oh no I shan’t.   Now to bed, dearest you.
Ever;;;
David     XXXXX

c/o H.Q.  No. 5 Port Operating Group R.E. C.M.F.

Monday

 Dearest. . . Two letters today, the last from Kettering and the first from HOME.   Also the second came to the new address and was delivered without delay by Don R. We may be here for a long time, of course, but for safety its best to use the H.Q. address.    Letters are so very important.

So our home is nice and welcoming, and is ready for its Master.    I’ve been sitting with the new Colonel this evening at our Sergeants Dance, and he was very touched about Dickie and not having seen him and thinks the sooner I do so the better.   A good thing for him to think.    Not that he can do anything normally. He’s a nice woolly casual man, large and with only three months to do before he is out, too. A nice little dance, Ronnie had his family up, he gets a family too, but with young and nice females in it.  Such a nice little girl he’s got, and she came with her sister and Momma, so in between the colonel I talked to Momma. I saw my folk last night, casually, it being Sunday evening, and arrived at half past eight and they were all upset because they thought I wasn’t going. Its Butterfly tonight again, but strongly minded I stayed away and went to the sergeants dance. Last night was fun. I played chess with Giorgio, teased Suzi Moretti, challenged the plump tenor to a duel because he said my lady Saviozzi had an old face and she hasn’t – he was not serious, and then we all stood round the piano and sang songs, two professional sopranos, a tenor and a basso, and Giorgio in a squeaky sort of gruffish alto, Poppa in an ordinary voice and me in several vague voices.   We sang Neapolitan songs, opera arie, and all sorts of things. Even Passing By and Drink to me Only.    Then supper and a lot of nonsense.   Daft lot.

Tomorrow I am taking Suzi and the tenor, who’s called Assante, to Taranto, they having a special pass and Giorgio, of course, will bounce about in the back and while they are doing their business with impresarios Giorgio and I will go swimming, and we’ll all picnic on the way back.    Odd lot.

This morning I went to town and saw Area and had a hair cut at the club and then officed all the rest of the day while Johnny and Ronnie went swimming, to get a credit mark for tomorrow. Its a strange stand-still time, and we have three cricket matches this week.    Giorgio and I plan vaguely a day out by the sea somewhere towards the end.  You’d like him, he’s fresh minded and light of heart and very intelligent, he has some of his mother’s genius.    Poppa is the next devoted, and gradually I am becoming David and not the formal Signor Capitano.    Its off jackets there anyhow and there are no badges of rank on a singlet. I did a Thing about them this afternoon by the way but maybe I’ve lost my touch for a bit.  Use it as you wish. Suzi Moretti, though a far more famous and talented prima donna is not a tenth a   nice as Giorgio’s Momma. Suzi is a woman-of-the-world and gossamer and sweet as she is on the stage, and divine though her voice is, she’s large and shapeless and hardish off the stage. But interesting to study.   Her little tenor is sweet and so simple minded.    I shall be amused at the journey, he and she in the front with me. Giorgio, as I’ve said will bounce about slightly jealously in the Back.    But they are genuine, this crowd, they’ve worked terrifically hard to get where they are and they will hold their places, by guts and talent.

 From Mother today came a letter full of the most sincere praises for your little son, and MY little son. She is very touched at your going there and is full of admiration for him and for you in producing him as such a pleasant little person.    One does wonder. It all seems too too good to be true.

 I’m very relieved that the little pots have arrived safely.   We’d better find a worthy museum for them if you don’t want them.    It was a fool thing to send them home.   With Lanave’s love, and mine.

Much love from me.   You cannot imagine how warm and rich you in your home seems, and how deeply desirable.    Fortitude, as you say!
Ever Your
David  XX

Dearest. . . Two letters today, blue envelopes and posted on the 10th and 11th, and with an enchanting drawing of Dickie abed in one, and nice things said about him and how people like him. Dear, that we should have a likeable son ! Any son would be pretty good to me, but a really pleasant one, who contributes to the love and admiration he gets, is a blessing which makes my heart beat faster. A little patience and we shall see.
Nothing new since yesterday when I wrote.  This morning inspection of the men, a trip to HQ and around town, and this afternoon a happy cricket match in lovely sun shine. And I was promoted doubly, opening the bowling and bowling twelve full overs for only 45 runs and four wickets, and batting first wicket down and finding it pleasant and being confident and making the top score. So all was well and I purr. I hope to be worth a place in the village team when Dickie is a star. Perhaps we can bat together. This evening, after a shower and dinner I went with Barry to the pictures but we walked out after twenty minutes of Wallace Beery and came back and here I am. Tomorrow I stand down from cricket, it being my turn, unless Barry’s finger is still bad, then he’ll stand down. In the evening to Madame Butterfly with the Savoizza family in state, to hear their friend Suzy Morretti sing Butterfly. She is charming, and speaks fluent English, as good as yours or mine and is singing One Fine Day in English tomorrow. I join them at their house, go with them to their special stalls and return to their house for supper, with Suzy Morretti. Interesting. They live hard, like all artists, La Signora Saviozzi is terrific and lives on her nerves, runs her flat with one maid, sings in opera, is very houseproud, feeds three other singers who are homeless and a brother-in-law and brings up Giorgio and Gianlucio charmingly. She is our sort. They are charming to me, Giorgio looks upon me as his special friend of course, but they all make it plain that they are friendly.
Yes, I’ll like coming back to Italy, with you, to take you around. They are a stupid people collectively but individually they can be charming and their language, their scenary and their customs, and their summer climate are all lovely. But England. . .  . that is so different.

            Thankyou, very very much, for returning the snaps, they mean much to love-lorn me, Thankyou for the GH letter. Furtive of me to send it direct. Take the money and bless you.  I will write other things.

Still here and standing by. Did I send our accomodation address to you ?    It is incase Things Happen, to make sure that our mail doesn’t go wandering abou. It is c/o H.Q., No. 5 Port Operating Group R.E.,  C.M.F. I’ll tell you when that is not necessary.

                        Your letters have come daily, but not to-day, which is understandable, Postie must have some days off. Yesterdays was again a double, a treble really because you and Mother and Dickie all had a letter in.    His was guided, I suspect, by a grand-maternal hand. Let me see, what has happened. The night before last I went to a concert with Barry, and last night I went visiting the Saviozzi household, and explained cricket to them for the good of their souls and drank red vino and some tea and talked Italian with some progress made; I telephoned them just now and to my amazement a female answered in fluent West-End English, it was a rather famous soprano whos name has slipped me and we chatted glibly before I enquired in Italian of Giorgio – my teacher in theory though All the family join in – of his momma’s health which was not good yesterday. This female is singing Butterfly on Saturday and is going to startle the audience by singing Un bel di Vedremo in English ! We had Boheme on the wireless last night so all the family followed the score and criticised and explained and gave me a new insight into the Opera. But though they’re a funny lot they’re good fun, very kind and a change from the Mess, also they are giving me Italian practice. It is possible to live here for two years and not learn one word; because the army has its owm complete world here wherein one moves and English is the language. Johnny Feaver has been here eighteen months, is strongly prejudiced against all foreigners and knows not one word. Its a pretty tongue if their politics and plumbing is suspect.

                        I have written to Mother just now rejoicing in the news that she is going to Aunties for a Month and that she has decided to flatulate the house. You are dead right about the Grange folk, they are, or were; boisterous indeed. Mother must go about now and rest. I am more grateful than you can imagine about your very kind and very shrewd handling of the situation.

Yes; those pictures live in my wallet, literally next my heart, and are much looked at. They give good value. I shall like to have them back when you can send them. Needn’t keep them really for the negatives now you have seen them. Mean much to me, for I am attached.  I have thought of something to make a book of, and the idea may not go sour as so many ideas do. Its an idea which is complete and smellable, feelable and although not explicable shortly; in focus. Its a new thing to, on an old subject, on cricket. It is from the rabbit point of view, and is something crossed between Selincourt, EV Lucas and Blunden. I’ll play with it. Might do well. Cape should like it. Its ashamed I am to be doing no big writing, but the strain would be terrific and the result dubious. No little writing these past few weeks either. Maybe there’s a Guardian column in the Boheme affair last night at the Savoiozzi house. I’ll see.

                        We have some cricket this week, tomorrow and Saturday and maybe an afternoon watching a giants match here on Sunday, subject to the exigencies of the service.

                        Had a posh inspection this morning on the main Square and the poor dears were so very good, everything shone and they stood so very still and drilled like veterans. They are sorry, but their offence is beyond mere forgiveness; three weeks ago they were very naughty. But people don’t understand them, they are deemed much worse than they are.

                        As the weeks pass, the day of return draws nearer. It seems imppossible that it will come. It must be casual and meek, unnoticed and certainly unsung. Mr. Careless’ threatened Alcester Town Band would send me back immediatey to Italy, to be winkled out with pieces of welsh-rarebit held by no hand but yours. The people to whom I come home are primarily you, secondarily Dickie and Candy, thirdly the Mommas and then a whole scale of nice people ending up with Our Gerald, whom St. Benedict protect.

                        Oh, yesterday Ronald and I went up the coast five miles and swam and sunbathed at a little fishing village. Very nice but not as nice as Piombino. That was very grand.

                                       I do love you truly, very truly:
Bless you and my love, as always postal love, to Riccardino. The enclosed little letter in my best Italian is for D’Agostino Francesco if you still have him about. It should shew that all British are not cool. Its a bit schoolboyish, because much use of grammar and vocabulary went to it. I have primly used the subjunctive often though. Hope he notices that.

CMF

Dearest…I send these still to Great Alne because I don’t know how long you will be at Kettering. Today came your sage comforting and shrewd letter about the problem “What to do with Mother”.    I am very thankful indeed that two so sage heads as Auntie’s and yours are concerned actively over the problem, and I do have full confidence in your judgement and tactful handling of it all.  I am pleased about the Month With Auntie, and think the house dividing a splendid idea.   The Home remains and Mother will have it still and won’t feel stranded and homeless.    She will have no financial worries, for a good price should be obtainable these days, and she will be free to go about the place.    The big snag will be the formidable prospect of the changing over, the carpentering and moving, the letting and reorganising.    That would be where I could help so very much.    It wants an agent really. Plans making, workmen laying on and then being done sharp and quick.   Certainly I back Auntie and you up and I am indeed glad you and she are so compatible.

A good day, it rained in the night and the temperature was more bearable, and we played cricket.   Very jolly, though we lost.   My bowling is getting more regular than ever and now Derek (very fast) and I (not at all fast but cunning) open together and I got three nice juicy wickets and then got out LBW for no runs, commonly called a duck.    But it was very jolly.   Yes I still field Point. After a shower and a nice dinner Barry and I went to the Piccini and heard an operatic orchestral and vocal concert, the full orchestra playing overtures and intermezzi, including Le Maschere, and Anna Farone, Mini Cavallo and a tenor singing arie.   Very pleasant and light and charming.    Tomorrow I go to the Famiglia Saviozzi to learn Italian from Giorgio and to talk and listen to his mother and father on Opera behind stage gossip.    And maybe for La Cena as well.

All is quiet, we still await orders.    The men are very docile now and look at me with large sorry eyes and do want to be forgiven please.   They are terrified of losing their own officers as they know is to be the case. I am game to take them back to work them, they’d be quite all right, but Higher Ups who don’t altogether understand them are a bit jumpy about them.     They   think they are wild dervishes and they’re not, though they got in a pretty wild state after not eating for two days and being worked up by each other.   Now they are very tame.

A better letter from Christopher, quite lucid and eloquent.   And one from Mother saying how very happy she is with you and our son who seems to go about pointing out my photograph to her gratification.

No news, all is quiet and bless us all.   You are being, as usual, the perfect comrade in this business of my good mother.   Bless you.

 Ever your own…
David  X

Two letters this happy day, one written from home, the other started at home and finished at Kettering. Your letters are brilliantly personal and carry in a most unusual way your own personality and self. Therefore are they most precious to me.

                        So you made the journey satisfactorily and Dickie knows Kettering. Mothers enclosed letter was full of her happiness at having you both there. Auntie told me she was not too good again, and she told me so herself. I think the answer is for us to let the house to the Capps, who want it, and later sell it up. If we sold now Mother would be homeless and lost. If it is Let first it will seem to be temporary and will be a shading off into the final necessary action. It is a big difficult place for her. She can live with Auntie, I believe that has been offered and occasionally stay with us. Much as I realise my responsibilities and fond as I am of her, out of rational fairness to you I would not suggest she lived with us. That would not work. Stay, yes. I will write to Mother and then if she agrees to negotiation to Dick Capp.

                             It is comforting to know that you are there and that Mother is surrounded by such dear and intelligent people as you and Aunite Edie. I am very glad, deeply so, that you and Auntie Edie are good friends. Auntie Edie has been a traditional person in my life, for goodness and niceness. She is a rare person and your saying that she and I are alike is the best compliment you could pay me.

                          We are “awaiting orders”. All was arranged for the men to go on Saturday and on Friday came a “hold it all” order. Now AFMQ and MS are arguing it out and I think that London and the War Office and the Foreign Office are embroiled in it. So the men sheepish and so eager to please and sorry sit about and march about with armed guards outside the camp. We also stand by for orders. As it stands now we do not go ourselves. Its very High Level and difficult.  Staff Captain A has just telephoned frm Area saying the Brigadier wants my personal number and Christian names which is either for a Court Martial, for idle curiosity or to put me down for an Honour. Its all odd, and this is very secret information. I should think its the first, or second. I go about not getting gongs. I was put up for a Mention at Salerno but quite rightly when the allocations came out there were too many due to the Guards who did terrific things and the always charming Hampshires. Then I was in for one with Allan, and someone had to decide and took, as was fitting and right; the Technical Captain.  But this is all nonsense and naughty. The blessing is that if it is a Court Mertial they may try me in London, like Warren Hastings and I’m sure sure they’d find you a lodging in the Bloody Tower so that we could walk on the ramparts together.   Would you cut my initials for me with a diamond, you’re better at it than I am.  Not a word of all this nonsense please to anyone, its all conjecture and would make us sound dreadfully talky. Its bad form to tell you but I can’t keep sesrets from you that’s why I’d never manage a double life, I’d have to tell you all about it. The only fact is that Area have asked for personal and the Brigadier bas been extremely sweet about it all.  It would be dreadful if anything did happen, because Derek would feel hurt. Its been the old trouble of having someone alongside, but he’s been sweet and has not presented me taking the lead.  But he’s senior to me.  I don’t know, and certainly we shouldn’t wonder ! Forget all this indiscreet matter.

                        Had a lovely day out yesterday, and very unarmy, which was what I needed.    On the spur of the moment I telephoned the Saviozzi house (I’m quite hot at Italian on the phone now !) and told young Giorgio, there small boy to meet me outside their flats at half past two.   We drove down the coast road, he very thrilled at being in a British truck, and then turned off through the byest of bye lanes where the Dodge just managed to squeeze through and came, to a deserted beach.   We  swam and floated in the very warm yet soothing sea (it was 98° here yesterday) and then ate bread and butter and drank water, and played ducks and drakes and idled, I dozed and he made a sort of a boat from drift wood.  And back by nine o’clock.    Quite-delightfully unmilitary and the best day for learning Italian I’ve ever had.   He being a small tuscan speaks very pure Italian and we prattled quite happily.    He was charming in one thing, I was telling him about the invasion of Sicily and he said the reason was because a British spy had mixed the ammunition and the German batteries had Italian shells and the Italian batteries German shells, which is delightful; and as it is his country its only fair that he should believe that.  I said the British spy had been made a Lord and lived in a wing of Buckingham Palace, so honours were easy. He’s thirtten or fourteen and is very bright, and certainly a charming companion and very gay and light hearted. His Mother had a head poor dear so I didn’t go in but back to the Mess where for some sudden reason not known to me I joined a party round a couple of bottles of vicious Canadian Rye whiskey and got pickled and went to bed with unusual dignity and in a tossing bedroom. But all is well now: We’ve got two charming parachutist officers living with us, and they were very droll. Full of tales of gorrilla warfare in Greece.

                        Outside Lanave’s this morning I saw the smallest donkey ever seen by anyone. It was very solemn and didn’t think itself at all unusual. From forhead to front hoofs he was two foot five ! He could curl up in one of our armchairs. His master was a ten year old urchin and his car a sort of a large wheelbarrow full of logs. I wish I could get him and send him home !

                        In the Club today I bought for sixpence The Cloister and the Hearth and Ainsworth’s Guy Fawkes. Good dear old tales. Lucky me. Fortunate me.

                        I am going to write a little letter to Francesco. I’ll send it to you.

                        I must change. We go to HQ this evening to say goodbye to Colonel Oram and to meet his successor, a nice loose limbed St. Bernard man.

                        I do love you and want to know and like and if I may to love your son.

                        Thankyou for your sweetness to momma mia, bless her.

It was naughty of me to write that rather self-pitying letter last time and I’m sorry. I’m more sensible now and am not silly about myself, though I do still need and want you very much indeed. But we shall meet. JGL sent a charming letter about his trip and said nice things about you and Dickie, and observed that although no complaint passes your lips you are very forlorn too about us. Bless us, I must not be stoopid, it was this other affair as well. All is as it was, we await an Order to move, not us but the men., Politically its tricky.

                        Its very very hot here and in addition to the disorganization of the war and invasions, the weather has been wrong for the crops, not enough rain, a sparse harvest, little corn and little Pasta, Alas. Even il cielo is against the Italians now. I suppose it will be universal, France and other countries as well.

                        I spent the evening last night with the Savviozzi family, and stayed for La Cena, which began afr half past ten and went on until nearly midnight, from Pasta through various—morsels of differently prepared meats to cherries and sweets. The usual situation of the family plus a bewildering succession of other people, men in coloured singlets and strange females. They are all part of the opera world and there’s a wealth of interesting material with them, the inside of the opera box as it were, talk of temperament, of voices, of acting, of types of interpretations. This La Saviozza is singing Butterfly next week, it will be interesting to go to hear her, knowing her, and to go to a rehearsal. She is a brilliant person, something of your type. She runs her home perfectly, adores her two boys, the solemn twenty year old University one with a great gift of silence, and the more mercurial Giorgi who is fourteen and works very hard at his school work. She works hard at her job, rehearses, teaches, learns and practises, and makes her traditional costumes, Lucia etc… She has a dizzy trade-life with the others of the guild and is gay as well. To have a son of twenty she is extraordinarily young and looks about your age, the best of all ages. She has dark eyes and a vivacious manner, pretty hands and a good smile. Knows no English but tries to help my Italian. Yesterday I asked her if she knew any English songs, most of them do and she said yes and sang, in a lovely voice, “This is the way we Brush. our hair, brush our hair, brush our hair,…this is the way we brush our hair, when we go to school in the morning” ! It was an astonishing event and shook me and gave me hysterics, of the nicest kind. She also uses one English word, “Manufactuary”. ‘Why, Gawd knows, You would or will love her. She is a Florentine, and Giorgio was born at Pisa (but has no distinctive lean) and her husband, a sober earnest railway engineer, is of Livorno, So they are Tuscans all. She exclaimed and purred over the picture of you and Dickie of course.

                        So there they are, and very refreshing after the life of the Mess. Oh, I may get posted specially to an Italian Cooperator company, and command three hundred Italians with a British Cadre, same set up as this outfit !!! Itts only an idea of the colonels but I said yes, it is quite a nice idea.

                        I think you’d bettor play for safety and address letters to me c/o H.Q., No. 5 Port Operating Group, R.E  C.M.F.

                        The box of sweets addressed to you and sent yesterday are really for you and Dickie fifty fifty. Tell him. And play fair the two of you. I sent one to Christopher.

                        There has been a dreadful dearth of letters from you, and yesterday there was an envelope with the very interesting Spears article in it, but no letter, Povero me. But I know its difficult and I know you are perhaps at Kettering> So long as all is well.

                        Bless you, dearest. All wags well here, and the unsettlement of this period will pass. Something new will speed the weeks.

Not a very good letter this, I fear, because I am in melancholy mood which is silly and helps not at all. All this business, for all the niceness of the Area Commander and the Colonel, has made me strangely sad at heart. Moreover I am lonely still and I am ashamed to say, rather homesick and only your company could serve me now. It’s largely the winding up of our men, who are back in camp and so sorry and nice, and the fact that its a glorious evening and everyone is out, and finally those damned Russians are singing interminably in the Minor key, endless repititive tunes which are not musical but probably make them feel better. If I were a dog I would lay back my head, raise my nose and howl at them. They chant on and on. I was tempted to go to the Opera to hear Tosca and sit with the lady’s family, but I have been two evenings and it would be likely to spoil my welcome, I went last night, and had a quite gay time, and my Italian improved. But tonight I’m lurking indoors, reading Trevelyan who is rich and good but again nostalgic for my own books and you in some strange way, and writing letters and studying irregular verbs – Italian, most irregular. So I am stupid and like my Syrians, I Want To Go Home. But I can’t so that is that. I shall do, and what a home to go to, what a treasure house it is, with you, the principal treasure of all.

                        Maybe you are at Kellering today, I hope so and think of you there a lot, and I await news. Bless you all so very much. It is weak and wayward of me to get melancholy. I think cricket will be the answer, and we start again on Tuesday, and that will ease the vagueness and nerviness. We have domestic problems, too. We lose all our batmen of course, and we have to get two Italian boys and a cook, which will be all right if they are all right. It will work out. There will now be an interim period for winding up our affairs and for the legal proceedings against the thirty six we have kept back under close arrest. After that we shall be posted to other companies, and the brigadier has ordered that no one suffers in loss of rank through it, which will help, if his order can overcome the problems of fitting extra Captains (2) and subalterns, (5) into companies. Anyhow, that later. I feel I’ll be all right, as I am a Group man and belong to it well and truly. But that later. We will lose out transport, my lovely 15 cwt. Nevermind, as my son Richard so wisely says. More quotations from his Deeper Sayings when you have any.

                        A fine parcel of six pairs of socks today, from Mother and Auntie Edie; I feel a bit dreadful about them, but they are welcome. Yes, at last Mother paid in the cheque, into out joint account, where she will guard it as any lioness ! What can you do ! The paymaster has found out that he’s been overpaying me 1/- a day since 10 October, when I got my captaincy ! Silly man. The Family allowance is 7/6 for Captains and 8/6 for subalterns, so he should have docked us a bob and hasn’t. He’s taking it back, £7.15 or some such, half in May and half in June.

                        I’ve done no writing at all lately, I’m so sorry. But I have been through quite a trying time and my energies have been used up. It’s a weak- confession, but it is difficult enough in this uncongenial atmosphere to write in normal times, and now I find it impossible. Not very clever, me. After this I shall sit in my camp arm chair and read Trevelyan until I am sleepy. Heigh ho. Cricket is the answer failing the real answer, your voice and presence.

                        Yes, the Batmen were loyal throughout, Felix was extra kind, and is very sad about going away from me. He is a good man. Most of them are, the few are not. But we could handle them easily now, I’d take them on. But for discipliniary reasons they have to be treated thuswise.

                        How dull all this must be for you. Nemmind. I’ll have a good concentrate at your picture, you and he, and then read and then to bed. Busy day agian tomorrow. Nemmind.

                        Dear, how I am fond of you and dependent on you.

                        And don’t be sad at my melancholy, by the time this arrives I’ll have played cricket and will be cock-a-hoop.