1224/5 Shipworking Sections R.E. C.M.F.
No. 239

Dearest… Quite busy little days but I love you. Your very sweet letter in answer to mine wherein I explained why it would be unfair for us to write love letters to each other came.  Bless you for it. I am quite fit and well now, and your anxieties can be calmed.  In fact I’m a Bob Martins Old Faithful now.

Tomorrow I go off on a jaunt, on duty, with a Movement Order signed by the Colonel himself. I wish you could come with me, through the lovely Italian spring. My car is decarbonised and tuned up and I go from here to Naples, leaving at nine in the morning. Sleep at Naples at a Mess we have contact with. Leave early and to Rome via Casino and stay the evening and night there, and then on to Leghorn. There Peter and I go to Florence, to Lucca and to Pisa for four days of tourism. Then back again and here I shall be. The only drawback is ten days of letter-starvation, but I’ll write to you. I’d have asked you to write to 1021, but its risky as they may arrive when I’ve gone, and then the drought would be even worse, so I’ll speed back towards a pile of them. It will be tantalising going up there with you not with me. I’m taking a driver-mechanic to take driving shifts with me, and Felix as car watch dog – you can’t leave anything in this land of crooks and they steal from the back of your car when you slow down round bends – and sergeant Wenham who was mine in 1021 for companion for the driver and to see his old cronies. It’ll be a goodish outing, bless us all. I’ll send details later.

You played Bridge and were bemused with liquor and all was hazy and you very tired and hungry. I don’t know if my Bridge has improved, I forget where we were, We play quite a lot and I imagine the practise has caused some improvement, We use the Culbertson Forcing two for five and a half quick Tricks, the Blackwood Four No Trumps and two and a half for an opener and one and a half for support. Also the losing count. Its all easy but I’m not very good. Channon is the best here,

You went to a concert with the Ronald Brookes and liked it, and that is good. The trailer on Ronnie’s car seems sort of wangling or do they carry things in it. Still, I can’t talk, going the best part of fourteen hundred miles these next ten days! The concert sounds fun, and the new composer. Music does help in times like these, and we must have some when I come home. When…I…come…home….

A gay and friendly letter from Eileen, in which she lauds your son to the skies, talks of his charm and goodness, and of his disarming smile which holds everyone in his sway, and of his good looks and niceness and generally she made me feel very proud and again eager to see this young man over whom I shall have the opportunity of exerting some influence, he being willing.

We have had another Brigadier’s Inspection, a new Area Commander and he was very thorough and spoke to individual men and addressed them all and explored all of our domain and said very embarrassingly kind things afterwards. Quite a to-do, our stock goes up still. I have sent off today another photo with me on it, yet another. Taken on an inspection, the Brigadier and his stooges and the old man and Co., and the company commanders with Derek and I in the back row looking coy.

We are getting cricket conscious and have collected some odd kit and we have a ball at the Mess and toss it about before meals for fielding practise and it seems we shall really get some matting matches this summer. I do hope we do. My being a very poor performer, doesn’t detract from the perverse pleasure I find in the game. It is a good thing. Butterfly last night, and charming it was though the first act wobbled a little. But the audience, the civilian part of it is shockingly badly behaved. They are a new audience, who never before could afford opera, and now they have black market money and go and take small children with penetrating coughs and they talk to each other and I have  a busy time  “Zita-ing” the neighbourhood of our seats. Usually we have boxes for that reason, They are very unmusical, the Italians. The majority of the audience is British and they behave very well indeed.

Very few Americans who seem to prefer films and hotted music.  But you see sailors and airmen and sappers all very quiet and thrilled. People I have met here have been amazed at the English soldier’s love of good music. There are symphony concerts three times every week and always they are packed, largely British soldiers. Its odd and comforting. On Monday the Colonel and I had a box for a new venture, an orchestral and operatic concert. Anna Paraone, my favourite of all, sang and it was very very #good, we’ll stage-door her when she comes to Covent Garden.

I have been musing, as always, about when I come home and as I see it you will have a shadow, following you everywhere you go, just looking at you, and gazing,   Into the kitchen, back to the dining room, upstairs, downstairs, everywhere. I don’t know, you will be so lovely to look at. Oh, yes, you can do that play if it is good enough, its a bit obvious, I mean, aimed at 11 to 14 year-olds you know. But there you are.  I’m glad the candlesticks have been cancelled, that is rather…. isn’t it ?    Tell Alcester to be firm about its factory, but not stupid. Because a reasonable  industrial revival there would give it income and new blood and they could improve the town. But not to be swamped for votes? I don’t know. First I get home, this job done.  Then we’ll see. Bye bye and kiss my son for me. All my love. Ever your David.

 Handwritten at side: I fancy the R.D.C. myself. How could I win a seat? Would you kiss sticky babies?