FRANK GOODRIDGE LETTERS HOME FRANK GOODRIDGE LETTERS HOME Edited by John Goodridge Centenary Edition, 1924-2024 Usk Editions 2024 Usk Editions c/o Professor John Goodridge 42A Borough Street, Castle Donington, Derby DE74 2LB john.goodridge@ntu.ac.uk johnagoodridge@gmail.com This Edition © John Goodridge 2012, 2024 The right of John Goodridge to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988. To the memory of the author of these letters Jonathan Francis (Frank) Goodridge (1924-1984) & his brother, Revd. Ernest Noel Goodridge (1922-2000) I don’t know where we’re going exactly, nor exactly what sort of life I shall live. But the voyage is grand. (letter 23) CONTENTS Acknowledgements Introduction PROLOGUE: DEBATING PACIFISM AND WAR, 1938-42 1. The Coming of War, 1938-40: ‘utterly & excruciatingly stupid, fatuous, ridiculous & mad’ 2. Reaching a Decision, 1941-42: ‘it is all a big, evil machine’ LETTERS HOME: FRANK IN THE ARMY, 1943-46 3. In Basic Training (Lanark, July-August 1943): ‘a bit like Dante’s inferno’ 4. Artillery to Intelligence (Scarborough/Preston/Rotherham, September 1943January 1944): ‘ghastly efficient, terribly military’ 5. Training for Bletchley (Bedford, February-May 1944): ‘sometimes tedious & sometimes fascinating’ 6. Matlock to the Middle East (July-October 1944): ‘I have to be a bit of a wolf in sheep’s clothing’ 7. Alexandria to Iraq (October 1944): ‘quite unexaggerable!’ 8. Southern Iraq (October-November 1944): ‘We live in barbed wire amid dust & sand’ 9. Iran: Tehran and Arak (November-December 1944): ‘one of the best places in the whole world’ 10. Arak/Tehran/Abadan (January-May 1945): ‘they rush around in big American cars’ 11. Abadan (June-August 1945): ‘facing present necessities as they arise’ 12. Palestine and Lebanon (August 1945): ‘and I came “even unto Bethlehem”’ 13. Abadan (September 1945-January 1946): ‘Tankers, tankers, & more tankers, Oil & more Oil’ 14. Khorramshahr (February 1946): ‘after all there was something I loved here’ 15. PAIForce Headquarters, Baghdad (March 1946): ‘A problem of dissolution’ EPILOGUE: POST-DEMOBILISATION AND UNIVERSITY, 1946 16. Alkmonton, Derbyshire and Magdalen College, Oxford (July and October 1946): ‘Mr. Lewis is charming & delightful’ APPENDICES (A) (i) C. S. Lewis’s testimonial for Frank Goodridge (ii) Dr John Forrester’s remembrance of Frank at Oxford (B) Frank’s poems and verse fragments relating to material in the letters (i) ‘Iran fragments 1944-45’ (ii) Two ‘farm’ poems Table of Illustrations Works Cited or Consulted About the Editor Acknowledgements A family history project is a collaboration with both the living and the dead, as one attempts to reconstruct the past, gleaning information wherever it may be found. I am grateful most of all to my sister Meggie Goodridge, who did a great deal of invaluable transcribing and a lot of useful early research for the project, and to Liz Goodridge, Frank’s widow, both for kindly preserving and passing on these precious documents, and for her unlimited encouragement and enthusiasm. My cousin Mark Goodridge, the younger Ernest’s elder son, kindly read through the letters and made some very useful suggestions. I should also like to thank Alison Holmes (née Stuart) and her sister Sheila Stuart, important figures in these letters, for their interest and their memories of Frank. The late Dr John Forrester kindly shared his memories of the cold winter of ’46, when he and Frank were both living in the New Building at Magdalen College, Oxford, and these are included in Appendix A. I am also grateful to another of Frank’s old friends, John Sawkins (on whom see especially letter 14 and note), for his interest, and to Frank’s late sister Margaret Goodridge (1933-2023). I am grateful to Julian Barker for his memories of Frank in the 1960s and of what he said about his time in the Middle East. Thanks are also due to Zoe Parsons, the archivist of Kingswood School, for her kind assistance. Although Frank’s Oxford career only really comes into focus in the final letter, I should like to put on record here my profound gratitude to Professors John Berkman of the University of Toronto, Gabriel Citron of Princeton University, and Jim Stockton of Boise State University, for their scholarly expertise, interest, assistance, advice and friendly discussions concerning Frank’s involvement in the philosophy debates and his friendships with the Oxford philosophers of the 1940s. Professor Berkman’s visits to look over Frank’s books and papers in 2022 and 2023 and his discussions with us on those occasions are warmly remembered by Liz Goodridge and myself. Gabriel and Jim have also generously shared, from their own researches, vital sources of information about my father I should not otherwise have known. Frank’s late brother, Revd. Ernest N. Goodridge (1922-2000), also read through the letters with great interest at a very early stage in this project, and provided much biographical and contextual information. Although the brothers were very different in their personalities, they shared a great deal in their lives, including their interest in farming and love of the natural world, their spiritual and intellectual seriousness, and their open and enquiring spirits. This edition of Frank’s wartime letters is dedicated to the memory of these two remarkable brothers. Introduction This is an edition of the letters to his family written by Jonathan Francis (Frank) Goodridge (1924-1984), during his four years as a conscripted soldier, 1943-46. After being called up and going through his six weeks of basic training at Lanark Barracks in south-west Scotland, Frank was impressed into the Royal Artillery and stationed at Scarborough, then moved on to Signals at Preston, where he was promoted to lance-corporal, before being swiftly transferred to Military Intelligence, reporting to its Rotherham depot. After several months of training in Bedford for the Bletchley codebreaking operation he was sent up to Matlock for further training, and was then sent abroad to serve in Iraq and Iran as a Field Security Officer attached to PAI (Persia and Iraq) Force. The letters are preceded by a Prologue of extracts from Frank’s diaries and letters during his later school years, 1938-42. In these he discusses the war and the dilemma it posed for him, given his own and his brother’s pacifistic views. These were formed to a considerable degree by echoes of an earlier war, in the stories and surviving papers of their uncle Ernest, killed in the Battle of the Somme.1 An image that Frank used in the 1970s to open his ‘War Poem—To an Academic Veteran’ gives a sense of how the Great War was perceived by Frank (and many others of his generation), and how its imagery—here, of blinded soldiers leading each other and shell-shocked ‘deserters’ being executed—stayed with him: No doubt you’re right. The blind still lead the blind. Our fathers fled and were shot, traitors to old men’s lies, and still lie dead in Whitehall’s secret files.2 In 1939, when the issue of conscription first arose, Frank was involved in intense discussions amongst his circle of friends at Kingswood, his Methodist boarding school. After much soul-searching he came eventually to the careful conclusion, ‘that See The Same Stars Shine: The Great War Diary and Letters of Corporal Ernest Goodridge of Bentley, Doncaster, with Contemporary Records and Illustrations, edited by Ernest N. Goodridge and John A. Goodridge, with a Foreword by Ronald Blythe (Loughborough: Teamprint, 1999), revised and expanded 2016 centenary edition online at academia.edu. 2 Published in The Raw Side (1978). On the continuing pervasiveness of WW1 imagery and language see especially Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory (1975). 1 my desire to do something positive, although a conscientious desire, does not constitute a conscientious objection to combatant warfare’. Unless he could find appropriate non-combatant work he would be, as he put it, ‘forced to accept as a necessity the obligation of taking part, since I am part of a mass of suffering people who are in the same position’. Above: the final entry in the Somme diary of Frank’s uncle Ernest Goodridge, shot dead on the parapet while trying to lead his platoon into battle on 4 October 1916. (The diary is now on display in the Visitor Centre at the Thiepval Memorial.) In this decision, Frank was influenced by the ideas of his school friend E. P. Thompson, the charismatic future historian and peace movement activist. In his 1993 obituary to Thompson, Frank’s brother, the younger Ernest, would write: In his early teens, as I remember him, Edward had a profound sense of human history and even of his own part within it. In the group to which Edward belonged (my brother Frank more of the inner circle than I) pacifism was a constant subject of debate. His own decision, as he expressed it to me, was that if one was to have any significant part in the shaping of human events one could not stand aside from what was happening to one’s fellow men. (Methodist Recorder, 9 September 1993, p. 9) Frank’s conclusion was close to that of his friend, though Frank was a Christian with broadly progressive political views, whilst Thompson was always a Marxist.3 So whilst his older brother Ernest (named for their lost uncle) was registered as a conscientious objector, after being arraigned by a tribunal, and spent the latter part of the war in farm work at Newark,4 Frank obeyed his military call-up, though he did so with considerable reservations. He was in many ways a reluctant and conflicted soldier, as can be seen especially in the later letters from Iran and Iraq, where local corruption, the blind rush for oil, and his own role as a representative of what he calls the ‘conquerors’ made it hard for him to rationalise what he was doing there and to hold on to his own spiritual and intellectual ideals.5 The conflict between the obligation he feels (in Thompson’s terms) not to stand aside from the conflict, and his own desires, beliefs and aspirations, emerges in moments such as the ‘basic training’ incident he describes in the postscript of a letter to his brother: P.S. Marching with rifle down a lane the other day, passed 3 lovely farm-horses. Terrible longing possessed me—a longing for those horses again. To see a whistling young chap with some horses makes me want to cry like a baby, and want to lead them along, even if only for a few yards. You can’t imagine how I wanted to throw the rifle & helmet away & run after those great, careless beast[s]. At the clink of our rifles they lifted their head up & disdainfully sniffed the air. They had lovely, new harness on, & shining bodies. Then the seargeant yelled at me to march properly & ‘take hold of myself’! So I swallowed my grief & we passed the horses by! (letter 5) The happy memory of the farm work he and his brother loved to engage with in their school holidays surges up at the peaceable sight of farm horses, but of course he is brutally hauled straight back into the world of strict military discipline. We can E. P. Thompson (1924-1993), would become the most celebrated English historian of his generation, best known for The Making of the English Working-Class (1963), which pioneered the idea of ‘history from below’, and as a prominent anti-nuclear peace campaigner in the 1980s. Among his other works are Whigs and Hunters (1975), and Customs in Common (1991). Thompson was called up in 1942, a year before Frank, and served in North Africa and Italy, leading a tank squadron in the Battle of Cassino. 4 Ernest worked for Brownlow Horner and his family at Stoke Fields Farm, Elston, Newark. 5 Frank’s sense of his own experiences also varied a great deal: Tehran, for example, was ‘one of the best places in the whole world’ in letter 31, but by letter 46 four months later, was ‘a turgid, semiEuropean city, where life is’nt always very edifying’. 3 also see in passages like this what a fine letter-writer Frank could be. Again in the same letter, he writes of the ‘happy, cynical jokes of sweaty men in the queues for meals, of the joyful gluttony of eating at meals or in evenings, or the quiet evenings in the padre’s reading-room where for a few hours I read Bunyan, or the New Testament, or write letters’. Each phrase conveys a moment and an atmosphere. There are many moments of pleasure and excitement in his experiences, although his moods would grow dark at the ‘acid tang about life which sometimes corrodes the coccles of my heart’ (letter 90). But he generally managed to make something of his situation, if only in describing it as clearly and honestly as he could. Frank sought out kindred spirits and moments of peace and pleasure, and never lost the excitement and interest of new experiences and new vistas, even when the other soldiers would tease him for his enthusiasm, or exasperatingly fail to understand how exciting it was to visit new countries and cities. This love of visiting new places, at its most intense here in the long journal-letters from his visit to Palestine (letters 66-69), would be a lifelong passion.6 Letters to and from home and his brother Ernest on the farm in Newark, as well as his girlfriend (and later fiancée) Sheila Stuart and her family, were a vital lifeline for Frank and a forum for discussing all these things. He is often almost painfully honest about his feelings. The life of the mind is strongly in evidence too, along with a keen interest—not unusual among soldiers during the Second World War—in the future of society, as well as his own future, about which he changes his mind several times. ‘I’ve been absolutely absorbed in my books’, Frank writes in letter 28, stuck in a ‘beastly desert camp’ in November 1944. The books he reads, exchanges and discusses play a central role in the story, and for that reason I have endeavoured to identify everything he read or discussed. Frank writes of one correspondent, ‘I’ve now sent him the book, thus keeping up the circulation of ideas which creates a hidden link between us’ (letter 82). This ‘hidden link’ of discussion and shared ideas through the circulation of books around friends and family was a vital intellectual and social resource for Frank, and would remain so in his later life. It is perhaps notable in this context that choosing exactly the right book to give to an individual for their birthday or at Christmas would always be a special skill of his. Following his demobilisation in May 1946, Frank moved to take up the scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford he had had to defer, and in the autumn would begin Frank’s long journal-letters home from Spain and Italy, and his scrapbook-journal of ‘places visited’ in Britain, all dating from the 1960s, survive and make equally rich reading. 6 reading for an English degree under the tutelage of C. S. Lewis, who developed a high regard for his abilities,7 and put him up to run the Socratic Club as its Secretary.8 Frank would take careful minutes of the debates in the club, and edited a double issue of the Socratic Digest, no. 4 (1947-48), containing several of the summaries of proceedings that Lewis singled out as evidence of one of Frank’s particular abilities, in the reference he wrote for him (reproduced in Appendix A).9 He would describe Frank as ‘the very best secretary of the Socratic Club we ever had’.10 The most important of these minutes is the summary of Lewis’s own further response to Elizabeth Anscombe’s famous ‘Reply to Mr. C. S. Lewis’ on philosophical ‘naturalism’. Frank’s interest in philosophy drew him into friendship with Anscombe, her husband Peter Geach, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Yorick Smythies, Peter Daniel and Barry Pink.11 Along with Daniel, Frank came to live at Elizabeth Anscombe’s house at 27 St John’s Street, Oxford at the start of Hilary term in January 1948, and with his wife Gill he lived in and looked after the house when Anscombe was away in Austria learning German in 1950. Wittgenstein stayed with them at St John’s Street for a few months during this second period of residence.12 The influence of another of Frank’s tutors, the medievalist J. A. W. (Jack) Bennett, would lead to his undertaking a modern English version of William Langland’s Piers the Plowman for the Penguin Classics series (first published in 1959; it remains in print). The last letter in the ‘Epilogue’ section, below, gives Frank’s early impressions of Oxford in the Michaelmas term of 1946. See Lewis’s testimonial for Frank, Appendix A. Lewis would also recommend Frank to the BBC as a potential Religious Affairs Correspondent (a post Frank chose not to take). See Lewis, Collected Letters, Vol. III, ed. Hooper (2006), p. 717 (Lewis to Jocelyn Gibb, 4 March 1956). 8 Frank’s Socratic Club minute book is now safely lodged in the Bodleian Library (MSS Eng. c. 78827884), and I am grateful to Jim Stockton for locating it there (it was borrowed from my father by a Lewis scholar in the 1970s and not returned), and for kindly sharing his discoveries with me. See Jim Stockton and Benjamin J. B. Lipscomb, ‘The Anscombe-Lewis Debate: New Archival Sources Considered’, Journal of Inklings Studies, 11, no. 1 (April 2021), pp. 35-57. The 1947-8 Socratic Digest has been reprinted, ed. Joel D. Heck (Austin Texas: Concordia UP, 2012) – see pp. 99-192 (pp. 108-9). 9 Frank also served as College Secretary of the Oxford University Poetry Society in 1946-47. 10 Letter to Jocelyn Gibb as cited above. 11 Frank also enjoyed the friendship of Iris Murdoch, who records in her journal for 27 October 1948 a philosophical argument with Yorick Smythies, Frank Goodridge and others on the ‘attractiveness of good’, the subject of her work The Sovereignty of Good (1970). On 30 October 1950 she notes that her friend Elizabeth departs to visit Frank, who was in the Churchill hospital at the time. (Thanks to (Gabriel Citron and John Berkman for these references.) 12 The philosopher, by now quite ill, recorded in a letter that at this time that Gill Goodridge (19262022) did his shopping for him. (Again, thanks to Gabriel Citron for this.) When I mentioned this to my mother in her last years, she remembered him, among various scholars who visited or stayed, as a ‘nice chap’ whom she did her best to look after. Frank, in his poem ‘Bloodhounds’ (The Raw Side, p. 19), recalls his still-powerful late presence. 7 He went on to teach in a number of schools, including Shebbear College in North Devon and St George’s College, Weybridge, and lectured at St Mary’s College, Strawberry Hill (now St Mary’s University), where he was a founding editor of the Catholic Teacher’s Journal.13 For the last twenty years of his life Frank was Senior Lecturer and then Reader in English at Lancaster University, where with Anne Cluysenaar and David Craig he helped establish one of the earliest creative writing courses in the UK. He published a study of Wuthering Heights, and worked on a monograph on Tennyson, unfinished at his death. A selection of Frank’s poems, The Raw Side, appeared in 1978. (His poems and verse fragment which relate to materials in the present letters are printed as an Appendix, below.) Since for security reasons Frank was not supposed to say what he was doing or even where he was, and regularly signed sworn statements to this effect in his later, selfcensored letters, I have often found myself following in the footsteps of his father, in trying to deduce from the information he gives just where he might be at any given time. Beyond identifying names of places, I have largely left the rich geographical context of Frank’s Middle East travels to be vividly suggested by the letters themselves. Once he had left Britain and crossed the Mediterranean he visited Alexandria, and travelled through the Sinai desert and north up the coastal strip to Beirut, then east to Baghdad on the desert road through Syria and Iraq, which he would cross in the other direction when he visited Palestine on leave in 1945. He was stationed in temperate Tehran in the north of Iran, as well as in the sultry south of Iran and Iraq. He lived for a while in the mountainous central area of Iran and visited the ancient cities of Isfahan and Qum. His holiday in Palestine, the Holy Land of his lifelong Christian faith, is detailed, as noted, in three long and fascinating journal letters. We get a powerful sense throughout the letters, indeed, of all the places in which he finds himself, from Edinburgh, ‘shrouded with thick rain & sleet’ (letter 1) and Lanarkshire’s hills and rivers, to Southern Iran and Iraq, ‘low-lying & baked with heat’ (letter 66). In letters from the Middle East he sometimes re-imagines the landscape of his own country too. For instance, en route, he offers his brother home thoughts from abroad on the green, temperate farming landscapes of Gainsborough and Newark where they had been brought up and the family still lived: Frank was raised and educated in the Wesleyan Methodist church, of which his father and later his brother were ministers, but converted to Roman Catholicism in the late 1940s under the influence of his friend Yorick Smythies. 13 I look out over the Great waters & remember that somewhere, perhaps many hundreds of miles away, there is a little island, & somewhere on that island is a little farm where you, Erny, are muck-carting or swede-pulling, & a little place called Gainsborough (letter 23). What he is doing as a soldier is only hinted at in the letters, and it changes over time. Frank was whisked into the Intelligence Corps at very short notice over the Christmas period of 1943, after just a few months in the army, on the recommendation of his former school friend, David Foxon (whose hitch-hiking London adventure with Frank is described in the Prologue, Part 2, below). A year older than Frank, Foxon had himself begun work at Bletchley in 1942.14 Frank, however, failed to settle to his cryptographic training in Bedford, and so was sent instead to the Middle East as a Field Intelligence Officer.15 When he was training for this work he told his family that ‘it amounts to spying & military government in occupied villages etc., but I cannot be any more precise than that’ (letter 21). He was at first enthusiastic about it, because he saw it as ‘the perfect training-ground for relief work’ of a sort he and his brother then hoped to do in Europe or further afield after the War.16 From what later letters suggest, he was a ‘British Official’, a sort of local policeman, a liaison officer, an information gatherer, and there are occasional hints of darker roles.17 ‘We have to be sometimes cruel & uncouth & ruthless’, Frank admits in letter 32, working by then high in the mountains of northern Iran, newly promoted to the rank of Sergeant and teamed with a ‘rough fellow called Mac who is very tough & daredevil & has fought in all sorts of battles’ (identified as Sergeant McKirdy of Paisley). Frank also spoke later to those who were closest to him of David Fairweather Foxon (1923-2001) is best known for his major bibliographical study and index, English Verse 1701–1750: A Catalogue (1975). His obituary by Nicolas Barker and James McLaverty (Proceedings of the British Academy, 161 (2009), 159–175) further notes the presence of the philosopher A. N. Flew in the school circle that included Foxon, E. P. Thompson and the Goodridge brothers. In a review of a biography of E. P. Thompson’s brother, the poet Frank Thompson, Jeremy Harding claims that at Kingswood in this period ‘there was a small, flourishing Communist cell, including E. P., Arnold Rattenbury who went on to edit the Communist cultural journal Our Time, and Geoffrey Matthews, later a Shelley scholar’ (‘A Kind of Greek’, London Review of Books, 7 March 2013, pp. 11-14). 15 Individuals recruited for codebreaking who proved unsuitable were frequently ‘weeded out’ and sent overseas instead. See Marion Hill, Bletchley Park People (2004), p. 61. 16 Ernest’s post-war overseas relief-work plans are briefly discussed in letters 26 and 27. In the event none of these plans were realised. 17 Adrian O’Sullivan describes the Intelligence Corps Field Security Officers in Persia/Iran in this period as the ‘police force’ and the ‘eyes, ears, and “boots on the ground”’ of the Defence Security Office. See O’Sullivan, Espionage and Counter-Intelligence in Occupied Persia (Iran) (2015), p. 24. 14 having had to take part in a firing squad, which might be traumatic for anyone, but was especially so for Frank, with his pacifist sympathies.18 He remembered seeing the Czech leader, Edouard Benes, and he stamped de Gaulle’s passport, presumably when the General was passing through Tehran en route to Moscow late in 1944. But again, on the subject of his work I have largely had to let the letters tell their own story, insofar as they do. After censorship is lifted at the end of September 1945 we get a sketch of the port security work he has been carrying out for several months on the Shatt-al-Arab waterway at Abadan (letter 72). And although, as he says, there were still restrictions on describing the precise nature of his work, some further details emerge in the letters that follow this, as well as odd hints. In a note written on Christmas Day, 1945, for instance, he tells his family that he has gathered in ‘vast palm-fronds and flags which I got from the captains of ships—all sorts of flags’ (letter 81), to decorate the mess-drawing room for Christmas, which would suggest much interaction with visiting ship-masters. In editing Frank’s letters I have as far as possible not interfered with his characteristic punctuation and spelling styles (‘Seargeant’ for ‘Sergeant’, ‘did’nt’ for ‘didn’t’, etc.). Frank frequently alludes to or quotes from scripture, and wherever this is noted I have provided references to the Authorised Version of the Bible, the text he would have grown up with and known. The ‘Prologue’ extracts are intended purely to show how Frank thought through the issues the war raised for him and his family, but I have transcribed in full his diary account of the first three days of September 1939, which offers a fascinating picture of a close-knit, middle-class family dealing with the sudden outbreak of war, where moments of domestic normalcy, eruptions of oddity, drama, humour, and absurdity, and confusion, fear and anger, are all mixed together. I have included among Frank’s letters several items of related interest that were preserved with them: one or two letters home from Frank’s brother Ernest, or relevant letters to and from their father, Jonathan Brooks Goodridge. Finally, I use ‘Frank’ to refer to J. F. Goodridge throughout, which seems the most natural choice given that I am his son as well as his editor. Castle Donington, 2012, 2024 Frank’s friend from Oxford days, John Forrester (see letter 92 and Appendix A (ii)), has further told me that ‘scraps I recall from him indicate that he had quite a colourful time in the Middle East’ (emails, August-September 2011). According to another friend, Frank said (in the 1960s) that he had once been imprisoned in Iraq for what he termed a ‘brief and foolish homosexual affair’. There is nothing to suggest this in his administrative file, so it may have been dealt with informally by his CO. 18 Family photographs, clockwise from top left: Frank in junior school; Frank in 1943; Frank (right) with his mother Ethel, brother Ernest and sister Margaret, at Gainsborough in 1943. Frank wrote: 'our family is bound together in a way we have not always realised'. PROLOGUE: DEBATING PACIFISM AND WAR, 1938-42 1. The Coming of War, 1938-40: ‘utterly & excruciatingly stupid, fatuous, ridiculous & mad’ Frank’s diary entry, Sunday 12 June 1938 (at boarding school, aged 14) Bathed with Thompson E.P. & argued about pacifism. Letter to his parents, Kingswood School, Bath, June-July 1938 (extract) On Tuesday night the Germans gave us a concert & it was stirring to see them & to hear their speeches telling us how they have appreciated it & how at home they have felt. One of their masters gave a really fine long speech in very good English, & we were really touched by the terrific feeling of goodwill which was showed. He said that he loved & admired England & its people, how he thought that the idea of war was positively ridiculous, how they had been thrilled with our countryside & our towns & people, how they felt as at home with us & as friendly as we are with one another, how a bond of peace which can never be broken had been formed etc. The idea of war against these people with whom we have become lifelong friends seems so utterly & excruciatingly stupid, fatuous, ridiculous, & mad that the whole sphere of politics seemed utterly alien to us. Then the German headmaster who cannot speak English, gave a speech in German while Mr. Barnes interpreted; he was fine, then the headmaster of K.S. Of course it lasted the whole evening & we missed prep. It was grand to see the two HM’s of Ildvëlt and Kingswood walking about together arm in arm trying to make themselves understood.19 Diary entry, Friday 23 September 1938 Started digging ARP20 trenches... Pacifists refused. This was part of an exchange programme with Ilfeld Monastery School (Klosterschule Ilfelt), in central Germany, founded in 1546 in the former Premonstratensian monastery. From 1934-44 the school was part of the elite ‘Napola’ programme of boarding schools designed for the ‘education of national socialists, efficient in body and soul for the service to the people and the state’ (Wikipedia; see Helen Roche, The Third Reich’s Elite Schools: A History of the Napolis (2021)). This Nazi programme was deeply influenced by German perceptions of the English ‘public school tradition’, and there were numerous exchange visits with British schools, pre-war. Frank’s brother Ernest always said how impressed he was with the visiting group, how athletic, industrious and intelligent they seemed; his son Mark believes this event may have influenced both brothers in their pacifist feelings. 20 Air Raid Precautions. 19 Above: Frank was awarded this essay prize on 18th November 1938, a copy of Nine Modern Plays (London, 1938). The award is signed by A. B. Sackett, school headmaster, who wrote to Frank several times during his military service (see letters 35, 58). Diary entry, Thursday 29 September 1938 Munich conference. The general view of the crisis at K.S. has been ‘Down with Hitler, slay the Germans’. Pacifists all getting ready to ‘do the tough stuff’. Gas masks fitted. Diary entry, Thursday 6 April 1939 (on holiday in Bournemouth) Spent the morning arguing with this marvellous old slacker about pacifism. 21 Diary entry, 27 April 1939 Written in bed at night on my birthday, Thursday… My pacifism has become more & more strong & now that conscription has been enforced I shall have to face up to it soon & Erny sooner still. I feel so helpless when I see many good Christians joining in this mad race to destruction, by joining the army. So few people will listen to anything one says... By the way in the train the other day I talked with a young chap who had just joined the ARP. He looked so proud and self-satisfied in his lovely new uniform & I felt sympathy for his stupid ignorance of what he was doing! Diary entry, Sunday 27 August 1939, on a family holiday in Scotland In morn. after doing some reading & washing & clearing up we all went to11.15 service at the Belhaven Presbyterian church (Church of Scotland). Quite a good service. Semi-pacifist, semi-militarist sermon, rather fuddling round the point, but good chap... we made the very good acquaintance of Mr. Lees—a very nice young man, & had a good talk with him about pacifism, as he is about the only despised pacifist in Dunbar. Diary entry, Friday 1 September 1939 As the international damned affair is worse, Ern. & dad & I go to Lees house in the morning to hear a bit of so-called news, consisting of more suspense till 6.0 p.m. news. Germany attacked & bombed Poland this morning—it meant war.22 Then went into the town to do a little shopping followed by little Ronald (unseen) who we hd great difficulty in taking back home— (Anton23 the second!) Came back via the cliffs & decided definitely to go back tomorrow. Spent most of the rest of the day Identified as ‘Kev Price’. This sentence caretted in from a space above the text. 23 The Lees’s little boy, displaced from his mother’s attention by a new baby, had attached himself to the Goodridge visitors. 21 22 packing & getting ready. In aft. had our last bathe—a grand time of splashing & thoroughly enjoying ourselves—while planes practiced overhead. Discussed the situation & did a little reading, & finished off packing in eve. Then at 9.0 p.m. dad, E., & I went to Lees’ to hear news & say Goodbye. Terrible news—war inevitable— oh! how my blood curdled. Before going we prayed together & then had to say goodbye & leave Lees to work alone in Dunbar. We were all in tears pretty well—at least I was—before we went, & the realization of the whole fatuosity of the whole affair. Went to bed in black-out with awful, miserable feelings. Diary entry, Saturday 2 September 1939 (Frank’s family cut short their holiday) Got up at 5.0 a.m. in the dark and all speedily packed and folded up blankets, had hasty breakfast—bustle—prayers—off by 7.0 a.m. First left blankets at Mrs. Mackay’s. Took the Great North Road all the way except for going from Darlington to Borobridge by Northallerton, in order to miss Catterick, a great military centre. Until we got to Berwick we were swallowed up in thick mist, but then it turned out a nice day. A quick but boring journey spent talking politics & reading, & arguing about what windows were to be opened, and following the map. We did not get tangled up in any military movements—(to our surprise) & the roads were pretty quiet. We passed lorries full of shells & bombs & also one with a great cylinder on the back labelled ‘poison’—and ‘The Yorkshire distilling Company’—obviously poison gass to be poured over some poor folks somewhere—God help us! Stopped in Newcastle, Darlington, Doncaster, & Retford shopping & found difficulty in purc[h]asing some foodstuffs. Called at A[unt] Ruths & to our surprise found that they had resolutely gone on holiday despite WAR. Typical Booey!!24 On getting back had tea & unpacked & went to bed early. Diary entry, Sunday 3 September 1939 Oh! Fateful day. War is raging between Poland—Britain has sent ultimatum to Germany to be answered by 11.0 this morning. Sung hymns & had prayers before going to hear Mr Dowell25 at North. Rather typically emotional but good service A family pet-name for Ruth Sharpe, née Goodridge (1887-1947), a favourite Yorkshire aunt of Frank and his brother Ernest. 25 Revd. Joseph (Joe) Dowell (1907-1999), formerly a machine tool operator, trained as a minister in the Primitive Methodist church, serving on the Redditch, and Newark (1938-40) circuits before becoming an RAF chaplain, where he served in the Middle East. In this latter role, he wrote to J. B. Goodridge 24 centring around the idea that we can have the peace of God in our hearts amidst the turmoil. On coming out of service—on the warm, sunny, peaceful morning—we hear that ENGLAND HAS DECLARED WAR ON GERMANY. During dinner we heard the news on the wireless & during a recording of the Prime minister’s speech the Germans interrupted our reception & caused squeaks & shoutings & interruptions. In afternoon Erny & I went on a most ludicrous quest—gas-mask hunting, as we have not got them owing to a misunderstanding that mum & dad have got one for us. First went to the Dowells’ for instruction—dad knows nothing. He is out but had good talk with Mrs D, who is a[s] cheery as ever.26 Then went to se the Vicar of Hawton, who had [said] at the ministers’ fraternal that he had some spare respirators—but no use—they are only for his own villagers. Then went to Town Hall (cycling) ARP public information bureau & were instructed to go to an Air Raid Warden just near our house. Here I was given one & fitted & E was referred to another warden in the middle of the Town & got one. Spent rest of aft. sticking into my album records of hols. In eve. Dad & E. & I were going to worship at Barnby Gate but heard that Mr. Lightfoot—silly ass—had cancelled the service, so went to North End & heard a local preacher who gave us the most appalling, damnable pagan & militarist service & sermon. Text—‘the hour is come’! Ended up with God Save the King. After service talked to Mrs Start, who is a pacifist, & joked about the A.R.P. instructions for dealing with incendiary bombs! Then sat in dining & had an argument which led to much inter-family frank discussions for rest of evening (ending up at 11.0) during which a policeman told us that we have to billet soldiers, so we have room for two. Is it right? They come tomorrow. Letter to Ernest, 23 September 1939 (extract) Mum has bought Margy a case for her gas-mask, with which Ducky is very pleased. She parades about with it look[ing] ever so proud.27 (letter 53), with whom he was evidently well acquainted and on affectionate terms. For his later career and obituary see myprimitivemethodists.org.uk. 26 Mrs. Thirza Dowell: Cissy Thirza Stoakley (1905-73) married Joe Dowell (see previous note) in 1935. Joe Dowell will remark to Frank’s father, ‘It seems a long time ago since you brought a glorious lily to greet Thirza & the new-born Janet’ (letter 53). 27 Frank employs a number of affectionate nicknames for his younger sister Margaret. The diminutive ‘Ducky’, though, may possibly allude to a ‘Donald Duck’ children’s gas mask. There is an illustration of such a gas mask in Norman Longmate, How We Lived Then: A History of Everyday Life during the Second World War (1971), fig. [7]. Letter to his family, 29 October 1939 (extract) Owing to the war those of us who are thinking of local preaching have decided to hurry things on. They consist of Eltham, Hopkins, Mildon (whom you met the other day, mum!), Eliot & I. We have seen the Chaplin & he has arranged to go through the Local preacher’s syllabus. He says that educated boys like us can easily do it in time to be able to get it at March. It does not mean that we shall necessarily have to get it at March, but that we shall be ready to do so, when necessary. We started on Friday & are having 2 meetings a week. Diary entry, Friday 5 January 1940 Two soldiers, Sapper Miller & his friend came in... Talked to them about pacifism & other subjects. Diary entry, Tuesday 9 January 1940 Miss Greeves came in to ask E. & I to go to Miss Picton’s house at 7.30 and attend a meeting to discuss forming a group in the Methodist Peace Union, so after reading Fisher28 went, & Eliz. Trickett, Miss P., Mr. Hawley, & another lady were there, also Olgar Francklin & Trevor Wadsworth will join. Made plans—good meeting ... had argument with E. about taking oaths. Diary entry, Saturday 13 April 1940 ... off to P[eace] P[ledge] U[nion] meeting at Mr. Gibbons 7.30, which went on till 11.00. I enjoy going because I like the personalities Gibbon & Handley—the way they methodically transact business. Diary entry, Sunday 14 April 1940 Went to M[ethodist] P[eace] F[ederation] meeting to arrange about our constitution & activities, at Miss Pearson’s. 28 H. A. L. Fisher, The History of Europe (1935). Diary entry, Sunday 21 April 1940 M.P.F. meeting at Miss Pearsons—good jolly time—but didn’t do much except vote Mr. Pearson chairman & Miss Greeves Treasurer. Diary entry, Saturday 27 April 1940 (Frank’s birthday) P.P.U. meeting till late... Diary entry, Friday 3 May 1940 ...discussed activities of M.P.F. till 1 am. Diary entry, Saturday 18 May 1940 Feel that I might soon (as in France do) have to die for pacifism & felt an urge, a longing to cling on to this life which means so much—a realisation of myself being instinct & death. Letter to his family, Sunday 27 October 1940 (extract) About a fortnight ago Mr. & Mrs. Lund got a telegram ‘Son Missing’. For two days they were in a terrible way, trying to decide how to tell Peter, then they got two more simultaneous telegrams, one from air ministry ‘son picked up in sea’, & one from Tom saying ‘coming soon’. It was to them like awaking from a terrible nightmare. Tom Lund spent last week-end here with Peter. He was in a squadron of 5 spitfires in the hottest part of London, bomber by night & fighting by day. One day they ran into 100 Messerschmitt. He could have fled but took the chance & attacked. His glass was broken & he could not see that a Messerschmitt was on his heal. A cannon hit him & he bailed out, having never come down by parachute before. He landed in Medway, cut & bruised himself on a rock, & was just saved by motor-launch before drowning. He is alright now save that he has a phobia that makes him continually keep looking around, for fear something is pursuing—as the Messerschmitt had done. Next week he goes back to his plane.29 … Mr. & Mrs. Ellerton were cycling through a park in Bournemouth the other day when a Nazi dive bomber flew low, diving down, & machine-gunned them in 29 On Peter Lund, who also served as a fighter pilot, see further letter 92. person. They got into a ditch & the bullets splashed up the mud yard[s] away. After it had gone Mr. E. started laughing & that was that! Above: Frank Goodridge, drawing by his brother Ernest, 21 December 1940 2. Reaching a Decision, 1941-43 ‘it is all a big, evil machine’ Letter to his family, 17 January 1941 (extract) I share this study with Elliot, a good untidy fellow, for whom I have much affection. He is a biologist, going in for medicine & is a brother of the violently pacifist ‘Lubber’ Elliot, of whom we may have told you, & whose latest development is marriage & a baby, though he is only 19 methinks: They are a precocious family, & the other little brother, right down at the bottom of the school, already goes about professing violent political theories. … Both Peter Lund & Edward Thompson, not to mention Newton Hew & other friends of mine, are lodged in Rawgate, the house opposite, next to Fircroft: they are all protesting because the authorities threw me out on my neck, saying that visitors were not allowed. It is preposterous. I am getting on well with Thompson, & he is trying to get me into the Chapel Committee. Letter to Ernest, August 1941 (Frank has hitch-hiked to London with two school friends, David Foxon and another boy) My adventure was quite unpremeditated but as you will see I fell in with fortune’s wheel & have had two marvelous days rushing madly around the great metropolis with Freddie Foxon & Cripps. … The books I send are just momentos of my visit to the city: I bought them at Foyles—also we made tours round the whole city, stood on Westminster Bridge & watched the little tugs chugging along through the rain, with the great buildings of Westminster on the right, (where dear old Charles II used to sport with all his paramours) mighty warehouses gutted and ruined on the South side, big silver bouncy balloons dotted over the sky. I wondered what sort of a sonnet old Wordsworth would have written if he’d been here today! London is a bit grim, desolate and derelict. Although transport, movement and life go on just as ever, every now & again you come to a mighty ruin; barbed wire entanglements stretch across St. James’ park, heaps of earth & ditches, piles of rubble etc. all give a painting of ‘London in wartime’, as if waiting for the onslaught round St. Paul’s & London Bridge. The whole place is derelict and ruined. You walk along the streets & all the houses gutted by fire. But London for the most part goes with a swing, & the buses & trains & people are rushing along, shops & café’s going as usual. Oxford Street, Piccadilly, Bond Street, the Strand, are all pretty intact, & it is absolutely amazing how quickly they build it all up again. Above: a poetry book purchased by Frank in London for his brother, with Ernest’s inscription Letter to his family, Uppingham School,30 early-mid September 1942 (extract) I have decided finally that I shall not join the R.A.F. or any combatant part of the forces. There is no possibility of doing anything constructive in the forces: it is all a big, evil machine of which one becomes part. I shall join something like the R.A.M.C.,31 in which one is at least helping people to recover, rather than destroying them. If it means being a C.O.32 to get into something of this sort, I shall be. But I shall try to do so without. I have verified from the A.T.C.33 I had originally registered as R.A.F., but I do not think that that is irrevocable. I was sent for to go to Mansfield for a medical examination (which all registered men have to have), but I wrote & said I couldn’t go, & that I must have it nearer Uppingham! Letter to his family, Uppingham School, 24 September 1942 (extract) The things you said in your letters were very encouraging. You seem to have understood how I felt. I am decided about matters now & am feeling quite fixed & happy. I wrote to Erny, & also to Mr. Sykes, asking their advice, but didn’t get replies from either. I expect they are both busy. But I spent Sunday evening discussing the whole question with Mr. Ingram,34 who understood the position & helped me tremendously. We considered very carefully all the points of my objection, & after sifting the business out, came to this conclusion: that my desire to do something positive, although a conscientious desire, does not constitute a conscientious objection to combatant warfare. But that I was bound to do my utmost to get into some active non combatant work (such as rescue work) without being a C.O. In the end, if I absolutely cannot get into anything of this sort, I shall be forced to accept as a necessity the obligation of taking part, since I am part of a mass of suffering people who are in the same position. Consequently I have written to my registration officer (Gainsborough) & asked that if there is any active non-combatant work I may be considered for it. I have told them that if this is finally impossible I am prepared to accept the situation. We have all been thinking about the war this term, & I have found that I was not the only person in a similar mood. My friend David Lindsay has been feeling very Kingswood School had been evacuated from Bath to share the premises of Uppingham School at Uppingham, Rutland. (Fircroft, mentioned earlier, is one of Uppingham school’s boarding houses.) 31 Royal Army Medical Corps. 32 Conscientious Objector. 33 Air Training Corps. 34 Frank’s English teacher, an influential figure and an important advisor (see letter 71). 30 desperate with a desire to go & do something: he feels it is useless to stay here working for a school, & I have been having many conversations with him about it. I am very fond of this boy, and have become more friendly with him this term. The R.A.M.C. is, I believe, closed to all but medical students. I am quite enjoying working for my schol. But don’t expect that to get an English Schol.35 is an easy or likely thing. I should not be so distressed if I did not go to the University. If I do get a schol, I shall probably not go up, because that would mean going with the A.T.C. In any case I shall probably go to a theological college after the war (or after the university), go into the church. Above: the telegram from school bringing news of Frank’s Oxford award, 17 December 1942. 35 A scholarship award for Oxford University. LETTERS HOME: FRANK IN THE ARMY, 1943-46 3. In Basic Training (Lanark, July-August 1943) ‘a bit like Dante’s inferno’ 1. Frank to his family, Lanark, [Friday 16 July 1943]36 Thursday night 14655178 Pt. Goodridge, J.F., C coy, 20th Platoon, Winston Barracks, LANARK. Dear folks, The feeling is merely one of indifference, mixed with bits of flutter. The quantity of complicated kit which is piled on you is appalling: at first you wonder what to do with it—battle dresses galore, shirts, boots & socks galore, great packages full of straps & tubes. At first uniform seems impossible to get on,—wrenching buttons, piling up stuff or losing it on a tiny, creaking bunk & mixing it up with the other chap’s stuff. My journey was unpleasant, & very little sleep. Ruth will have told you about me going there. Edinburgh was shrouded with thick rain & sleet, but I wandered round a bit. This is a cold, grey place, up among the beautiful low mountains, a bit like Edgeworth. Tremendous barracks—masses of chaps in different stages. Atmosphere of cold, windy barrack square, yelling & ranting seargeants, important large officers in kilts, bagpipes, trumpets, Scottish brogue. Nice young corporal & pleasant brusque Scottish seargeant in charge of our platoon. Mostly shy young men of 18. We are a mile out of the little town. It is true what they say. Queuing about for hours: treated as a number in some respects. But nothing terribly inhuman. This is all I can say yet. I am not unhappy, & reactions are pretty blank. Feeding grab & gluttony & noise. Some funny chaps about. Reception was ghastly. Stripping before an officer, who proclaimed me A1 cheerily, & crossed out the previous grade BII! Portly officer slaps you on the shoulder & asks whence the tanned skin.37 Giving particulars to clerks & calling for Frank’s record of service shows he had been enrolled as a soldier the previous day, 15 July 1943. Frank and his brother Ernest spent summers in their teens working on the farm of a family friend. See Frank’s poems ‘Return to Park House’ and ‘Pollution’ in Appendix 2, ‘Two Farm Poems’, below. 36 37 utensils at a window-sill. But in the bark there seems not so ghastly a bite. A certain geniality generally pervades. Not unpleasant. That’s about all, so far—O—after next Thursday, evenings free. You can be happy about me. It is not by any means a ghastly place. Will write within a fortnight again. Lv. F. 2. Jonathan Brooks Goodridge to his son Frank, 19 July 1943 c/o Stokefields, Elston Newark-on-Trent Monday Morning—Jul 19 ’43 My dear Frank Just rec’d & read your letter which we eagerly anticipated. It has evidently taken 2 days to come. Our circumstances here are in almost every respect a complete contrast to yours & how often we have wished that you were with us, sharing the quiet we are enjoying. The only noise is the booming of a plane & the clack clack of the same old white hens which we had pecking round last year, & the cooing of the wood pigeons. It gave us a real thrill when Ruth told us that you called last Thursday night. We felt that we had lost you, then found you again, you ran away & then we caught you up & I assure you that you gave Harry & Ruth a great pleasure & they were delighted to see you so merry & bright in spite of the unpleasant experiences immediately ahead of you. Harry especially enjoyed talking about the farm. It took him back to the days when as a young man, he was on the farm. I was glad that on Thurs Evening I had a meeting at 7.30 & could not see you off at the station. I’m uncontrollably silly & soft-h’ted on such occasions. Forgive my saying a hurried goodbye & rushing off—otherwise I should have made a fool of myself & upset you.38 Now you are having shock after shock but you will soon settle down to the rough life that will be yours during the coming months. I have no experience in my 55 years which match it. My life has been ‘sheltered’ right down the years & I’ve never had to rough it as you are having to do, but I’m sure that one day you will look back Revd. Jonathan Brooks Goodridge, Frank’s father, saw his son leave on Thursday 15 July 1943. (Frank’s older brother Ernest was working on a farm nearby.) Frank’s departure from Newark station would have been emotionally wrenching for Revd. Goodridge, who had seen his own younger brother off to war from the very same station, 27 years earlier, on Tuesday 25 April 1916. His brother never returned, for the elder Ernest was killed in action on 4 October 1916 (see note 1). 38 & see how it has helped to prepare you for the great work God has for you to do. You know well without my telling you that constantly you are in our thoughts & in our prayers & we are linked by ‘bonds that nought can sever’:39 Perhaps now in that way we can keep you more than when you were with us. Ernie does not say much but I know this exodus of yours has touched him v. keenly & whilst he has a hard life, he has many compensations. I poked my head out of the window this morning just after 6am & waved to him as he was rounding up the cows. Now he is away in a hayfield right across the Car. Dyke & Margie has gone to be with him. Yesterday (Sunday) we went to hear F. K. Raynor in the afternoon. He was talking about worship as giving not getting. Quite good! He was quite affectionate after the service linking his arms with mums & mine as we walked along to his car. We talked about Isabel & Allan Gower. By the way Allan has now gone abroad—they don’t know where. Today after Dinner we go to Newark I’m calling to see Oliver & Mr. Mitchell—then having tea at the old Manse. Mr. & Mrs. Bee insisted on our going in for tea. We called to see them on Sat. after having had lunch at the Eliots, who spoke of you with much affection. Mrs Eliot having tears in her eyes as she spoke of you. I will remember you to Oliver. I hear that he has had a stroke so possibly it is the beginning of the ‘end’ for him. Dear old boy!40 Mum says she is just going into the village to get potatoes etc. for dinner & wants to post this letter so as Ruth says I must ‘sign off’. Let us have another letter as soon as you can. We are eager to hear how you fare. I hope when you write again you will be able to tell us that from among the shy 18s around you, you have found one who will be a congenial friend, that will make all the difference to you. I wonder whether you were able to go to some service anywhere on Sunday? Remember the name of the Nonconf. Padre is Shanks. I should call to see him sometime when in Lanark. His address is ‘Congregational Manse’, Lanark. Margie will be writing to you one of these days. you should have seen her yesterday morning riding on the back of a lovely brown & white half pony half horse which Margaret Crole hired for a couple of hours. Even I had a ride around the field. Nearly shook my ‘guts’ out. She is a v. pleasant girl & Mr & Mrs Ralph Grunman are delightful people. Ern has some congenial fellow-labourers. Dear old boy! It’s grand to be near him. Last night he lay on the couch in the caravan From a hymn originally written in Welsh by William Williams (1717-91), usually known in English as ‘There is a Path of Pardon’. 40 Oliver Quibell, of Newark-on-Trent: see note to letter 50. It was indeed the beginning of the end, and Quibell died eighteen months later, on 19 February 1945. 39 chuckling to himself as he read but strangely refraining from reading aloud all the bits which he enjoyed. Now mum is going so God be with you Lv Yours Always Dad Above: Margaret Goodridge on a horse at Stoke Fields farm, where Ernest was working 3. Frank to his family, Lanark, [22 July 1943] 14655178 Pte. Goodridge, J.F., C coy, No 20 Platoon, No 5 PTC Winston Barracks, LANARK. Dear all, If mum & dad are in Gainsborough when this arrives, will you send it on to them, Erny? I have sent my attaché case with my stuff in, home. Please wash dirty things & put them in my drawers, & the books in my shelves. I enclose a pyjama top which I forgot to put in, & some hankies, as there are no army arrangements for washing handkerchiefs, could you send me six or seven now, then I shall occasionally have to send handkerchiefs home to be washed. If I ever do so, will you please send me back by return the same amount of clean ones as I send home dirty ones! I also enclose £1, which I do not need & which must go in my savings. I shall not send you an allowance, but whenever, in my letters home, I enclose any money, put it in my savings. I shall send some whenever I can. Don’t send the small attaché case. I shan’t want it. But there is a small knapsack in my bedroom cupboard (NOT the big one which I used for the farm, but a small one which has an ink stain on it) which I will have instead. It needs mending, so could you repair it & send it sometime, DON’T send the big one! I could also do with a couple (or one) of OLD, used tooth-brushes (for button cleaning), & an old (or new) brush or nail-brush or small scrubbing-brush (for blancoing.). We can’t get these things, & yet are expected to have them! Don’t bother if you can’t. And, finally, could you send my Bible (AUTHORIZED version—on my mantelpiece) & the little book ‘Religio Medici’, by Sir. Thomas Browne41 (also on the mantelpiece.) I am here for 6 weeks—that is, until Thursday, August 26th. Then I go on to my unit, whatever that will be. There is VERY little chance of my getting any leave in between: If so, only a few hours, but unlikely. While here, we are each interviewed by a ‘selection officer’. This means a chance of expressing personally what sort of job we want, then he puts us where he thinks our qualifications & their needs require us. Unfortunately they do try & get young chaps in the Infantry. But I shall try not. If I do get there, it is complete suicide & pretty ghastly. We shall not know for 5 weeks where we are going. Thank you for your letters. Give my love to Oliver Q.,42 & the Eliots. Glad you are having such a nice time. You put at the top of your letter ‘2/6 stamps from Miss Stokoe’—but there were no stamps enclosed! Yes, I have found a friend—a bit like Donald Handley, not so very reciprocal, but he is pleasant & robust & cheerful—a boy of 18 from Kettering. There are also 2 other intelligent chaps, one from Uppingham school who of course knew lots of people I knew, & another sensitive, appreciative boy who is utterly bewildered here, but who can discuss music & understand my talk about poetry & religion. But there isn’t much time for cultivating human relationships, & most of the chaps are shut up into themselves, or else interested in pubs & nothing else. The Kettering chap & I went exploring last night & found a glorious spot by the R. Clyde. This was our first night out—we had been confined to barracks till yesterday, which was very galling. It was wonderful to walk out of those gates for the first time 41 42 Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici (1643). Quibell: see note to letter 50, and letter 2, above. since we came into them. Lanark is only a small town, but quite nice. We weren’t able to go to any church on Sunday, but I shall attend the Congregational chapel on future Sundays, & I hope there will be someone to get to know. Our evenings, & Sat. afts & Sundays reckon to be free. But there are so many fiddly jobs to do that a lot of our free time is taken up. One is continually having to do jobs & look after immaculate details, fiddle-faddling & flustering after little things. When we are actually on duty (8. O’clock am till 4.45 pm.) it is continual rush & obedience, & the feeling is one of complete self-paralysis. In themselves, the things we do are not so difficult. But we are rushed from one thing to another, putting on kit & taking it off again. From P.T. clothes back again to ordinary ones. Lectures, ‘square-bashing’, rifle, rifle, rifle. One just ceases to be oneself so long as work lasts. We are on our feet for hours, with bouts of sudden exertion. Marching everywhere, rushing upstairs, changing clothes, rushing down again. Barrack-room cramped—no opportunity for private prayer or study—beds hard but I sleep alright. Have to be in at nights at 11.0 pm. But mealtimes & free-times make life tolerable. There is a padre here (not Rev. Shanks—he is Cong.43 minister in the town) who I admire intensely, & whose personality has encouraged me: a strong, courageous man, who never gets a moment free, & who any man can talk to openly. He holds evening prayers in his hut at 9.50 every night, in which we pray for our homes & friends. He prays wonderfully. His hut has turned into a quiet reading-room, which we can use. He arranges concerts & all sorts. The place is immense, & cloud-topped hills all round. My friend & I are going to climb one of them some Sunday, if we can. On the whole, life is paralized & uncreative. In all the bustle I think of the strong, slow horses & the creative farm-work, & of Erny, & Peter, & this is in comparison so utterly futile & it kills every ounce of creative energy. We are passive creatures, reacting to stimuli. But yet there is some free time, & one or two people on the barracks (such as the padre) are human & genuine. While work & duties are on, one has to renounce ones self utterly, & be a creature less valued than a domestic cat. And yet there are some good chaps, & at times we are happy together, & forgetful. Anyway, don’t worry. I can stick all this alright. And I shall not forget the things that really matter. One keeps bumping into nice chaps (such as a grand farm-lad I talked to yesterday) then losing them again. I can’t describe to you what life’s like here. It is not so terribly hard. ‘Killing the Germans’ is the key motif, & the bayonet is a glorified weapon. The world seems 43 Congregationalist. very strange—a bit like Dante’s inferno—when one gets things like that drummed in. It does not affect me. It merely paralizes & numbs. Perhaps this letter sounds too gloomy. Don’t feel half so physically healthy as before. Weaker, because my heart is not in this kind of exertion. Yet at times I can feel encouraged & happy. ‘Our present affliction’ (Paul)44 does not really matter. Our family quarrels at home seem to me to have been very insignificant now. Compared with this, our family is bound together in a way we have not always realised. My love to you all & to Margy, F. 4. Frank to his family, Lanark, 31 July [1943] Sat 31st July 14655178 Pte. Goodridge, J.F. C Coy Please don’t get the 20 Platoon number wrong when you write. You missed out the 1 when you sent those sweets. No 5 P.T.C., Winston Barr. LANARK Dear mum & dad, Thank you for your letter & the sweets. I am afraid there are some more things I need, in addition to the things I asked for in the letter I wrote last week (I hope you got the attaché case, & also the little parcel & letter which I sent to Gainsborough.) Could you also send:— 1/ Bottle of marking ink (on my dressing table), & pen for it if you have one. 2/ a number of clean rags or dusters. 3/ a shoe brush (if you can) 4/ If you can get a money-purse for me I should be glad. The old one I had has come to pieces. I can’t go to town to get these things—we are confined to barracks these week-ends, owing to various inoculations. Also, if you can get that book on the gospels by Anthony Deane, I would be glad to have it.45 And could you sometime box up some of the pears when they are ripe— we get good food but no fruit! II Corinthians 4:17. Deane wrote a number of popular books on scripture, of which this is most probably How to Understand the Gospels (1936). 44 45 Sorry to keep troubling you, but it is such a stew getting all the little things we need. I shall write home one week & write to Erny the next. When I write to you, you could send my letters on to Erny if there is anything in them! I will tell him also to send those I write to him on to you. It makes all the difference in the army to get letters regularly every week. So I hope we shall be able to keep up writing. I really am writing to Erny today, so he will probably send it on to you. I have arranged to make an allowance of 5/- a week, officially for Mrs E. M. Goodridge! In the next fortnight you will receive a card from the Quartermaster about it. I expect you will have to get it each week from the P.O., & put it in my savings. Let me know if you DON’T here anything about it! Thank you for writing to the Rev. Shanks, I have made friends with him & his family, & they are very nice. I went to his chapel & to supper with him last Sunday. There is a son of 18, a small boy, and a daughter. They are going away for the next fortnight, however. Mr. Shanks takes evening prayers here on Thursday nights. I am going to take it for him the next two weeks. I had a good conversation with him & our padre (Rev. Birkbeck, Ch. of Scotld.) last Thursday. There was another young man, called Philip Nicholson, a christian, who is also going to Oxford after the war. I met him at Mr. Shanks’, & got very intimate with him. He helped me a lot, and I was very fond of him. He left these barracks on Wednesday to go to his unit, but I hope sometime to see him again at Oxford. Another person who has helped me is a young seargeant of the ‘Educational Corps’, a schoolteacher, stationed here to look after the library, to teach ‘citizenship’ (half an hour a week) & the little bits of sporadic ‘education’ we get (Army Bureau of Current Affairs discussions.) He knows all about the position of a chap like me, & will advise me what to do if I get posted into the Infantry. He is sympathetic & helpful. He says I had better try for a commission if I get into something unpleasant. I discussed English & history with him. Life is still strenuous & flustery. But I am quite happy. I feel all the time that God is giving me help: I seem to meet the right friend whenever I need him. In this life (bayonet-fighting, cross-country runs, & suchlike) so many miraculous things happen, & it seems that there is a providence which follows us all the time. Honestly, I don’t find that the things we have to do, drag me down. They seem to strip bare the things that matter, & make us realise that there is someone who cares, & from whom nothing can separate us. Tell Mr. Cummings I was depressed when I wrote to him, & that life is still glorious & I was feeling a bit too sorry for myself then! Thank him for his letter. With love, Frank. P.S. Will try to remember to send you some picture-post-cards of the place next time I write. P.S. Had a nice letter from grandma. She says Auntie is sending me cake & choc! 5. Frank to Ernest Goodridge, Lanark, 31 July 1943 July 31st 14655178 Pte. Goodridge, J.F., C Coy, 20 Platoon, No 5 P.T.C., Winston Barracks, LANARK. My dear old distant old brother, I am afraid once again, Erny, I must admit that I CAN’T describe Anything to you. It is all so different, & I could not possibly give an impression of what life is like. On the one hand I might tell you about rushing across fields in helmet & battledress (packs of various sorts all strapped up round your body) with a heavy rifle & bayonet stretched forward to attack, of crawling belly-flat about, of cross-country runs, or of the endless processes of cleaning rifles & buttons, making beds, changing clothing, marching & marching, which make up our day, of the bad-tempered, goodlooking, baby-headed, dandified lance-corporal who instructs us in weapons & continually yells at us in lisping, glozing vulgar annoyance, pride, & hotheadedness, of the walrus-like lieutenant who talks to us amiably & shrewdly about the ‘spirit’ of the bayonet, of the well-shaven officers in their kilts who can afford to be very considerate, of hours wheeling & turning & snapping about on the barracksquare in our heavy, clinking boots; or I could on the other hand tell you of the happy, cynical jokes of sweaty men in the queues for meals, of the joyful gluttony of eating at meals or in evenings, or the quiet evenings in the padre’s reading-room where for a few hours I read Bunyan, or the New Testament, or write letters; of the sudden, miraculous friendships which occur in moments of casual conversation, of the freedom of an occasional outing to the town 2 miles away, of evening prayers where a few of us gather, & of praying deep down in the blankets when rowdy fellows are getting to bed in the barrack-room. All this, you see, tells you nothing of what life is like. The foreboding, Shall I be put in the Infantry? The confidence & sudden joy of feeling ‘I am persuaded that neither life nor death, powers nor principalities.... etc. 46 or ‘In all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us’.47 To see all these men rushed about, & then read ‘And I will wipe away all tears from their eyes...’48 There are nice, honest, lovable chaps, such as the great, big, clumsy farmer-boy from Surrey. There are selfish, charming, unpleasant young men, like Pat, who sleeps in the bunk above me. The chap I go about with, Dizzie, of Kettering, is an intelligent, big, good-natured fellow, who I like because he is so friendly. The only person I know in the town is the congregational minister, a sound, sober Scotchman, with a family of simple, mischievous, very Scotch children. I had supper with them on Sunday. I met there a young man named Phil, with whom I suddenly became very intimate, but who unfortunately had to go away on Wednesday. He was a christian, who had gone through these experiences & felt, as I too am beginning to feel, the amazing providence of God to us all day after day, & his miraculous care. He, like me, loves the great religious writers. He too is going to Oxford after the war. He helped me very much, & I hope sometime to meet him again. Then there is a sympathetic educational seargeant (a school-teacher)—deals with library & ‘citizenship’ discussions—who helps me a lot with regard to what to do if I can’t get into some mental job like signals. He will give me the best advice. I have discussed history & politics with him. The padre whom I admire is stern. I have had a bit of talk with him, but his personality pervades the place, & strengthens us. One of the greatest joys in the army is to receive a letter. When I was at home or at school it did not matter, but now I shall only be happy if I hear from you every fortnight. You cannot realise what it will mean to me if you write regularly. I shall be able to look forward to your letter. I shall get no leave for many months, & then scarcely any time to see you. If it were not for God’s care, the sense of separation would be almost too much. You have a solid life which is continual & creative. There is nothing like that here. The only solid things have to proceed out of oneself or from prayer, if they are to exist at all. Do not think I am unhappy. Far from it. Life is greater, but more difficult, that’s all. I shall write home one week, & to you the next. But could you make a point of always SENDING ON home the letters I send to you (including this one) & they will Romans 8:38. Romans 8:37. 48 Revelations 21:4. 46 47 send you theirs—unless there happens to be little in them! By that means you will both hear from me every week. If ever you feel moved to send me a book or so, to cheer me up, I have room for it provided it is not a large one! I hope I shall come back to England in a month’s time. Shan’t know for another 3 weeks. Well, remember me to Margaret, & to your boss. I wrote to Nesta, & I hope she may reply sometime. If you see them remember me to Oliver Q., & Rev. Strawson. I MAY write to the latter sometime. WHEN my week’s leave DOES come (10 or 12 weeks hence) I shall always spend 2 of the seven days with you. With love, Jonathan. P.S. Last Sunday scrubbing floors from 8.30 am. till dinner! Whenever there are dances or entertainments it means an hour carrying chairs! But usually free Saturday afts, most of Sunday, & 7. O’clock onwards (or earlier) in evenings. But hundreds of fiddly, personal jobs. WONDERFUL countryside—too tired to explore it! P.S. Marching with rifle down a lane the other day, passed 3 lovely farm-horses. Terrible longing possessed me—a longing for those horses again. To see a whistling young chap with some horses makes me want to cry like a baby, and want to lead them along, even if only for a few yards. You can’t imagine how I wanted to throw the rifle & helmet away & run after those great, careless beast[s]. At the clink of our rifles they lifted their head up & disdainfully sniffed the air. They had lovely, new harness on, & shining bodies. Then the seargeant yelled at me to march properly & ‘take hold of myself’! So I swallowed my grief & we passed the horses by! 6. Frank to Ernest, Lanark, Friday [13 August 1943] LANARK Friday. My dear brother, I am writing my letter tonight because I HOPE (at last) to be able to go out this week-end & enjoy myself away from this place. On Saturday afternoon my friend & I hope to get a bus into Glasgow & explore the city, & on Sunday we hope to climb a large nearby mountain called ‘Tinto’. So far not a single week-end has been free. We have had several inoculations & vaccinations which have made us feel terribly ill. Last Sunday we lay on our bunks with throbbing headaches (Typhoid inoculation) wishing we could die. The Sunday before we had to scrub the whole gymnasium floor. Mum & dad asked for a description of the actual daily programme here. O dear. What a ghastly thing to describe. Well, at 6.30 am. a horrid bugle blows a clarion call in the square, & bagpipes start being played under the windows. We get up & wash & dress (If we are not dressed already)—(no pyjamas or sheets etc.) Then, before breakfast, all our blankets have to be folded absolutely perfectly—imagine all this being done by lots of chaps in a very small space. There is a terrific rough if we don’t get everything perfectly neat. Our kit also has to be laid out on the bed in a very special & complex way. Our rifles have to be cleaned & also laid in a special place. Then the whole barrack room has to be thoroughly swept, & the floor polished all over. After all this, we go to breakfast in a dining hall at 7.30 am. There are large kitchens next to the dining hall where the AT.S49 prepare food. There are 14 chaps per table, crushed together. We have our own mug, fork, & spoon which we take with us into meals (one has to hang on to these carefully lest someone pinches them) & wash in the washing-rooms afterwards. Usually a corporal serves, but we often have to fetch the food ourselves from the kitchens & serve it ourselves. One has to grab & scramble for the food. Although it is good, it is served in an uncouth fashion, & the same plates used for two courses. Every breakfast there is sugarless porridge, which I eat! Work begins at 8.5 a.m.. There is always a big parade & inspection on the square first. The morning is divided into 5 periods, with 20 minutes break at 10 O’clock, in which we can get tea & cake (if we queue up); I always use this time to read the paper. Dinner is at 12.40—an hour’s break. We reckon to end at 4.30 for tea, but there is often another period after tea, & more often still there are jobs to do which last till 7. O’clock. Every day there is at least 1 period of drill (on the square—an hour continuous fluster & strenuous) and a period of P.T. in the gym—not too terrible, though strenuous. Other lessons are all such things as rifle, bayonet, machine-gun, grenade etc.. If it rains we sometimes go into huts. Usually every ‘lecture’ or lesson takes place in the open, in the ground behind the barracks (playing fields & barren places where ‘dummies’ stand.) Nearly all the time we are in ‘battle-order’—heavy pack on 49 Auxiliary Territorial Service, the women’s branch of the army during the war. back, tin-helmet, two large pouches in front. If it is a gas lesson there is a respirator as well. We usually are carrying rifles. This is to teach us to get used to walking, running, & living in our equipment. But between nearly every period we have to rush back to the barrack-room to change clothing. Our route marches are 8 or 10 miles, in full battle-order & rifles. Boots are very heavy. We had one in pouring rain the other day, with trousers & clothes drenched & stuck to our skins. Clonk, clonk, clonk, o’er hill, o’er dale—squelch, squelch, left, right, left.50 This is a continuously rainy part of the world, though glorious, open country. One evening a week is taken up blancoing & cleaning brasses & equipment. There is a ghastly blasphemous church parade on Sunday morning, in which we hold our own irreverent service in barracks. I spend most of my late evenings in this little hut & reading room which the padre has set up for the purpose. I also carry a book in my deep pocket & try to read at odd moments in the day! Standing waiting (for various things), takes up ½ the time. For instance, whenever you send a parcel, I wait in a queue for it. (Don’t let this fact deter you, however!) Every evening we go & hog in the restaurant. Sometimes we go to the pictures or library in the town. Last Sunday 3 of us had a good walk down the rocky Clyde valley, & found a grand tea-shop in a village up the gorge of the river. Then we went to a presbyterian service. A week on Wednesday we leave here & go—nobody knows where till a day or two before. It is difficult to get to sleep in the barrack-room because chaps will talk or come in late. Although there is much for our muscles to do, my health has deteriorated. We have to swallow down our meals quickly. All the feeling of physical strength I had at the farm is gone. It may be just nerves, but I am sunk back to the old unhealthy condition I had before I went to the farm. This is one of the things which depresses me sometimes. All the physical vitality & well-being is dissolved into a yelling, nervous bustle. And to console ourselves, we tend to eat far too much & disturb our stomachs. The illness of inoculations (which was a horrid fever) has spoilt my resistance. But I am put down A1 because the Medical Officer saw that I looked tough & brown when I first arrived. 50 A Midsummer Night’s Dream, II.i (‘Over hill, over dale...’) This means the Infantry in all probability. It is no use dad telling me to go into something else. You can be sure I shall ask for a transfer. But even then nothing often happens (for 8 or nine months). I will let you know as soon as I am told. There are 4 of us who are friends together in our platoon (one of them an old Uppingham boy.) They are intelligent & pleasant chaps of 18, & we go everywhere together. But as with Donald, I have to give the lead often. They are nice though, & there is certainly friendship even here. I manage to scrape out of a lot of the sports, though have had to run a mile & several other things. I have been reading a book of literary essays by C. S. Lewis: Middleton Murry’s ‘Betrayal of Christ by the Churches’, & Bernard Pares ‘Russia’.51 I am not utterly unhappy here—we are all very familiar with one another now, officers & seargeants as well. Yet often I have to choke & stifle a feeling of despair, & in the company of others I have to prevent myself from crying—which would be a great relief. It is a strain in mornings to wake, & try to pray in vain, then not a single moment. Only to stifle the choking feeling. As the day goes on & we are all together, things cheer up and I often become resigned & confident. Plenty of funny things happen, & there are plenty of amusing characters. Despair only comes on from time to time, & it doesn’t last long. But when it does come, I have to struggle like hell. It is the feeling of utter humiliation: of spending a life being nobody, & doing things which are fearfully negative & utterly petty & futile. And not being able to witness any other message to my fellowmen. Paul could scorn death because he preached a gospel. But it is silly trying to scorn death merely because you are a sheep among sheep. In every sense of the word, the army is an evil institution, & thus your pacifism is right: because there is nothing good about the army, any more than any other kind of slavery. It is all selfishness, & noone cares about ‘the cause’ at all—or even knows what it is! But of course, there are plenty of kind, happy people among us. And life goes on, & I am the same person, & you are the same, so all this army business doesn’t really matter. It is merely my valley of humiliation, my Apollyon.52 If I get to England I shall find some Methodist friends. Thank you for your letter mum. I am glad you are having more soldiers in. It is life or death to a soldier whether he has any friends or not. If only I had friends Frank is most probably reading Lewis’s Rehabilitations and Other Essays (1939), John Middleton Murry, The Betrayal of Christ by the Churches (1940), and Bernard Pares, A History of Russia (1926). 52 John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678). On his journey to the celestial city the pilgrim Christian enters the Valley of Humiliation where he fights the monster Apollyon. 51 here—but the minister is away on holiday. He will be back next week however. I took prayers the other night with a few of the men. I enjoyed your letter Erny. I am glad you tell me all about your affairs. I had a nice letter from Nesta—she has changed. I perceived your influence! I am friendly with a great big farmer chap here. He loves tractors. In P.T. the other day he suddenly smelt some paraffin, & in joy he turned to me & said ‘Ah! A glorious smell’—in the middle of ‘trunk forward bend’ he was pathetically reminded of his beloved tractors! Hope you get through this letter! Sure I have missed something out. Lv. Frank P.S. Dad, remember me to Mr. Downes when you see him. P.S. Yes, dad, I received the big parcel—and I have just received the small one with ‘cake & Bible’! Thank you for your letter & the pears. I run the fruit-shop of the barrack-room, supplying people with your apples. Have also received some sweets & a letter full of ‘good advice’ from Auntie Ruth. Auntie Annie sent me some tomatoes which were squashed, & the parcel was a bit of pulp! P.P.S. Had 12 mile march this morning in full kit over mountains. Feel absolutely dead, but grand to come back. We ‘captured’ lots of mountains & valleys!53 [added in the hand of Frank’s brother Ernest] Here is Frank’s letter. Keep it like the others. I am sending it to you immediately —rec’d it this Mon. dinner time (E) Had pleasant Sunday here. Working Sat. afternoon In his poem ‘Pollution’ Frank remembered the 1940s as ‘the era when dad’s Army / beat through the bluebells, and we had // backs to the land, or / bellies pressed against heather in / those interminable schemes with // a compass, that roused / a few grouse.’ (The Raw Side, p. 13, reprinted in Appendix 2, ‘Two Farm Poems’, below) 53 Brownlow’s Cousin (Mr. Brownlow) & Family—mother & three grand little lasses has been here this weekend. Mr. Brownlow gave first rate sermons. Ann Holden is also here—as a year ago. She is still debating over R[oman] C[atholic]ism & has left her Pole. A nice lass. Am getting to know her. Lv. E. Above: Frank on leave, with his younger sister, Margaret, September 1943. 4. Artillery to Intelligence (Scarborough/Preston/ Rotherham, September 1943-January 1944) ‘ghastly efficient, terribly military’ 7. Frank to his family, Scarborough, [15 September 1943]54 Scarborough. Dear dad, I have gone to bed in the barrack reception station for a day or two because I have a head-ache & am feeling a bit rotten after my excitable week-end.55 There isn’t anything particularly wrong with me except that I needed a rest, so I’ve been writing a few letters. I wrote to Mr. Cummings, then remembered that I had not got his address, so could you post it on when you get to know what his address is? Shall be writing to Erny this week-end. Hope I shall be better so that I can go to Miss Rayner’s on Saturday. Lv. Frank. 8. Frank to Ernest, Scarborough, [16 September 1943] Reception Station, Burniston Barracks, Friday. My dear brother, Soon after I got back I felt ill with headaches & a fever, & so now I am in bed in the barrack reception station. Seeing I have plenty of time, therefore, on my hands, I will write to you as well as home. I had a good talk with Peter after you left on Sunday. He told me that mum had been terribly alarmed sometimes by the lurid description of my reactions to army life, & that he called to see mum & dad (a few weeks after I was called up) & had to Frank’s six weeks of basic training ended on 26th August. He was transferred to the Royal Artillery on 27th and posted to Scarborough to work as a gunner. All we known of this period is that he told his daughter Meggie that he nearly blew up Scarborough Castle on a training exercise, baffled by the gun’s controls; clearly he was not cut out to be a specialist gunner. 55 Frank has had a weekend leave and seen his family. 54 spend a whole Saturday afternoon trying to explain to mum that those feelings were inevitable at first etc. Dad tells me that Peter actually did reassure mum quite a lot. Peter himself told me that I ought not to express my feeling so bluntly in my letters home, because mum got so worried. Dear old Peter! He managed the situation as if he had belonged to the family. Dear old Mr. Shepherd rushed in all hot & sweaty after the evening service in order to see me before catching his bus. I was actually so overwhelmed with pleasure at seeing you all again that it must have overdone me, & I’m now ill in consequence. I had an interesting conversation with a Polish airman in the train about the question of Poland & Russia. I got to York at 11.0 p.m. & wandered along the dark street to see the great Minster in the moonlight. Then I spent a painful 5 hours trying in vain to sleep in a stationary train coach, until the train moved on to Scarborough. I arrived through the wet streets of this now familiar town at 6.30 a.m. at the barracks. Luckily it was an easy day of driving & I wasn’t feeling very done up. On Tuesday I began to feel headachy & ill, but I took no notice of it, & went to supper with the Bellamy’s. As it happened, Mr. Cyril Bellamy, a middle-aged doctor, who was great friends with Uncle Ernest when he was young, was staying there, and he was an interesting character. I had a lengthy discussion with him on metaphysical lines. He was so obsessed with Theories of ‘radiation’ that he thought he could prove that matter did not exist. As you can imagine, I violently stuck up for the objective existence of matter! I’ve agreed, however, about socialism. He had a touch of cynicism about him. The ladies of the household were completely puzzled by our rather dizzy argument. It so happened that he had to go back the next day, so after a little walk in the moonlight he gave me a very courteous handshake & solemnly said he thought there was still some hope for the world.56 On Tuesday night I had a horrid headache & on Wednesday reported sick to the MO.57 He found I had a temperature & sent me here. I expect I shan’t get better for The elder Ernest Goodridge, Frank’s uncle, had been Cyril Bellamy’s close friend and workmate when he was a young man, but went off to war in 1915 and never came back. So this encounter with Ernest’s nephew, 28 years later, a little younger than Ernest had been when he last saw him, but wearing a similar uniform and no doubt having similarities of appearance and manner, may have stirred strong feelings in Bellamy, notwithstanding his ‘touch of cynicism’. Seeing a living reminder of his lost friend, as much as having an enjoyable philosophical debate with a bright young soldier, may have informed that courteous handshake, and the comment that there was ‘still some hope for the world’. See Ernest Goodridge, The Same Stars Shine, online edition, Biographical Index, for more on Cyril Bellamy and his family. 57 Medical Officer. 56 another week or so. It is nice to lie in white sheets & be waited on methodically by kind R.A.M.C. men. Yesterday & the day before I did’nt feel bad & enjoyed writing letters & reading the ‘Montrose’ book (which is good history)58 or just lying dreaming. I spent 2 hours lying here yesterday trying to write my own autobiography in my mind. First I tried to get together all the earliest, strangest, memories. It was a queer, unhealthy occupation. As I brought together more & more things in the past I felt a sense of the complete mystery of life. How did this ME come to be? What is the connection between this me lying here & all these things I am bringing to mind? Why do they all fill me with such a vague sense of longing. I have been making plans for my week’s leave. I want to pay a brief visit to Stoke (to see Mr. Cummings) & Derby (to see Sheila).59 I’ll let you know when I’ve filled it all in properly. Last night I did’nt sleep at all, was all in convulsions of shivering, then hot as a furnace. I don’t know what’s up with me. Neither does the M.O. But now that morning has come I feel better again. Enough for the present, Love, Francis. Frank appears to be reading Sir Walter Scott’s historical novel, A Legend of Montrose (1819). Sheila Stuart, Frank’s first fiancée, who with her father and her sister Alison (later Holmes) are important figures throughout these letters. Alison Holmes recalled the sisters’ friendship with Frank (’Jonathan’), in a letter to the present editor in 2012: ‘We were all residents of Gainsborough, Lincolnshire—our fathers being parsons of religion, & friends & Jonathan & Sheila my sister were pals. Jonathan became engaged to Sheila, before going to Oxford & became unengaged sometime later. I was the younger (13 yrs) sister, who was very fond of Jonathan, and wanted him to be my brother-in-law.’ After the relationship with Sheila ended, Frank in 1948 met Gillian Upton (19262022), who was studying at St Hilda’s College; they were married in September 1949 and had four children, Susannah (‘Zanny’, b. 1951,) the present editor (b. 1953), Peter (‘Pete’, 1955-2017), ceramicist and arts logistician, and Margaret (‘Meggie’. b. 1959). 58 59 9. Frank to his family, Scarborough, [16 September 1943] 14655178 Gnr. Goodridge J.F., Friday. Reception Station, Burniston Barracks Scarborough, Yorks. Dear mum & dad, Since I am ill in bed with plenty of time I’m writing lots of letters, & have just written to Erny. I expect you received a letter to be forwarded to Mr. Cummings. When you do find his address, could you also send it to me. I promised them I would go over & spend a day with them in Stoke on my first leave, & I want to make arrangements. I should have to pass through Derby, which would give me an opportunity to pay a visit to the Stewarts.60 Until I got to York (at 11.0 p.m.) my journey was quite nice, & I had an interesting conversation with a Polish officer. At York I wondered along by moonlight to walk around the great Minster, as Peter had advised me. Then I spent 4½ hrs. trying in vain to get to sleep in a stationary coach. There was a terrific thunderstorm over York—the biggest I have ever seen & at first we mistook it for a blitz. The train moved off at 4.30 & arrived in Scarborough at 6.0. I immediately sunk naturally into things again, as if nothing had happened. The little week-end seemed like a very faroff dream. It was an easy day driving & I didn’t feel too bad. In the evening, however, I got a headache, but took no notice of it & went to supper with the Bellamys. As it happened ‘Cyril’ was there on the last day of a visit. I had a long talk with him, & liked him, though he has a streak of cynicism in him. Our conversation astonished the ladies & I parted on very good terms with him. On Tuesday I felt rotten all day so on Wednesday I reported sick & since I had a temperature the M.O61 sent me here. They treat you very well. There are three others in this ward, & it is nice to lie in white sheets & be waited on. I have some sort of a fever & go all shivery & hot at nights, & ache in my back & joints. Wednesday & Thursday I enjoyed reading & writing & drawing in bed. At present the fever is at a sort of crisis, & I’m not feeling too well. 60 61 The Stuart family, mis-spelled for once. Medical Officer. I like the M.O.. He pays great care of you once you ARE ill, & they wait on you very methodically & well. I shall probably be here a few more days. I am trying to let Miss Rayner know. With all my love, Frank. 10. Frank to his family, Scarborough, 17 September 1943 SCARBOROUGH Sat. night Dear mum & dad, I enclose some books which I have finished with. Please put them in my room. Just a short note, because sending a full letter to Erny this week-end. I received your parcels, for which I am very grateful. Especially useful are the old clothes, which I am always glad of—such a lot of cleaning to do. The Rev. Pittam, whom you wrote to, came to the barracks & sought me out the other night, & has invited me to his church, where he says I shall find young people, & has welcomed me to his house any time. I look forward to going to his church tomorrow. I have just returned from tea & fireside talk with Rev. Hinchliffe’s friend, Bingley Hall, who sent a note of invitation to me after you wrote. Nice man: we talked about Gainsborough; his house right on the cliff near the castle. Last Sunday night found my way, with a friend, to an ex-p.m. Meth.62 chapel, Aberdeen street, & went to supper with a simple couple, who made me play hymns to them on a wheezy harmonium. Aunty Ruth wrote to me & gave me the address of the Bellamys, whose house is only 50 yards from these barracks. I went one evening, & you can imagine how pleased they were to meet ‘John’s son’—and they talked about your brother Ernest.63 Erny hasn’t written yet. Your 10/- just saw me through, though I look forward hopefully to an instalment from him! Sorry you can’t find my scissors. I think Margy pinched them before I left! Please can you send the shoes as soon as they are mended? You are’nt right about the iniquities of officers, dad. The fact is that the ONLY way of living a civilised & decent life in the army IS to get a commision. All the officers are educated chaps. 62 63 Primitive Methodist (Frank came from a Wesleyan Methodist background). See letter 8 and note on Cyril Bellamy. Am getting on O.K. You will get my letter from Erny describing life in this place. Lv. Frank. P.S. Don’t bother about the pullover unless you can afford coupons. Thank you for the nice little pipe. Marie Grey sent me a sweet, grown-up little letter!—shall see you in 4½ weeks! 11. Frank to Ernest, Preston, 18 December 194364 14655178 L/Bdr. Goodridge, J.F., Saturday Night. 49 Squad, 2 Battery,34 S.T.R., R.A., PRESTON. Dear E.N., This letter must be sent on home when you’ve studied it! Got your letter yesterday, Ern., & thank you for the candles & safety pins, dad. Hope you had good week-end at home, Ern.; am sorry I could’nt come. Distance & trains makes it useless—mad, silly rush. Yes, dad, I had a grand day with Auntie Annie65 on Sunday. The principle came in to tea, & also a psychologist lady of the Home, whom Auntie thought I would like to meet. I did some study & reading alone in Mr. Gower’s study last Saturday night, while he was out. His daughters are precociously intelligent lasses, the little one (there are 3) is very sweet. This week-end I am not going anywhere. Next week-end I MAY go to Sawkins, @ Eccles (John may get week-end off) or I may go to Wallasey with my friend Fred Jarvis (I may not have mentioned him before—there are so many people I can’t describe all their characters) to his home. Glad you enjoyed your play, Erny. Remember me to Edwards when you see him again. I have’nt, it appears, got to plead with you much for C. S. Lewis’s ‘Pilgrim’s Regress’.66 Well, I understand how you feel, Nulph, but could you send & try to get me a copy, & if you can’t LEND me your copy? I’ve been reading a grand book on There is a two-month gap in his extant correspondence from 17 September to 18 December. Records show that Frank was posted to 34 Signals Training Regiment on 3 November, and moved to Preston. 65 Annie Goodridge (1890-1960), worked for the National Children’s Home. When Frank visited her she was Matron at the Edgworth Children’s Home in Bolton, while Frank was serving in nearby Preston. (She went on to look after Shirley Broomfield, later famous as the actress Shirley Anne Field). See Ernest Goodridge, The Same Stars Shine, online edition, Biographical Index, for more on Annie. 66 C. S. Lewis, The Pilgrim’s Regress (1933), Lewis’s conversion narrative. 64 the Trinity by Dorothy Sayers, called ‘The Mind of the Maker’, & also the Beveridge Report.67 I expect dad told you, Ern, that Peter Fürst is called up & going next week. I have asked him to call at Preston on his way to Glasgow. Now for the funniest bit of news I’ve ever had to give you! I’ve, HONESTLY, been promoted. I’ve been given one stripe, and am no longer a Gunner (= Private) but a Lance Bombadier (= lance-corporal)! The last 3 nights have been spent sewing the various stripes on the various articles of clothing. By the way, dad, when Peter calls, tell him I’ve been given a stripe—he will laugh! On the farm they always told me I’d be discharged, not promoted! Unfortunately I don’t get the extra pay yet. I have lots of additional, annoying duties, such as marching the squad on to the square, calling rolls etc., but NO MORE GUARDS! You see, they promote 3 people from each squad. There are 33 blokes in our squad & I was one chosen. (‘Many are called, but few are chosen’68—Hooray!!) It sounds funny to hear people call me ‘bombardier’. Our squad is a vigorous & lively community, full of varied characters & real intelligence. We have endless, vigorous discussions. I am friendly with the officers & the seargeant. The seargeant is a little man with a real, tough intellect, but not enough imagination. Thus though he studies religious books etc., he still can’t accept anything, & is agnostic. Argument reached a tremendous pitch in an ABCA69 discussion the other day. The other officer is a fiery, imaginative man, once a schoolmaster. He breaks in upon the discussion like a spark, & wakes everybody up. But it is grand to find myself in the centre of a real vigorous community life, with varied & fiery characters. One of our bombardiers is a communist organizer—he told me confidentially he was demoted for it! Even the subjects we do are not uninteresting. A fine seargeant named Cartright teaches us Electricity & Magnetism & Wireless. It is all wirelessing & field telephones etc. Every morning we go for a run. Now that I am a bombadier I HAVE to keep going! Last Wednesday afternoon I had an afternoon poking about the town with George, & this afternoon sat reading by fire in the Y.M.C.A. Preston is a nice town. Dorothy L. Sayers, The Mind of the Maker (1941); William Beveridge, Social Insurance and Allied Services (1942), a government commissioned report, published in October 1942, which would form the basis for the postwar welfare state. 68 Matthew 22:14. 69 The Army Bureau of Current Affairs, set up in 1941 to educate soldiers and raise morale. See the ABCA pamphlet used as an illustration to letter 23. 67 Despite the fact that we seem to have made life here as good as it could be, I would long to be away from it all. All the pomp & bustle & discipline is O.K., but I’m not really myself. Having gained a position of a ‘character’ for oneself, one gets all puffed up. I’m all busybody, & I am not silent or thoughtful. I ought to be cut off from human beings! There is a joy in organizing all the jumble of little things which cram up my life. And all my time is taken up with endless talk or endless reorganization (jobs, letters, lists, & darning & all sorts.) It is all a business of ‘getting things done’! And then more cups of tea & talk—about marriage, or politics, or religion, or the character of the seargeant. I’ve always been plagued & pursued by my own over-talkativeness. But still, I owe a lot to the friendship of all these blokes, & life is pretty full under the circumstances. Erny, DO tell Nesta I’ve got a stripe. She’ll say ‘He must have CHANGED’! O for the soil & the fresh air & a horse! O for simplicity & honesty! Life is all agog & complex & not so bad. But heaven knows what it’s all for! Yours is a bit barren & open. But you know Erny, that it is right & purposeful, & not one big mix-up. I love to think of you propelling your way to Newark after a day in fog & wet. I’ve just turned the lights out & am writing by one of the candles dad sent me. I must go to sleep now. Love Francis. P.S. Dad, please put a few rubber bands in the envelope of your next letter. [added in the hand of his brother Ernest] Wed.. P.S.. Here’s Frank’s letter. You must be proud of the high position now attained by your son! I am spending the night getting Xmas cards & letters ready for dispatch. Tomorrow I am going to the Tech. College to see a play. I will write again before Xmas when final arrangements are made re my next weekend, so for the time being Cheerio, With love from Ernest 12. Frank to his family, Preston, 24 December [1943] Preston. Xmas Eve. Dear folks, Thank you for your letters & especially Margy’s & for the money & especially the cake & stuff which George & I & the blokes have enjoyed. I mean, are enjoying. I can quite see the logic of Margy’s piercing statement, to the effect that although Daddy tells her to do homework, she can’t do any because she doesn’t know what to do. If I were to come home on the drawing of the train which I am to come on, I should never get home I’m afraid! You seem to have misunderstood me, dad. I come home on Friday, arriving late in the evening, & go back on Sunday afternoon. We have’nt been allowed anything but Day passes this week-end. I’m not going to Edgeworth, but on Sunday I am going for a few hours to Eccles again to see John before he goes. I was there last Sunday, & John & I had a grand talk. He has’nt altered, & he hates the army of course. We have to pay our own fares & I need some money to pay mine. I think I’ll get home alright if you can give me it when I arrive, but it would be safer if you sent some here before. I spent your 10/- on books I wanted, dad. On Wednesday I took George to the Gowers. Mr Gower liked him & invited him for any time, so that he will be able to go there when I have left. We have had several pleasant afternoons poking round the town & once at the pictures. Work here has been dull as usual. Terribly boring, & it gives me a headache. Thank you for posting on Sheila’s book. Unfortunately it is one which I have already, but E.N. will have it! She may be visiting Gainsborough next week-end & calling in on me. I’ve had nice letter from the Bellamys, also from Miss Rayner at Gainsb., & she will be calling in to see us on Saturday afternoon. My Xmas here will be, alas, dull. I shall read & write letters crouching by our coke fire. I’m not going intrude on Gower or on my friend Moira James, on Xmas day. They want it to themselves, I’ve no doubt. Have had nice letter from Donald Handley. Love, Frank. P.S. Please have the water hot for me to have a bath when I arrive on Friday night. Sorry it clashes with your services. Margy will look after me perhaps. 13. Frank to his family, Rotherham, [30 December 1943] 14655178 L/Bdr Goodridge J., Thursday. 2 Coy, Intelligence Corps Depot, near ROTHERHAM, Yorks. Dear mum & dad & Erny & anyone else who wants to know about me, My experiences of the last 3 days have been so queer & uncanny that I shall not try to describe them accurately. I shall just state bleakly the successive events. On Monday I read in orders that I was to go to an Int. Depot on Wednesday. I was a bit stunned, & hadn’t the foggiest idea what I had let myself in for.70 Monday afternoon & evening we had free, so I went into town with George. I visited my friend Mrs James. I gave her a literary paper of mine which she will be sending home—put it in my drawer when she sends it please. I rung you up, as you know, & I hope you understood what I was trying to say. It was nice to hear your voice, mum, & hear about Margy’s party. I enclose the Boots token which Uncle Alex sent me, for Margy to buy a book with. Tuesday I spent packing up, & saying goodbye to the seargeant & other blokes in barracks. I got a queer cold, & my lower lip swelled up to an enormous size, so that I couldn’t get it right, & had to go to the Intelligence Corps looking an utter thicklipped lout. I have now got rid of my thick lip by applying meths to it! I went off on Wednesday on a train at 9.45. It was a ghastly, beastly journey. Trains full. I had all my kit to take, & had to cross Manchester & cross Sheffield also! This depot is in the great & beautiful Estate of the Earl of Wentworth at the village of Wentworth 10 miles North of Sheffield, on the Sheffield-Barnsley Road. I return the Lancashire map. Please send me the Sheffield map. While I remember, there are other things I need. Please, if you can, try to get me a 1944 Diary—I need one badly. Could you also send a penguin book called ‘The Problem of India’, by Shelvanikar, which is somewhere on my shelves.71 I hope you have got the big parcel of books & old letters I sent—among them is a copy of Donne’s poems.72 Could you give it or Frank had been removed at short notice from Preston and sent to the Rotherham Intelligence Corps depot. 71 K. S. Shelvankar, The Problem of India (1943). 72 The most popular edition of Donne at this time would have been the Everyman: John Donne, Poems, ed. Hugh L’Anson Fausset (1931). 70 send it to Erny & explain that it was given to me, that I have a copy already. Erny, you can send me ‘The Pilgrim’s Regress’ in return if you like! I can’t come home. I MIGHT get a pass for week-end in 3 weeks, but if not you will have to wait till 5 weeks time. This course here lasts 5 weeks. Please give my humble apologies to Sheila or Miss Rayner or anyone who comes to see me at the week-end & finds me not there, & give my new address to anyone who wants it! At Sheffield I met lots of other blokes who were going here. We had a ghastly march 4 miles from the station to the camp WITH our kit! When we got here we had to slave ourselves all the evening in order to get straight for the next morning. We are housed in the magnificent old horse stables of the Estate— beautiful buildings like the Welbeck stables—with a square & fountain—perfect for army barracks. While we are here we are still officially belonging to our own unit, so I retain my artillery colours, & I have managed also so far to keep my stripe, which is advantageous in several ways. To our astonishment, the place is ghastly efficient, terribly military, superlatively tough & stiff, completely isolated from the outside world, & there is scarcely any free time. The blokes are all aghast at the ranting, yelling seargeants. All our kit has to be laid out every morning, & they put us through all the ghastly infantry training (as at the P.T.C.73—Lanark) over again, with drill & rifle & what not. The place is terribly pompous. The food is as good as the best restaurants, the place is full of colour & pomp & circumstance. Everything is done with ghastly efficiency. And everybody is pervaded with a veneer of culture, as if you turned Oxford all Nazi, & you got a mixture of pride & culture with ghastly military oppression. 4 men take up the place where long ago the beautiful horses lived. Would that I were a horse in these pompous, 18th century stables, & not a man! I may not go into the job I am down for with Foxon at Bletchely. I may go into some other I. Corps branch—& may even go abroad—but shall never have to fight! Thank God! They tell us that this place is a purgatory leading to a perfect heaven after our 5 weeks here. I have found a friend— a Cambridge chap who knew Sawkins. The blokes are a queer, mixed, motley lot— misfits, intellectuals, & all sorts. If we pass this course successfully (noone fails!) we strip off our artillery or other colours, & become official members of the Intelligence Corps. The course is very strenuous, but it is all done so pompously that it has a queer fascination. I can’t describe to you how weird & wonderful this Intelligence Corps place is. Military discipline & culture don’t go well together. It is wonderful countryside & a magnificent estate. Ask me any questions in your letter if you don’t 73 Personnel and Training Command. (Lanark barracks was no. 5 PTC.) understand anything about my situation. Anyway, it’s an ‘experience’, & it will lead to a good job for the rest of the war. You must send this on to Erny, because I haven’t time to write to him separately. My letters will probably be short. There is NO time free. It’s a brute of a place, though all very marvelous—like the Duke of Wellington’s army, cultured & proud & beastly! More reports later. I’m sure I’ve missed a lot out. Love, Frank. 14. Frank to Ernest, Rotherham, 2 January 1944 14655178 L/Bdr. Goodridge, J.F., 2 Coy, Intelligence Corps Depot, 2 Jan 1944 Sunday night Nr. ROTHERHAM, Yorks. My dear brother, The letter I sent home, which I expect you will have read by now, will, give you my first impressions of this place! Now, after 4 days, I have got all my jobs done, & am able to settle down for 2 hours of comfort, & calm, & thought. So here are a few of my ponderings as a post-script. I am sitting by the fire in a very deluxe (from army standards) quiet room which we have in these barracks. I have been having a haven of real comfort & peace (all this afternoon I was darning socks & cleaning equipment till 6.30 p.m.), & am reading the delightful prose of Nora Waln’s ‘Reaching for the stars’.74 I have been delighted with her description of Austria, & it brings me to think of dear old Peter Fürst. The contacts I have had (quite a lot) with these Central European people makes me thrilled to read Nora Waln’s deep & subtle understanding of the tragedy which came upon them in the form of Nazism. It makes me able to understand Peter’s hatred of it, & it also helps to understand the Germans themselves without condemning them. I feel I MUST go to these countries sometime after the war: Peter has already invited me. Nora Waln, Reaching for the Stars (1939). Frank’s copy is the eighth impression (1941), inscribed ‘J. F. Goodridge / Preston, Xmas 1943’. 74 I have been thinking recently about the idea of going there, say in 1945, & helping the people to build their homes & grow their crops again. I am glad you are learning German. I hope—honestly—that you will go abroad, say with the I.V.S.P. sometime. In moments when I can shake off the foolish, drab attitude of indifference & affectation & selfishness which I have imposed upon myself by allowing myself to get into the army, I think of you as the one redeeming factor which, so to speak, makes my life worth while. In other words, my foolish life in the army, with its intractable tide of pressing necessities, is utterly unreal. You represent the lost & distant positive side of me, which is not often with me now. I hope we shall be able to DO something together after the war. Do you remember, as kids, how at the beginning of the hols we always used to say: ‘Let’s DO something!’ That is how I shall feel if ever I am released again! It was my friend Sheila who advised me to read Nora Waln’s book. I am surprised that she liked it: she may perhaps possess some of the same, pure, female insight & tolerance herself. One often does’nt understand the people who one is after! Which reminds me, she was going to visit me this week-end, if she could manage it. I did’nt tell her I could’nt go home, because, frankly, I was curious to know how you & the folks would like her if she paid a visit & found me not there. I expect Marie, & also Miss Rayner came to see me too. What sort of a week-end did you have? I am in that sort of environment where I badly need to be WRITTEN to! Write & tell me about it. I was terribly sorry I could’nt come, & was feeling homesick. This morning I was driven to a pitch of fury by the beastfulness of a Church of England Parade I went on. All the chaps go, because it means getting off fatigues. We were marched about the square in the cold wind, yelled at & screamed at & inspected several times before being marched to church. About 300 soldiers awkwardly invaded the beautiful village church, sat talking & going to sleep. A few villagers sang the hymns, unaccompanied by the tired and cynical mass of soldiers. ‘Time like an ever-rolling stream, Rolls all their lives away They pass forgotten as a dream’75 —so sang they. And the men yawned. As the congregation came out we were again bawled at & lined up to march back. It sickened me & made me almost hysterical to see how the army used the formula of the church service to stamp its heel into the free lives of men. I wish you would send this paragraph to some paper or weekly, & 75 From ‘O God, our help in ages past’, the well-known hymn by Isaac Watts. publish it as a manifesto against church parades, as the description of it by an ‘anonymous lance-corporal!’ By the way, (if this letter goes home,) I forgot to ask you, mum & dad, whether Peter came to see you before he joined up, did he bring his sister in, and did you knit him the gloves? Although there are some interesting people here, & some very pleasant & cultured types of all sorts, I am fed up with all the hopelessly affected Cambridge accents, & the gutless pretention of culture of one or two chaps who, getting to the university by money, lack any sign of practicality or of soundness of mind. ‘I’m not religious, old fellow, are you? Hee Hee Hee!’—sort of attitude. Everybody here is very sophisticated, & I miss the less ‘cultured’ but lovable blokes I was with in the Artillery. I am not very impressed by blokes who boast that they ‘really have’nt any vice, except a bit too much drink’, or who discuss army matters seriously. I had a glorious Christmas week-end with the Sawkins family at Eccles. In my letter home I forgot to tell you about it. John was still at home. 76 I did a wangle to get there, by forging a pass form & going off without permission—& got away with 36 hrs!! On the morning of Christmas day I missed my train to Manchester. I wandered around Preston for an hour looking for some canteen to go to (the next train was at 2.0 p.m.), then as none was available, I went to Mr. Gower’s. I was glad I went, because they really did’nt mind me impinging on their Christmas, & his little girl loved showing me her Xmas presents. I had a good Xmas dinner with them, then went on to Eccles. The Sawkins’ are a family impossible to describe, except to say that you are indistinguishably one of the family when you go there, & they were like home to me. Joan & John & I had a glorious Sunday afternoon reading together the Last Supper scene in ‘The Man Born to be King’.77 John was Jesus, I was Judas, Joan was Mary Magdalen. It was a great combination. Joan is a tremendous speaker & actress. She is 25, & just like John. She is a grand girl, & a Christian as careless & profound & John Sawkins (b. 1924), studied English and History at Cambridge and taught English in the Sudan before lecturing for many years in West Germany. A poet and novelist as well as an academic, he published Jangara: A Novel of the Sudan (1963), 100 Poems of a Decade 1970-1980 (Bochum, 1991), The Long Apprenticeship: Alienation in the Early Work of Alan Sillitoe (2001), The Death Mask of Mary Queen of Scots: Poems, 1970-2000 (2003), and A Son of the Manse: Memoirs (2007); see further his French Wikipedia entry. On his wartime military service see also letters 20, 81 and scattered references elsewhere. He and Frank remained friends after the War, exchanging visits between Bochum and Lancaster, where they respectively taught, in the 1960s. 77 This was a series of twelve BBC Radio plays written by Dorothy L. Sayers, first broadcast between December 1941 and October 1942 and published a year later as The Man Born to be King: A Play Cycle on the Life of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Written for Broadcasting (1943). 76 ridiculous as St Theresa. In terms of female wisdom & rancour she abuses me for my adolescence, & I curse her for her crabbed wisdom. At 3.o’clock on the Sunday morning she was still pottering around the house reciting Shakespeare like a besotted Ethiopian damsel with a dulcimer,78 & telling John & I she was fed up with our ‘lean’ talk! She said she wanted something fat & big & warm, so we gave her a cushion & she was asleep on the couch when we came down at 11.30 a.m. in the morning. Between me & you, she has a tremendous intellect, but I would’nt bolster her pride by telling her so. We agreed that she’d do well as my wife, if only we could both tame our formidable personalities.79 These things are the oases, & they are all very brief. I won’t tell you about all the rubble that clutters the desert. Tommorrow begins another week’s work! Or at least I would’nt call it ‘work’. Work is dignified. I like it when they make me bash potatoes, & go at it with terrific ardour! I may get home for a few hours some week-end; my leave is in 5 weeks time. You must arrange to be home. With love, Frank. 15. Ernest Goodridge to his mother Ethel, Stoke Fields, [31 January 1944] Mon. Stoke Fields. Dear Mum, Just a note for You, all on your ownio.80 You will receive Frank’s letter at the same time—I got it all ready the night I got home, but since then haven’t been anywhere near a post box. On Thursday I had a real cough on my chest, but by dint of two nights of early-bed + hot blackberry vinegar & aspirin, I have about shaken it off. Well, this is to wish you a very happy birthday. May the golden leaves of autumn enrich still further the bloom of your summer, crowning with ever greater glory your noble life’s endeavour (i.e. bring us two kids into the world, & feed the little-un & the old parson.) S. T. Coleridge, ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ (1798). Frank’s view of his own personality may be compared with John Sawkins’ inscription in a book he sent to Frank three months later, casting him as a Byronic figure: ‘To Lord B. on his birthday’. In a 2002 letter to the family, Sawkins recalls that Frank was ‘strikingly handsome as a younger man’. 80 Ernest is reprising a popular song, ‘Oh, oh, Antonio’ (‘Oh, oh, Antonio, left me on my ownio’). 78 79 I can’t think of anything else more soft to say. Suffice it to explain that when my emotions are too deep for verbal expression I can only hint at them by making fun of them. With much love from Ernest. (P.S. I’m making a special journey down to the village (on foot) to post this letter.) (P.P.S. On Wed. I let myself in for an awfully dear suit at Randalls, but couldn’t find much else left in the town. I’m saving up now.) Above: Ernest Goodridge at Stoke Fields with a fellow farm worker, his sister Margaret, and farmer Brownlow Horner 5. Training for Bletchley (Bedford, February-May 1944) ‘sometimes tedious & sometimes fascinating’ 16. Frank to his family, Bedford, [13(?) February 1944] 3, Risborough Rd., Sunday. Bedford. Dear mum & dad & all, Thank you for the parcel of pyjamas & things, which I got yesterday. You sent 2½ pairs of pyjamas—I don’t know what happened to the other half of the third pair. The shirt I wanted actually was the blue one with a collar—I wanted it for if I ever get any recreation in the way of boating or anything at week-ends, as a diversion from my work. But you sent one of the collarless ones! I expect the letter you said mum was writing, will come tommorrow. I couldn’t find it in the parcel. It doesn’t matter urgently about the bike. I can get into the town by bus, but I would prefer cycling. It so happens that our seargeant-major of our department is a Methodist, & knows the Rev. Hudson well. So when Mr. Hudson got your letter he asked the aforementioned sgt. major to contact me for him. It also happens that Mr. Hudson’s house is directly opposite the building (Albany Road) where we work.81 So I called in on Mr. Hudson yesterday morning. He talked of you with some affection, & said he had followed your circuits with interest ever since college. He invited me to tea this afternoon, when I am to meet his daughter (20), Joy! This morning I went to the St. Paul’s Methodist chapel, & heard him preach. Last night I went & made the acquaintance & had supper with Mrs. Sleight’s brother, Mr. & Mrs. Hardy. They were very nice & very pleased to see me. Mr. Hardy had lived in Gainsborough from a child, so we had a good chat about Gainsborough. They are a farming family—he knows all the farms round Gainsborough, & Park House. He had a marvelous old History of Lincolnshire, which you would have loved, dad, published in 1810.82 It had grand old prints, including a view of Gainsborough (what a sweet little place it looked) & the old hall. No. 1 Albany Road, Bedford was the address of the training school for new recruits, before they were sent on to Bletchley Park if they were suitable. See Marion Hill, Bletchley Park People (2004), p. 14. 82 Arthur Jewitt, The History of Lincolnshire (1810). 81 It mentions the old Roman camp in the Mote Field at Park House, also the Danish camp at Thonock Park. With regard to the old hall, you should point out to the people of Gainsborough that in the days when the old hall was inhabited (by the Bacons) the hall used to be the centre of the social life of the town—a dance hall, & the centre of administration etc.. It was only when the lord of the manor moved out to Thonock that the town began to decline—which is very significant.83 When the landlord segregated himself out there, he ceased to lead the town’s life—and now the hall is in ruins & Gainsborough one of the most vulgar & flat places in the kingdom. I can’t help comparing it with Bedford, which is just the opposite. My work is going O.K. It is sometimes tedious & sometimes fascinating. Tommorrow I begin learning German—which is exactly what I wanted to do, & which therefore makes it well worth my while to be here. We have a very good German tutor. We are absolutely free, & the work is done without any supervision. We just sit at our desks with our pipes (I am thankful for Brownlow’s pipe—but I may as well also have the one I ordered with you mum.) I do quite a lot of reading in evenings—have enjoyed C.S.L. ‘Pilgrim’s Regress’—will send you it, dad, when finished. Mrs. Tilbee gives me grand food & I’m living quite luxuriously. We’ve had lots of oranges recently. Sometime, later, you must write to my lady84 & thank her for looking after me so well. I don’t know what to think about Margy’s legs. In a way, though I am terribly sorry for her, I’m glad that the doctor has realised there is something radically wrong with her physique. I have thought so for a good while. Now that you’re FORCED to go to a specialist, you will get advice about her generally, including her fatness! O dear, I can’t help smiling. Poor old Argus! The ignorance of these people who say:— ‘Be thankful she looks so well!’ Love, F. P.S. I would be interested to see the reports about the Cleveland Hotel Affair.85 I expect I shall get the Spectator from you tomorrow. P.P.S. I saw that there was a minister called Payne here & thought at first that it was our old friend. But I had an idea his initials were F.A., so expect it is’nt him. Have For more on the Bacons and Gainsborough Old Hall see letter 52 and note. Landlady. 85 Apparently a local reference; the Cleveland House Hotel (which still stands, though it has not been a hotel since the 1950s) was at 16 Spital Terrace, Gainsborough; Frank’s family lived at 29. 83 84 you ever been to Bedford, dad? It’s a grand town. I went to a marvelous concert in the Corn Exchange on Wednesday—Barbirolli & London Symphony Orchestra. I went with a friend of mine named ‘Spinney’. We both thought it the best concert we’d ever been to—it was broadcast. I’ve never been so moved by music before. Every Wednesday fortnight they broadcast concerts from here, at night’s, mum. If you like to put the wireless on, you will know that I am there. The river here is grand. Our offices overlook the river. 17. Frank to his family, Bedford, 25 February [1944] 3, Risborough Rd., Bedford. Frid. Feb 25 Dear dad & mum, It is a pity you did’nt wait for my card, in reply, before sending the bike. I can’t fetch it from the station, because I haven’t the money to pay for it! (I expect I have to pay at this end). You see I am going to Bury, tommorrow, which will ‘bust’ me this week! So I’m writing you a note tonight. Part of the reason why I decided to go this week-end was because I might see something of the Commonwealth86 people fighting the bye-election! NEXT week end, March 4th, Winston & I are going back to Uppingham. I wrote to chaplain asking to stay with him, but he can’t have me because his wife is having yet another baby, but he has arranged with Mr. Milne for me to sleep at Redgate (up the hill.) It will be an amusing experience going back to Uppingham after so long. I shall enjoy seeing Ingram again. I’ve had a happy week. Am getting on quite well with my work (hard & tedious stuff) and with my German. On Sunday last I had tea again with the Hardy’s (Mrs Sleight’s brother.) I like Mr. Hardy very much. He goes to the Rev. Harrison’s church, so, for your benefit, dad, I asked about Mr Harrison—I hope to hear him sometime. I found that the reason why Mr. Hudson was non-committal to you about him, was that Mr. Hudson isn’t The Common Wealth Party was a wartime socialist political party with a liberal and Christian colouring, founded in 1942 from several different groupings, and emphasising common ownership, a stronger sense of morality in politics and a more engaged system of democracy. There were several Common Wealth Party MPs during the war period. After the war, it continued as a pressure group and was finally dissolved in 1993. Frank was involved through friendships he made during his months in Bedford, though as far as we know nothing came of his writing plans there, perhaps because he was sent abroad and lost touch. (On these plans also letters 18 and 20.) 86 very nice to him (you have’nt to repeat this)—rather like Rayner to you. The Hudson Family ARE a bit like that—like the Rayners—very gushing at first, & very nice, but shallowish and snobbish. But from what Mr Hardy said of Harrison, he should suit you well. Always preaches in a gown & likes liturgy. Very sincere, & lot of thought in his sermons. Very small in stature. Keen on Youth! Why don’t you write & ask the Lincoln or Sutton-on-Sea stewards about him? I went to chapel last Sunday night. Mr Hudson was preaching—he is very bombastic, but has nothing to say WHATSOEVER. After chapel I was invited to supper by a girl called Elsie, friend of Mr. Hudson’s daughter Joy. I had a grand discussion with her father, Mr. Steer (a grand chap of real conviction—a methodist local preacher) about politics. On Monday night I had a very unique experience. As you know, the BBC is in Bedford, and all their people, including all the members of the London Symphony Orchestra, are billeted here. By special invitation, we can go, free of charge, to special B.B.C. broadcast concerts. They always invite about 30 people into the studio, as an audience, when they broadcast a concert. All the members of the orchestra are quite informal—they turn up looking very scruffy. Celebrated musicians strolled about the room—Sir Adrian Boult sat next to me! Sir Henry Wood conducted, and before they were due to start he practised difficult bits with the orchestra—which was very interesting.87 When the red light flashed, the announcer waved his paper to quiet us all down, then announced the concert on the microphone (It was Frank Phillips—.)88 The concert itself was tremendous—the studio was electrified. Afterwards the announcer said ‘You have just heard a performance of ...etc.’ The players sighed with relief, & off we went! On Wednesday I went to another absolutely wonderful concert. Miss Joy Hudson went with me: it was a bit annoying because she did’nt really appreciate it. I told her to bring some lollipops with her to suck next time—to occupy herself! Then I had supper at their house. The other evenings I have been reading & studying, but it is difficult at home here. I am writing something which I intend to send to C.S. Lewis—& I hope he may suggest me visiting Oxford & seeing him! But I doubt it. I don’t like to suggest it myself! By the way, did the Gainsborough News publish my letter, or did the Editor think it too violent? If he did put it in, please send it, and any replies it evokes. I may get There is a fine 1942 photo of Adrian Boult and Henry Wood discussing the score before a BBC promenade concert at the Albert Hall, which may readily be found on the Internet. 88 Frank Phillips (1901-80), originally an actor, became a leading BBC radio announcer and newsreader in this period. (He also had a cameo role in The Dambusters (1955), as a BBC announcer.) 87 home some week-end, but it is a laborious journey. I like to get away from this house at week-ends. I can get easily to Derby to see Sheila. She sends me very sweet, long letters. Really I think she is the first girl I’ve ever liked a great deal! I have to bear a very exasperating situation here at home. Jessie’s little son Frank is allowed to do exactly as he likes. She is afraid to discipline or correct him at all. I think, dad, you would be beside yourself. Compared with Frankie, Margy is brought up under the strictest discipline. The result is of course, that he plays up, breaks pots & slabbers & bangs on the table. And gets everything he wants by squealing. I am really rather sorry for the poor girl. Like so many girls, she has to look after this child, & really hasn’t got the foggiest how to deal with him, and sometimes gets beside herself! Of course, I can’t do anything, or say anything to him. I am very fond of the little lad, & often play with him. But he’s absolutely out of hand! ... Well, so much for that. Perhaps Erny would like to have this letter. With love to all, Frank. 18. Frank to his family, Bedford, [March/April 1944] Bedford, Monday. Dear mum, dad, & Margy, Received your letter & Spectator today. I think they may print my letter later. I don’t think they had time this week. So you are having 3 weeks at Elston? It looks as if I shall be going to Bletchely (or Hampstead) next week, or the week following. There is SLIGHT chance I might get my week’s leave after all. On Saturday afternoon I went to Luton with some Commonwealth friends & had a jolly time. I am friendly with a very fine man named Michael Greaves, the Chairman of the Commonwealth Executive Committee. He has been commissioned by them to write a large book about agriculture, to be published in the next 3 months, declaring a long-term agricultural policy. When he found that I was interested in the same subject, he took a fancy to me, & implored me to help him with the book. After much persuasion I complied, though it is a Gargantuan task & it will take up every bit of spare time for months. There are at least 40 books & many pamphlets we have to work through! But still, if I do my best, he is willing to put me down as joint author & share the profits! I’ve written to Mr. Whitton at some length, asking for advice. Perhaps he’ll show you my letter. I was dragged into the undertaking by the scruff of my neck. I’m sure you won’t object, dad, if it means making a bit of money for the family exchequer! Love, Frank. 19. Frank to his family, Bedford, 2 May 1944 3, Risborough Rd., Bedford. Tuesday Dear mum, dad, & Margy, Yes, I received the birthday parcel & money, & have got your letter & Sp.89 today. Thank you for money, & thank you, Margy for the card, which was very nice, & I didn’t know you were a poetess before. O yes, thank you, dad, the little bike is still going fine. No I didn’t go to Newark at the week-end. Nulph was busy, & Sheila, despite the fact that I had pretended to her that the journey was impossible, still implored me to go & see their beautiful cottage in the Caradoc Hills. So, after much deliberation, I went to Shropshire, arriving at Shrewsbury at 6. O’clock on Saturday. Then I hitchhiked to All Stretton, the little village lying among the mountains (on the borders of Shropshire & Wales). When I got there I found that Mr Stuart & Sheila were still in Shrewsbury ‘meeting’ me, so I must have missed them. This place is so lovely that no words can possibly describe it. I had thought that she was exaggerating in her letters when she described the gorgeousness of the landscape, but she was’nt, because it was really the loveliest spot in this country that I know of—so lovely, that I would have gone even if only for an hour. Great valleys with orchards, crags & mountains & gorges & streams. They have a marvelous old cottage built into the hillside, which is one of the rest houses belonging to the Congregational Church. I so wished you can have been there, that I have actually asked Mr. Stuart to find out if it is free during the summer, so that you could have a short holiday there. But I doubt whether it will be. On Saturday night we went for long walk over the valleys & hills. We came back in the moonlight down a deep gorge with a stream, & the moon shining through the trees. On Sunday it was boiling hot. She took me in the morning a lovely walk 89 Spectator. through the gorse & bracken to the little town of Church Stretton, & we went to chapel where Mr. Stuart was preaching. (He is coming to Gainsborough in July, by the way.) It was so lovely that we just couldn’t go straight home for lunch, so we went a long walk right up to a great mountain ridge. Sheila & I soon clambered up, then when we got to the top we had to stop & watched the poor man struggling up sweating in the heat. But I think he enjoyed it as much as we did. You would have loved it, dad. There are lots of little lakes like cups in the hills, & we kept plunging our heads in the water to keep cool! I got quite sunburnt all of a sudden. In the afternoon we went for another walk, & then we went back by bus to Shrewsbury (a grand old town.) There I took my train back via Birmingham & Leicester, & reached Bedford very early in the morning. This as a bit of a splash I know, but it was for my birthday! And it did me a world of good! I don’t know what they are going to do with me here, because I’m not very good at this work. But still, I’ll have to persevere & hope for the best.90 John Sawkins is in Lincoln as an Officer! He is at the same place as Peter Fürst—I hope Peter is still there, then they will meet. John may like to come to Gainsborough for a day or a night; he is very hard put to it & needs a rest. His address is L/Lt. Sawkins, Officer’s Mess, 7 I. T. C., Lincoln.91 His people were very kind to me when I was at Preston, so I hope he will avail himself being so near my home now. He has had a very rough time in the Infantry. My old friend George will be coming here on this job soon. I am very glad. He came here for an interview, on my recommendation. Did I tell you? My leave doesn’t look like coming. Cheerio. Love, Frank. P.S. Sorry Marie is in hospital. My commiserations & best wishes etc. to her mother. In fact Frank had little patience or aptitude when it came to codebreaking, as he told his second wife Liz, although he found learning German (see letter 16) stimulating, and in the 1960s was still working at it, using audiotapes. 91 Infantry Training Centre, no. 7. 90 20. Frank to his family, Bedford, [8 May 1944] Bedford Monday night. Dear mum, dad, & Margy, Thanks for your letter, cigar, & Spectator received this afternoon. On Saturday I received a letter from John Sawkins saying how sorry he was that he didn’t answer our invitation, but they had suddenly moved him away from Lincoln, & he had not received our invitation at all! And now he is having a terrible, beastly time in the infantry, in tents, learning to lead his men into battle, & going abroad soon. Poor John! He describes it as a ghastly, animalish existence, & as a lieutenant in the infantry he knows he will be lucky to escape with his life. I am hoping I may see him some week-end, & discuss with him whether it would be possible for him to get a transfer into the Intelligence Corps. I am still in Bedford, doing very little, waiting for them to find me a job at Bletchely. I expect they will soon want me. As it is, I am not having much work to do, & spend most of the day studying my agricultural books. This week-end I gave myself a respite from my agricultural researches. On Saturday afternoon I had a bath & went for a walk with Denis Winston. In the evening I went boating with June (a bright spark who works in London for the Commonwealth party) & Graham, a young man, also whom I met in the Commonwealth meetings. Yesterday morning I went to the Methodist church with Denis, then I went to lunch with Michael (Major Greaves, who I am helping with the agriculture book, after which he & I spent 2½ hours working out all the chapter headings. In the afternoon June and I went to tea with a certain Mr. Spinney, a friend who has been with me in the Intelligence for 3 months, & who is going to Bletchely tommorrow.92 Spinney is a very funny chap, always philosophizing to himself, very shy, but charming, rather Quaker in outlook. He & I went for a long walk on Friday night to a village called Clapham, discussing the Divinity of Jesus all the time! Last night I went for a walk with June along the Ouse, which is very lovely. We found several swan’s nest. She told me all about how she was brought up in South Africa, & how she became a violent Communist at the age of 15 (!), then she turned to the Commonwealth, because she found its more religious atmosphere more congenial to her female temperament! She is only 19. 92 A Gordon F. Spinney is listed on one of the various online lists of those who served at Bletchley. Little Frankie thinks that because my name is Frank Gurrige, then his must also be Frank Gurrige. So he calls himself LITTLE Frank Gurrige, & me BIG F.G! My friend George is not coming here till four weeks today, so I shall have gone by then. Ernie sent me a card from Birmingham, & seems to have been very impressed. I am going to a B.B.C. concert at 7.30 on Friday night, so you can listen if it’s on the Home Service. So much for the present. With love, Frank. 6. Matlock to the Middle East (July-October 1944) ‘I have to be a bit of a wolf in sheep’s clothing’ 21. Frank to his family, Matlock, 14 July 1944 14655178 Gun. Goodridge J.F., No 2 Squad (F.S.W.)93 Friday night. 14th July 44. Smedley’s Hydro, Matlock. Dear mum, dad, Ern, & Margy, We came here from Wentworth on Wednesday, & I got your letter, dad, just before we departed on Wednesday morning. And, in case you forget again, I am here until Wednesday July 26th. I am glad you are enjoying yourselves. I forgot exactly when you said you were going back. Please tell me, because there is a slight chance that Sheila & I might manage to come over to Elston for the day NEXT Sunday, if you are still there—or even if not, provided you are free in the afternoon, Erny. But it may not be practicable. I have sent one of my books home—let me know it has arrived safely when you get home. As always when I go to a new place & find myself in new circumstances, I am stumped for money: I have had to pay a high price for having some laundry done. I wonder which member of the family is best able to aid the vagrant member with a few shillings? Now don’t tell me all about smoking & what not. You would best understand things if you knew what it was like being in the army! I hope soon to be a paid corporal, anyway. Now all about this place, which is wonderful. As you know, Smedley’s Hydro was, before the Army took it over, a very famous place—an enormous hotel where rich invalids came to take the waters & the air of the Spa. It is an immense, turretted building, standing up on top of the hill overlooking the valley & the town, & it can be seen for miles, looking like a mediaeval castle—the most imposing & the hugest building in Matlock. We have bedrooms (3 per bedroom) right on the top floor of it, & at present I sit at the window looking out on the gorgeous view—Matlock castle on the hill opposite—the rocks of the Derwent gorge to the left, & the town with its 93 Field Security Wing (of the Intelligence Corps). hotels & gardens, & public baths, down below. All the work is done in lecture rooms in this building, & we clank continually up & down its marble stairs for our meals, which are very good by the way. Above: Smedley’s Hydro, where Frank re-trained as a field officer (from an old postcard) This is the chief training centre for all Army Intelligence work, & naturally the place is therefore mostly officers. There are 24 of us together training for ‘Field Security’, but mostly the work is done in groups of 6. The Instructors are charming men, not very military, but tremendously efficient. The work consists mostly of taking notes at lectures, & of discussions & oral tests. Their aim it to get to know you & find out whether you have sufficient initiative & intelligence for the job. So far I have done alright & I hope to pass. Some of the work is most interesting (unlike the Bedford work)—it amounts to spying & military government in occupied villages etc., but I cannot be any more precise than that—not in black & white! I have to be a bit of a wolf in sheep’s clothing—for instance, it amused me to find (don’t repeat this) that the P.P.U., as well as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, are regarded as institutions through which enemy agents might find ‘cover’ (that is the technical term for camouflage & treachery) for carrying on subversive activities! 94 We get up at 6.30 a.m., breakfast at 7.0, then after breakfast do a short spell of either fatigues (cleaning up lecture rooms etc) or of P.T. on the terrace. Hot & cold water is laid on in the bedrooms. Work begins at 9.0 a.m., and does not end till 7.0 p.m., but sometimes there is a free hour or 2 in the afternoons. We have to work also Saturday afternoons, but on Sundays are free at 10.a.m. for the rest of the day. I’ve just been talking to Alison on the phone—I’m going to Derby for the day on Sunday of course, as Sheila is ‘off’ in the afternoon. We don’t have to be in till 11.0 p.m. There is a terrible steep hill to climb to get to the Hydro, & we sweated like horses coming up it in full kit when we arrived on Wednesday. I have at last found a job in the army which I am capable of being interested in. It provides the perfect training-ground for relief work, Erny, because if I can get to Europe in it, I shall have to get in touch with & help to administer occupied villages & populations, & there is great scope for initiative, despite the fact that we are NOT supposed to be ‘agin’ the Government’. However, it is no certainty yet, and I in any case have the disadvantage, if I do get into it O.K., of being poor at languages. I can’t see myself haranguing French crowds as yet, although there would be plenty of scope for that sort of thing if I spoke the language better! Anyway, I shall try. Of course, it may mean the far or near East. More later! Much love to all & regards to the Horners95 & any other friends Frank P.S. Had some grand evenings with Percy Belcher at Wentworth.96 This well epitomises Frank’s conflicted status as a soldier: four years earlier he had himself been enthusiastically involved in the ‘subversive’ Peace Pledge Union, as well as the Methodist Peace Federation (see Prologue, ‘The Coming of War’). 95 The Horner family of Stoke Fields farm, Elston, Newark, where Frank had worked in the school holidays, and his brother was now employed. 96 There is another two-month gap in Frank’s correspondence after this letter. The records show that on 27 July 1944, following his Field Security Officer course at Matlock, Frank was posted to 3 Company at the Intelligence Corps Depot to await posting overseas. 94 22. Frank to his family, boarding ship for the Middle East, 28 September 1944 14655178 L/Cpl. Goodridge J.F. Thursday 28 Sep.97 Intelligence Corps, RUGFZ A.P.O. No. 7385. My dear mum & dad, We have been given this opportunity of writing to you, but really to tell the truth it is perfectly ridiculous me writing now because there is little or nothing I can tell you, except that circumstances are rather queer & amusing. I am very well (except for a cold which the English autumn precipitated) & am finding everything most amusing, & that perhaps in about 1970 I shall be able to tell my grandchildren all about it, but not until! You may as well send the Spectators, the watch, & any other correspondence of mine, on to the Army Post Office number as above, for about a fortnight. Then you had better wait until you receive notification from me of some more permanent address. In any case I shan’t get what you send for quite a while. But I DO need the watch badly. The best thing to use is an Air Letter Card, but you will have to learn to write small, dad, for a change! If you receive notification of an allowance any time, don’t forget to get it from the Post Office, & put it away. Also I think you had better start the system up again of sending all my letters on to Erny, because there isn’t much point in my often writing separately to him. Send me an occasional News Chronicle with the Spectator when anything interesting has happened, such as the Peace Terms for instance! And vote as Left as possible for me when there is an election & you are my proxy! Whenever any parcels of junk arrive, such as old love-letters or books & suchlike, just stuff them in the drawer! O dear I must finish this, the most inconsequential of all my brilliant letters, without having said anything whatsoever Except to send you all my love, Frank. 97 Frank’s record of service shows he was transferred from home duties to PAIForce on this date. Above: one of the regular ABCA publications distributed to soldiers 23. Frank to his family, at sea, en route to the Middle East, [Sunday 7 October 1944] 14655178 L/Cpl. Goodridge J.F., Intelligence Corps, RUGFZ. 7385. My dear dad, mum, Erny, & Margaret, Since there is nothing to do during this pleasant voyage, I will write you a long rigmarole now, though I know you won’t get it for a long time. Well, I’m in the middle of the ocean, & as I sit at this table in our crowded messdeck (dormitory to the non-nautical I suppose!) I can feel the rolling & heaving of the great monster in whose bowels we live. Most of the day we spend reading, sleeping, eating, writing, usually up on the decks. It is so grand with the wind & the sea & the foam all round, with the other ships sparkling in the brilliant sunshine. Of course we are terribly crowded, & down below it is always oppressively hot. But when you get up above you feel that you are the Kings of all creation. I look out over the Great waters & remember that somewhere, perhaps many hundreds of miles away, there is a little island, & somewhere on that island is a little farm where you, Erny, are muck-carting or swede-pulling, & a little place called Gainsborough. The last sight of England was a very Victorian pier with distant hotels & esplanades, & that was that. The rolling of the ship makes you dizzy. The hammocks swing together, creaking & groaning, & we all swing with our bodies bumping against one another. You can buy anything you like at the ship shops—cigarettes 20 for 6d.! Food is good, but one has to queue for hours. To the hum & vibration of the engines we slide on & on, further away from you all. It makes one feel quite happy & pleasant but a bit hazy & delirious. And once again, as always, one has to admit that it’s a ‘grand experience’! The letter I wrote to you so vaguely earlier on, was before we went off. I wonder when I shall hear from you, & receive the watch? Perhaps in a month or two! Even if I could tell you about everything, which I can’t, you would’nt be much wiser. I don’t know where we’re going exactly, nor exactly what sort of life I shall live. But the voyage is grand. I have read a book of Sheila’s called the ‘Scientific Attitude’, a book called ‘The People’s War’, & am now reading a delightfully ‘English’ book about the country by Henry Williamson, which Erny gave me.98 I AM glad I brought some books. I bought an enormous tin of buiscuits, & for hours I sit on the deck or lean over the railings eating my biscuits & staring giddily at the sea. Strangely enough there are some I.V.S.P. people99 aboard (I don’t think there is any harm in telling you this) & if only that Tribunal had let you off Erny, you might have been with them on the C. H. Waddington, The Scientific Attitude (Penguin, 1941). Frank is almost certainly also reading Israel Epstein, The People’s War (1939). As for Henry Williamson, the likeliest of recent titles by this prolific ‘country’ author is The Story of a Norfolk Farm (1941), or possibly As the Sun Shines (1941), a selection of his earlier writings. In his poem ‘Pollution’ Frank talks of how in the 1940s, ‘young men, conscies and others / less bold, read Henry Williamson...’ (The Raw Side, p. 13 and printed in Appendix 2, ‘Two Farm Poems’, below). On Williamson see also letters 24, 35, 47, 55, 62, and 67. 99 International Voluntary Service (Programme). The IVS, founded in 1931, still exists and according to its website is ‘recognised by the UN as the oldest international volunteering organisation in the UK.’ 98 same boat! It is very strange that they should be here. I wish I were one of them! I must find out if any of them know you, Erny! I am very lucky to have my friends David & Ken with me. Poor old Ken is so bad & sea-sick. I haven’t suffered from it yet. But so far it has been very calm. O that you folks could be with me. In a way, there are some things you have perhaps rightly missed Erny, but then you must come abroad with me sometime after I come home. It will be terrible not to be able to slip home to Gainsborough, or to Derby for my brief & happy week-ends. But still, I shall plough ahead & hope for the best. I am feeling rather giddy down here with the rolling, & I must go up on deck now. You will hear more of me in due course. Send AIR letter-cards, they are best. Much love to all, Frank. 7. Alexandria to Iraq (October 1944) ‘quite unexaggerable!’ 24. Frank to his family, [Alexandria, Thursday 12 October 1944] [signed declaration] I certify on my honour that the contents of this privilege AirMail letter-card refers only to private & family matters. JFGoodridge100 14655178 L/Cpl. Goodridge J.F., Intelligence Corps, RUGFZ, 7385. My dear mother & dad & Erny & Margy, Although I wrote you a letter while I was on board ship, this will actually be the first letter you get from me abroad, because that one will arrive a month or 2 later because it is going by surface mail! It was silly to write it, but I could’nt resist it on my long, lazy, & beautiful voyage, which I enjoyed very much, despite the crowding & heat. Well, I have arrived on land again, safe & very well & happy, & have already seen many strange & wonderful things, surpassing even my expectations, which heaven knows I am vainly aching to describe. Actually we are not at our destination yet: there are many more hundreds of miles to travel to a strange & weird place. You must understand that the above address, which will reach me eventually(!), is only a temporary one, & no doubt I shall send you a more permanent one sooner or later. I don’t know whether you have sent any letters or papers to it—it is worth sending them if you have’nt (Spectators & so on) although I might not get them before Christmas! I did lots of reading on the voyage, & shall send a bundle of books & junk home erelong. I wonder whether you have sent the watch. You can buy watches here, & in fact buy everything you can’t buy in England. The glamour & riches & beauty & strangeness & wonder of these places is quite unexaggerable. I was foolish enough to imagine it would be disappointing, but heaven knows it is’nt. Hot summer sun & fruit & everything. Lush! Though I may find myself in a more bare & less glamourous place soon. I am still with one of my best friends, but it is’nt a very nice crowd apart from him. At present we are living in tents. By chance I met some of Such declarations, as well as censor signatures, stamps, etc., are not noted hereafter unless they have some particular significance. 100 your I.V.S.P. friends Erny, but I can’t tell you where, or what they were doing. I was glad I squashed some books into my kit, & all the little things I packed up have come in useful. Send me some book sometime, Nulph. Murry’s ‘Adam & Eve’, Henry Williamson, or something I want.101 I shall be 2 years hereabouts! Now I am going for a swim in the sea. Goodbye for now, & give my love to all friends & relatives & what nots. I am a bit sad when I remember you in your fields in the cold English autumn winds, & dad in his little study. Hope you all have a good time together on November 5th. If ever Sheila visits you, please shower blessings on her head, but don’t mention anything concerning our relationship or suchlike! Better not. I am very brown. Had no sea-sickness or illness. Cheerio Love Frank 25. Frank to his family, [Iraq],102 Friday 20 October 1944 14655178 L/Cp. Goodridge J.F., Oct 20th 1944 Intelligence Corps, RUGF2, 7385 My dear mum & dad, Erny & Margaret, I expect by now you have received the letter-card I sent last week from a port in the Middle East. Very soon now I shall be receiving any Air-Mail letters which you have sent to the above address. When I send you my proper address, air letters will only take 7 or 8 days—so we can write weekly. I can’t possibly tell you all the strange adventures I am having, only give you a bare skeleton idea. Since my last letter I have travelled over 1000 miles, through 3 ancient & barren countries, living like a Nomad under the stars over 700 miles of bleached desert, sand & rock. I have been stranded in a native village where the filthy, dark, & beautiful Arabs shrieked John Middleton Murry, Adam and Eve: An Essay Towards a New and Better Society (1944). The request is reiterated in letter 27; Frank has received and is reading it in letter 48, and his friend Kit is reading it and is going to send it on to Mr. Stuart in letter 49. On Henry Williamson see note to letter 24. 102 In this letter, Frank says he has travelled 1,000 miles, ‘through 3 ancient & barren countries, living like a Nomad under the stars over 700 miles of bleached desert, sand & rock’, and in letter 26, written two days later, says he has travelled 400 miles further, across ‘bleached deserts’ to a much hotter place, and that he is now allowed to say that he has been to Alexandria, Beirut, & Baghdad (the ‘oriental city’ mentioned in the present letter). So from Alexandria, he will have travelled east through the Sinai desert, north up the coastal strip to Beirut, and east again to Baghdad, on the desert road through Syria and Iraq he will take in the opposite direction on his visit to Palestine (see letter 66). He is now in central Iraq, en route to the camp of Shu’aiba, ten miles west of Basrah in the south. 101 & hooted from bamboo huts: I got mixed up in a weird primitive procession which turned out to be a wedding. I have seen strings of camels, I have been nerve-racked by flies & heat & dust & sand, burnt & bitten. It has been thrilling & I am very well & happy on the whole. I am belonging to PAI Force, which is Iraq and Iran, & my job is likely to prove good.103 I am already deeply interested in these [torn page] ..d & forgotten peoples, tropically patient, primitive traditions mixed up with [civi]lisation with all its exploitation & conflicts. I am studying their languages [hi]story & life, & have met people of many races already—Greeks, Russians, Armenians & what not. I wish I could tell you all about it. Read two penguin books, Erny 1/ Sackville West ‘Passage to Teheran’ 2/ Gertrude Bell’s Letters Also a book called ‘Modern Iran’.104 Well, I think of you all as I sit sweltering in my tent, dusty & sandy, with a mosquito net over me. We are 3 hours ahead of you in time. I long for greenness & fertility. I have been in a strange, brilliantly lit Oriental city, full of silks & lights & scents, gold & silver rings, strange music coming from estaminets, dusky men & dark women & naked little boys sitting in filth. But beautiful exotic buildings, more beautiful than any city in England. A bit different from Gainsborough! You can buy everything here too, it is rich & flamboyant, but the land is sterile & everything seems decadent & corrupt. It is an amazing Empire! O dear it is useless vaguely describing things. I shall write books when I come back to England. O Erny, you would look very funny & out of place in some of these places! The heat is not unbearable. I have done lots of washing today. PAI (‘Persia and Iraq’) Force was formed thirteen months earlier, in September 1942, with its headquarters in Baghdad, to manage and co-ordinate a rapidly increasing Allied presence in the two countries, begun when British and Commonwealth soldiers, under the terms of the 1930 Anglo-Iraq Treaty, arrived in 1941 to try and head off a threatened German invasion of Iraq. The same year a domestic coup in Iran was thwarted by Allied troops, who thereafter took a major role in defending its installations and communication links. (This has been described from another perspective as an Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran.) Two principal things were at stake: first, the need to prevent Axis forces from reaching these countries, and though them, British India; second and even more important, to secure the strategically vital oilfields of Iraq and Iran. As the official history of PAIForce puts it, ‘The oil of Persia and Iraq was a sine qua non to Britain in time of war’ (PAIForce, p. 5). A besieged Soviet Union was in equally desperate need of oil and equipment, and a major task of the various bodies overseen by the Command would be to deliver it to their Russian allies, via the northern border of Iran. This mammoth task is portrayed in the 1944 Ministry of Information film, ‘The Road to Russia: The Story of PAIForce’. Massive road and rail civil engineering projects were involved, though by the time Frank arrived in 1944 the immediate danger of German invasion was over, and the main lines of communication were in place. 104 Vita Sackville West, Passenger to Teheran (1926); The Letters of Gertrude Bell, ed. Lady Bell, two volumes (1939); L. P. Elwell-Sutton, Modern Iran, 2nd edition (1942). See also letter 34. 103 Try & get hold of Doughty’s ‘Travels in Arabia Deserta’ for me, which I want badly.105 Actually there is nothing you can’t buy here. There is everything, but I can’t find that book. My friends are not very imaginative & they don’t see all the interest that I do. I feel very lonely in all my adventures, & I wish I could share every experience with you all at home. You will remember me to everybody & tell them how I am. Books are always welcome! The two Penguin books of Gertrude Bell’s Letters I need badly too. I keep buying maps of the places I am in, which makes things so much more interesting. One day, perhaps, dad, we shall be able to pore over them together & I can then tell you what it is all like. We keep having to change our currency, & it is all so complicated to keep getting used to one kind of money then another! When the war with Germany ends, you must write to Mr. Sackett,106 & (if necessary) through him or yourself with my tutor (C. S. Lewis M.A., Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford) & find out if anything can be done to release men to complete university courses. It will probably all have to be looked into from YOUR end, you see; because I can’t do any enquiring this end, or put any pressure on anyone. But that is looking a long way ahead perhaps. We eat lots of eggs & fruit, & date jam & all sorts of things. These countries have their compensations! I shall think of you together on Nov. 5th. All my love Frank. 105 106 Charles M. Doughty, Travels in Arabia Deserta, ed. Edward Garnett (1923). See also letter 34. A. B. Sackett, the headmaster of Kingswood School. 8. Southern Iraq (October-November 1944) ‘We live in barbed wire amid dust & sand’ 26. Frank to his family, [Shu’aiba, southern Iraq],107 22 October 1944 14655178 L/Cpl. Goodridge J.F., Intelligence Corps, 50th British Reinforcement Camp, PAI Force. 22 Oct 1944. My dear mum, dad, Margaret, & Ernest, I wrote you an air-letter card 2 days ago, but I simply must write again now, because, at last, after 4½ weeks separation, I have received your mail. It has been waiting for me here for several weeks—it actually only takes a week from England to Iraq or Persia. I think my letters will get to me quicker if in future you send them to the above address, which is where I am now, until my final address comes through. Besides mum’s, Margy’s, & Erny’s, there was a longer letter from Sheila. She was more sensible than you—she bought an AIR-LETTER-CARD—as I had advised you to do, instead of using one of the little airgraph forms which you used—you can’t get much on them. But it was funny to see Margy’s long schoolgirl writing, & Ernest’s nubbly scrawl all in photograph! Since I wrote 2 days ago I have travelled 400 more miles further away still, over more bleached desert, to a place much hotter than the last. As usual it was a beastly journey—all journeys out here are, unless, as I shall have soon, you have a truck of your own. The heat is very bad here, and we arrived sweating & dragging all our Kit! But soon all this fiddling will be over, & I shall get to my job, where I shall definitely be in a comfortable house, which will be better. At present we are again in the middle of desert. The utter sterility of all these countries is quite depressing. The cities are wild & beautiful in their buildings, & very strange & wonderful. But the countryside is sterile & dust-covered, with only fertility very occasionally. The people are poor & very primitive, but shrewd & lovable in a way. In Persia & Iraq Frank refers in letter 28 to this ‘beastly desert camp’. The principal such camp in southern Iraq, and the stopping off place for troops and materials, was at Shu’aiba, ten miles west of Basrah. In letter 65 Frank confirms that he spent his first two weeks in the Middle East at Shu’aibhur. (Shu’aiba). 107 Forces there are some stations which are cool & snowbound in winter. I hope I get to one of them, but am more likely to be in the scorched parts among the flies! I am permitted now to tell you that I have been to Alexandria, Beirut, & Baghdad, which is the typical very oriental city I described. I have seen the Nile, the Suez Canal (most desolate), I have crossed the Jordan & seen Palestine, & of course been on the banks of the Tigris & Euphrates—great, wide, snake-like rivers, running through desert & occasional mud-hut villages. I have been in the Sinai & the Syrian deserts. I have had wonderful swims in the Mediterranean—very salty & warm. Palestine is a hard, tough, prickly, stony land, which certainly requires a tough & ‘stiff-necked’ people to cultivate it. But the Jews are doing wonders, & everywhere are signs of fertilisation, forestry, & irrigation. I sat by a road near Nazareth by a bony & prickly bush, with no sap in it & very hard leaves. It was eucalyptus. I saw some of the hard & stony places where Jesus must have faced the rigours of dust & heat. The Jordan valley near Jericho is the most wild & desolate & baked place on earth. But the Jordan is blue & rather like an English river in the Peak District. Despite all these interesting things it has not all been very pleasant, & the other chaps have been too fed up with certain things to share my interest in these places. If the British & Russians really meant business they could really make these vast & desolate places ‘blossom as the rose’.108 We live in barbed wire amid dust & sand, on the sites of ancient cities & bygone civilisations. And let the people live in filth & poverty! You can’t imagine how wonderful it was on arriving here in all my filth & sweat, to find your mail waiting. I hope, Margy, you will really try to stick it out with the violin. It won’t be fun, but you must stick to it, lass. Congratulations on the rabbit. Now, if you are really interested in French, Margy, you can’t just learn it from books. You must ask Marie’s mother, Mrs. Gray, to give you lessons, & teach you how it really is spoken. She would be thrilled to help you, if you’re interested. I hope you get this before Erny’s week-end. I hope, Erny, you really meant what you said about weekly letters. It would be grand if you did. I hope you get out abroad with I.V.S.P.—try if ever you can to set out my way, & I could meet you in Palestine on leave. I met your friends on the ship I was on. I imagine they were going to Greece eventually with UNRRA.109 So much for now. I expect you forwarded Sheila’s letter of a month ago, together with Spectators & things, by surface mail, to the A.P.O.110 Number. The sweet girl has sent me a parcel of books which I expect will arrive sometime before Christmas. Isaiah 34:1. The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (1943-7). 110 Army Post Office. 108 109 Her uncle has an idea of us living in a chalet in Southern France after the war! Sheila says I could be like Nathan, & keep a vineyard!111 All very well. I have sprained my arm falling off a train, but am well & happy otherwise. Plenty of fruit here. Bye-Bye Love to all Frank 27. Frank to his father and brother, [Shu’aiba, southern Iraq], 25 October 1944 Date: 25 Oct Sender: 14655178 L/Cpl. Goodridge J.F., Intelligence Corps, 50th British Reinforcement Camp, PAI Force. Dear dad & Erny, This is’nt a letter, it is just to tell you that I want you in future to start a system of numbering all your letters, so that I shall know I have got them all. Your next letter will start as No (1) & so on, then I can keep a record of its number & we shall know if we’ve missed any. I shall do the same to mine. Erny can start a parallel system of his own. It may sound ridiculous, but it’s the only way of being sure who has received what. The letter that (according to Sheila) you got on the 16th can’t possibly be one written on the ship, nor one since I landed. It must have been one I wrote just before departing, which was delayed. Last night I received Erny’s letter all about I.V.S.P. (written on the 14th) & also a letter from Sheila, which she wrote very enthusiastically when she got home after visiting you. I am still waiting to be sent to my final station. My arm is better, but I am doing nothing except writing & reading, which the heat makes difficult. When I leave here your letters may be slightly delayed because they have to be sent on from here. I wonder if you have sent the watch & some papers? If so I hope I get them before Xmas. I will write a proper letter when I move from here. Read Adrian Bells ‘Cherry Tree’, Erny—a good farming book.112 Thank Nora for sending her love, & give her 111 112 Frank perhaps means to allude to Naboth’s vineyard, I Kings 2. Adrian Bell, The Cherry Tree (1932). mine. I hope you’ve got all my letters. You must tell me what you’ve got. I’m sending you some DATES—hope you get them for Xmas! Love Frank 28. Frank to his family [Shu’aiba, southern Iraq], 1 November 1944 14655178 L/Cpl. Goodridge J.F., (2) November 1st 1944. Intelligence Corps, 50th British Reinforcement Camp, PAI Force. My dear mum, dad, Margy & Erny, We are all very annoyed with life at present. First of all because it looks as if a lot of mail has gone astray, & is delayed. For instance, except for Erny’s letter of the 14th Oct. & Sheila’s of the 16th., I’ve had none, & I don’t know yet whether you’ve got any of the letters I’ve sent—which is very excruciating, because I know you will have replied. All of which makes my letter-numbering system important. Also you must realise this—that by far the quickest form of correspondence is this—air-letter cards. Next best is airgrams (not so reliable). Next best is ordinary air-mail letters (one of which I sent to Erny a few days ago)—these may take as much as 4 or 5 weeks, & are therefore unreliable. Worst of all is surface mail & parcels, which takes over 3 months. Unfortunately I only get 2 of these cards a week—1 for you & 1 for Sheila!—so I have to use the other types, so my letters may be out of order. The other annoyance is that instead of being sent to our jobs we are still being kept fooling around in this beastly desert camp, shut off from the whole world, in the heat, doing silly duties & living the dullest life imaginable. Thank God I’ve been absolutely absorbed in my books. We are hoping that we really shall be sent on soon—even then it may be we shall get to one of the least interesting places in the whole of Persia & Iraq. Poor old Ken, my friend who is still with me, but may not be when we go, says he is going mad. It is difficult not to sit & just dream about what wonders there are in store when we get home again—but it is a terrible thing to do, considering all the months & years to be faced. I don’t know yet what my job is going to be like, & really I can’t think of what to tell you. My time is spent reading, eating, washing my clothes, trying to sleep while killing the flies, & doing silly duties which heaven knows (as Ken says) we didn’t come 2000 miles to do. I hope I shall have a better story to tell you when next I write, & that I shall be in better circumstances. Travelling is galling in the army—one never sees anything. There is no pleasure in going to strange places if one is uncomfortable & pressed by foolish necessities. I shall I hope find some time & some interest ere-long, but it is hopeless here. The desert looks like snow by moonlight. I wish it was snow! Being so far away exaggerates one’s feelings for home—or at least, it is not possible to exaggerate them. When one is static & doing nothing of any use to man or beast, as we are at present, all one can think of is ‘after the war’. I was thinking all about how we would arrange my going to Oxford yesterday—collecting together all the Grants, & dad’s ruffled brow as he considered the expenses. Then I thought how wonderful it would be if Sheila & Jean were to decide (as they think they are doing) to work at Park House for the rest of the war, & to come back & find that she had sort of made herself a member of our family, as I am of theirs. And I wondered what Nulphus113 will do with himself, & I still hope above all that he won’t forget farming. I would like to come back & find him an independent farmer. I hope I shall be able to go to one of the cities soon & buy you some presents. What cities they are! You will get the dates sometime! Next Sunday I shall think of you all at home together. It was Nov. 5th, was’nt it? You wanted me to pop home that week-end, did’nt you dad. 4000 miles, not 40 now. Well, well. Goodbye & forgive my gloom. Love to all Frank. 29. Frank to Margaret Goodridge, [Shu’aiba, southern Iraq], [4 November 1944] 14655178 L/CPL GOODRIDGE J.F., INTELLIGENCE CORPS, PAI FORCE. Dear Margy, Although it is a long way off Christmas while I am writing this, and very hot (much hotter than Summer in England), this is supposed to reach you on Christmas day (I hope it does) and it is to wish you & mum & dad a very Merry Christmas and a happy new Year. I am sorry I can’t send you anything in time, but I hope I shall 113 One of Frank’s affectionate but teasing nicknames for his brother Ernest. find some presents for you sometime. I shall be thinking about you all on Christmas day and wondering what you are all doing. All my love, Nucky, Frank. Above: letter 29, to Frank’s young sister Margaret Goodridge, sent on 4 November 1944, designed to reach her for Christmas. Their father has annotated the cover. The Indian Elephant formation sign reflected ‘a predominantly Indian Command’ (PAIForce, p. 116). 9. Iran: Tehran-Arak (November-December 1944) ‘one of the best places in the whole world’ 30. Frank to his family, [Tehran], 8 November 1944 8 Nov 1944 14655178 L/Cpl. Goodridge J.F 296 F.S. Section, Intelligence Corps, PAI FORCE. My dear mother & dad, Margy & Ernest, As you see, I have at last reached my final destination, which is a large & beautiful city among snow-capped mountains, with a temperate, English climate. My journey has taken me many more hundreds of miles, among mountains & gorges & canyons the like of which I have never seen before. Everything is so new & strange, it would take many letters to describe it. I am immensely lucky, because by chance I have been sent to the best place imaginable, am in comfortable circumstances (we live in a house) & am likely to find the work interesting, with some very pleasant companions. I have’nt received any replies from you yet, & I imagine they have all gone astray, & will come to me later in a bunch. I will write a letter when I can. Now that you have my address I should get your mail O.K. in future without any hitches. I hope you have sent the first parcel of papers & letters, & that I’ll get them in the next month or so. It is exasperating not to have received any letters. For weeks & weeks I’ve heard nothing of you—for all I know, Erny may be MARRIED by now (not likely.) Love to all, Frank. 31. Frank to his family, [Tehran], 12 November 1944 Final Address: Nov. 12th Sat. (4) 14655178 L/Cpl. Goodridge J.F., 296 F.S. Section., Intelligence Corps, PAI Force. My dear mum & dad & Margy, (You need’nt send this on to E.N. because I wrote to him separately all about it) On my arrival here 2 days ago I sent you an airgraph (Letter No. 3), but I expect you’ll get this first. I’ve still got none of your mail—but don’t worry, these hitches won’t happen in future. My circumstances are wonderful. We live happily in a big house in a great city: we are waited on by two servants. We have plenty of jeeps & motors & motor-bikes. We have 2 cooks, and better food than you can get anywhere in England. Grapes & pomegranates & hundreds of eggs. Our officer is a charming, delightful man; our seargeant-major is a rare, cynical, charming young fellow not a bit like a searg.-maj., who takes me round all the strange Persian cabarets. The blokes are the wittiest & liveliest crowd I have ever known—always fooling me & laughing at my keen enthusiasm for learning all about my strange, new surroundings. Our work is interesting (what work there is), dealing with all sorts of men, Greeks & Persian & Iraqis & Armenians, Russians & Yanks & Indians (& British) O dear.114 The climate is mild like an English early spring. I am very lucky because my friends have all been stationed in hot desert parts, & I’ve been chosen to come to one of the best places in the whole world. A place so nice that three great men of our side chose to have a conference here not long ago.115 The city is flanked on two sides by great & massive many-coloured mountains, often lost in the clouds, which rise straight up from the great sandstone plain. A great volcano, the highest in the land, flashes its quiet white peak in the sun to the North East.116 At this time of the year the mountains are snowclad. I hope to drive up to the foot of them tommorrow & explore the great wastes, dotted with occasional villages in mud-walls, & mosques, & little Persian ‘gardens’ or grottoes, stuck in the middle of rocks & wildernesses. I may soon have to go & Frank is half echoing Harold Arlen’s song, ‘Lions & Tygers & Bears, oh my!’ from the film The Wizard of Oz (MGM, 1939). 115 The heavily deleted lines look like censored ‘careless talk’ about where he is. It alludes to the Tehran conference, the all-important strategy meeting between Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin that had taken place in the Soviet Embassy in Tehran a year earlier, 28 November to 1 December 1943. 116 Mount Damavand, to the north-east of Tehran, the highest peak in Iran at 18,700 feet. Elwell-Sutton calls it ‘symbolical of Iran’. See also letter 36. 114 live in another city in the mountains, which has a golden dome they tell me. We are 10,000 feet up here. I travelled up the most wonderful railway in the world, which climbs across a vast mountain range in great tunnels & loops, through mighty canyons & precipices where bright-red streams run. It is impossible to describe the grandeur & contortions of these mountains. I have just learnt that I am going soon to a job in another city in the mountains, where I shall probably be left entirely to myself, living alone. I wonder what sort of a life I shall make for myself there. It is a place where there is a lot of shooting big game & ski-ing, and I am taking 7 blankets with me, it is very cold in winter. In a way I am sorry, now that I’ve got to know this city & the blokes here, but they tell me I shall be better off there, & that there will be more opportunity to get to know local families, & also perhaps I may get to see the most beautiful & famous of all Oriental cities—Isfahan where all the carpets come from. If you want to know what these parts of Persia the world are like, read a Penguin book called ‘Passenger to Tehran’ by Sackville-West.117 I have’nt room here to really describe anything to you. Perhaps you had better send this one on to Erny after all, because there are some things in it I never told him. It is exasperating in the extreme not to have had your letters. I wonder what you are all doing—Margy @ the High School, Erny @ the farm—I suppose it’s all the same, though it seems years since I heard from you. I expect the letters will all arrive en masse soon. When I get to this other place I shall be118 rather like a civilian official, provided I can get the money to get hold of what I want. Everything is terribly expensive up here. Give my love to all the friends. I hope I shall be able to send you something sometime, but there is so much to think about just at the present. Love, Frank.119 There are several other, unreadable, deletions in this letter, as Frank in his excitement says more than he should about where he is and where he is going. 118 A deleted phrase here includes the phrase ‘civvy clothes’. He was perhaps saying that it was a plain-clothes job, again giving too much away for the censor’s liking. 119 There is a pencil scribble in another hand at the end of the letter, and it appears that the censor has required the deletions noted; all the replacement words are added later, above the deleted ones. 117 32. Frank to his family, Arak, [15]120 November 1944 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge J.F., (5) 296 F.S. Section, Intelligence Corps, Wed. 8 Nov. 1944 PAI Force. My dear mum, dad, Erny & Marg., Alas I still write all in the blue, because although I have received some replies from Sheila, I’ve not got yours yet. She is leaving the hospital & going to COLLEGE by the way! I have been moved to a place higher up in the mountains, where it will get terribly cold (below 30° below freezing point) & there will be much snow. It is a thrilling, wild, uncouth oriental town spreading its dirty tentacles along the banks of a beautiful stream in a little plateau among grim, brown mountain-ranges mostly of rock. In the valleys there is some lush vegetation—pomegranates & grapes & enormous cabbages, but beyond is the wilderness, traversed by the roughest tracks. Our little jeep jumps & rattles over these tracks day after day. In the crisp morning air, up on the roof of the world, one can realise why it is that the great religions of the world were born in mountains & wild places. The valley-stream is a real stream of living water in the great desolation.121 Wild beasts roam about. At night we here the bark of the jackals. There are bears & leopards, gazelles & elks with tremendous horns. We receive many invitations from rich landowners, even tribal leaders & a prince, to go out & spend a day in their outlying villages to go hunting wild boar. My single companion, with whom I live in a rather cold little room, knows everybody in the place, & everything about it.122 We have to be sometimes cruel & uncouth & ruthless. The population is wild, & life is rather raw. These people are so strange, they invite you to tea in their houses (which are built round a courtyard as in the Bible) then when you get there, they sometimes forget to give you the tea! And you admire their carpets (the most beautiful in the world), & their guns & curiosities, then go home. Sometime I will send you some photographs, one of myself with a local native fellow in the bizarre market square of this town, & another (which is Misdated by Frank as 8 November. The landscape of the Middle-East often prompts Frank to draw on scriptural language, as his comment here about the connection between religion and mountainous landscapes might suggest. On ‘living water’ see John 7:38. More broadly, Isaiah 41:18, is perhaps being echoed: ‘I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.’ 122 A deleted start of a sentence here begins ‘We feel...’ 120 121 funnier than anything I’ve ever seen) of me standing in a pretty fashion with a dark girl with hair as black as jet & a very Oriental face. I am sure the picture if exhibited will create a great sensation among such tame little English friends as Marie Gray! Actually Rosy is my tutoress in the native language—she speaks English very well. Eastern people are wonderful linguists. So, if I stay here, I should be well off—mountaineering, hunting, horse-riding, being fawned upon by rich locals, & in our work (which I haven’t mentioned, but which is most interesting if unpleasant at times) which takes us far afield, over many rough roads across mountain tracks for 50 or 60 miles. When I have been here much longer I shall have hundreds of weird friends (some not very trustworthy either)—I HAVE to get to know everybody, in the strangest little town high up in the weirdest of lands. The people are in some ways disgustingly squalid—you have to yell & swear to get them out of the way when you drive down the street: but in some ways graceful & gracious & gentle, & very clever: forgetful & vague, letting everything go topsy-turvy, standing in the middle of the main thoroughfare, ill-treating their poor old camels and donkeys, but pretending to treat us (conquerors!!) as the Lords of creation. I may not stay here long, but I hope so—perhaps I may have to stay all by myself! It is better than the city far away where I came from. Mail may take a fortnight to reach me in my mountain fortresses of Asia, but you must keep sending, or I might go mad! Especially papers & books & things. And, as I keep saying, I hope, when I get some money, to send you something strange. I am NOT a paid seargeant, only a local one. Believe me, the wild vast distances don’t make you seem so very far away. I think of you all continually, I live still in the civilized little world of Gainsborough, Newark, or Derby. I picture Margy with her High School clothes & her violin, I picture the wet winter you must be having, & Erny in the fields of Nottinghamshire, & the vision of these queer surroundings soon fades. There is time to read & think & write & learn languages, & to be civilized & English all by oneself. The few Englishmen here are very warm & genial. We are in a position where we can get everything we want. The food is wonderful stuff. I am allowed to tell you I am in Persia, & I have visited Teheran for a short while. Goodbye & much love to all Frank. 33. Frank to his family, [Arak], 21 November 1944 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge J.F., 296 F.S. Section, Intelligence Corps, (6) PAI Force. Nov. 21 1944. My dear mum & dad, & Margy, This morning to my great joy I at last received a bundle of letters—the one you all wrote on Nov. 4th, one from A. Ruth, one from Sheila, & one from Sheila’s friend Skeetsie, & one from a friend whom I left in Baghdad. It was wonderful hearing the wind & storm coming down from the great Asiatic mountains, to read your handwriting again, so far way & yet so intimate & amusing. Dad with his slubber about the ‘absent one’, Erny telling me about his rice pudding & Margy hoping the peppermints won’t go soft. You say you’ve been trying to trace out my journeys. I bet you’ve got them all wrong, dad! No, Margy dear, I have’nt got any parcel yet, but I expect it will come erelong. By the way, we get much better food & more of it out here than you at home, so you need never try & send food! I have just written separately to Erny & to several other people. O dear what SHALL I tell you about this time? I am living & working with a rough fellow called Mac who is very tough & daredevil & has fought in all sorts of battles.123 I must admit that here one has to learn to be a rather callous intriguer, but I have some real friends. In our little car we go over trackless wastes to wild villages. There is a beautiful fertile valley in the midst of great bleak mountains, which is like Galilee, one of the loveliest spots in the world. The primitive village street is so narrow we got a donkey stuck between the car & the wall, & all the villagers were yelling & tugging & shouting to free it. I climbed a mountain where you could see vast distances—to great blue & purple mountains with snow, & great valleys sweeping into a salt lake 40 miles long. 124 The town is drab, full of beggars & whores & poor little kids. But there is a certain goodness even in these people. In filthy hovels they make beautiful tapestries & carpets & metal work with primitive tools. This week I have rushed everywhere & I have got to know everybody & everything as far as possible. We work with a charming officer who is thinking of taking me on as his personal assistant, which will be very nice. It 123 124 Identified in letter 36 as Sgt. McKirdy of Paisley who ‘has fought in all the battles of the war’. Meyghan Salt Lake. is getting terribly cold. Soon we may be wearing snow-shoes & sheepskins. I have taken lots of photos, & I hope sometime to send you some of myself with some Persian friends. There is a Christian padre here whom I must get to know. I have been wondering why you have’nt written more letters, but I suppose you have sent some stuff by surface mail. Always use these air-letter cards—they are the only satisfactory means of writing. I am fed up of talking about this place. I want to transport myself for a few minutes to be with you at home or with Erny. The glamourous east is not so glamourous. I think I shall be like a Moslem, & every time I pray turn my face—not towards Mecca, but towards Gainsborough & the R. Trent, towards Park House, & Stoke Fields, & Allestree, towards Uppingham & Bedford & Church Stretton & all the nice places I have known! Please give my love for Christmas to all the friends, to Mr. Downes, Mr. & Mrs. Whitton, Marie Gray, Smithsons, & everybody. By the way, it was funny to read Auntie Ruth’s letter. I suppose even here I am still interested in her bright hour & how she cooked a fowl & such-like! Hooray! Goodbye & lots of love to all Frank. 34. Frank to his family, [Arak, in hospital], 25 November 1944 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge J.F., 296 F.S. Section, Intelligence Corps PAI Force. 25 Nov. 1944. My dear dad & Erny & all, Two days ago I wrote to you in reply to your airgraph of Nov. 5th, but today I must write again for 2 reasons 1/ I have just received dad’s air-letter (No 2) & also Erny’s letter of Nov. 13th. (They have taken less than a fortnight.) 2/ I am in hospital for about 3 days with a septic thumb. I got a lot of puss under the skin due to a pin-prick or something, & it swelled up & was very painful. As a result they had to do a slight operation on it yesterday—cutting it open to let the puss out—& I have to remain here till it heals. First of all in reply to Erny’s letter. I would very much like the book the ‘Future of Islam’, but don’t bother sending these things if it is a lot of trouble.125 I can’t tell you anything more of the I.V.S.P. people I met except that some of them were going to a camp in Egypt to look after refugees, & others were going to Greece. Glad you had a good chat with the Elliot girls: hope they got my airgraph. I quite like the idea of the agricultural prep. school (‘Let me be your father’!) I am glad to see that our correspondence seems to have got into swing O.K. now, & I don’t think anything has gone astray. I expect the books & odds & ends & Spectators will start coming soon, or whatever else you’ve sent by sea. If ever I get round to the place you mention (as is quite likely) I will look up Capt. G. S. Cooper. I managed to get the book I wanted on ‘Modern Iran’ in Baghdad, & it has been very useful. You ask me some pertinent questions, dad, about Oil & the Russians & the Caspian. No, I can tell you I have’nt seen the Caspian Sea, & I’m not likely to. Much as I appreciate your interest in these problems (particularly because your son is here!) I can’t discuss them in letters, though I assure you I know quite a lot about all three. I think I told you I have been in Teheran awhile. What do Camels smell like? Well, dad, it’s a peculiar smell which you only get in the East, & which is quite unlike any smell you get in England, & very different from that of the horse-muck in your garden! I will let you know when I receive the Wesley Wallet-letter & Postal Order. I am reading that wonderful old classic ‘Travels in Arabia Deserta’ by Doughty, & also the ‘Letters of Gertrude Bell’—all about travels in Arabia, Iraq, & Persia. With your acute sense of geography, dad, you seem to have been enjoying yourself tracing out my travels. I wonder whether your guesses have been correct. By the way, just to show you how mad the Orient makes you, I have been dating all my letters & papers & what-nots exactly a week too late recently, so if my last letter appears to have come very quickly, subtract 7 from the date given! I am sitting in bed in the hospital with my thumb in a big poultice, with a little oil-stove, by a broken window. There is still sunshine, but the wind blows hard down from the mountains, & it gets very cold. At least we have got a rifle, so when I get better we are going shooting gazelle! One of my Persian friends (a rich young gentleman landowner—these young men all own ‘villages’ because Persia is still feudal—they are lazy young men who speak a bit of French & English) has been to visit me. Sheila tells me in a recent letter that her scheme for going to College for a year has broken through because her matron will not release her from the hospital. But Jean is 125 Wilfred Scawen Blunt, The Future of Islam (1882). going to do so apparently. I wonder whether you’ve seen anything of the Smithsons recently. I enjoyed your accounts of the week-end with Erny. I can imagine you with your atlases. See if you can find a place called Shai’ba, near Basra, & also, a place called Ahwaz,126 100 miles N. of the Persian gulf in the Persian province of Khuzistan. Never mind, dad, someday I’ll take you out here & show you all the places I’ve been to! But not just now! Cheerio Love to all F. Above: some of the books Frank mentions he is reading during his time in the army (PAIForce is the official 1948 account of the work his Command had undertaken). 126 Ahvaz, Iran, 100 miles north-east of Shu’aiba, Basrah, Iraq. 35. Frank to his family, [Arak, in hospital], 2 December 1944 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge J.F., Dec. 2nd. 296 F.S. Section, Intelligence Corps PAI FORCE My dear mum & dad & all, There is a residue of letters to you left unposted which have unfortunately due to the forgetfulness of my friend Mac, who did not post them despite many promises to do so. They’ve been there 10 days while I’ve been in hospital with a septic thumb which was operated on last week. I don’t know whether you’ll get those or this one first. I’ve had a horrid time boxed up in hospital. For several days they gave me some horrid tablets to combat the poison in the blood, & they made me feel week & light headed, so that I couldn’t apply myself to reading or writing, & the time has been utterly wasted. But now it is nearly better & I hope to be out again soon. It is become terribly cold, & it snows every day. We only have oil-stoves in this part of the world. This morning I received a nice letter from the chaplain in Baghdad, who is putting me in touch with the appropriate chaplains up here. He has come across some of my friends there. At the beginning of this week I received an old airgraph of Erny’s which had gone a bit astray—but it was good to read his quotation from the Adelphi. I’ve also had some sea-mail—various odds & ends forwarded on to me by you. A nice letter from Mr. Sackett. One from Mrs. Tilbee my old Bedford landlady! Also the Wesley greetings letter & postal order, & the letter you wrote to me, mum, on Oct. 14th., when you surmised I must be somewhere near Gibraltar. I feel lonely here, to be quite honest, because there is absolutely noone who could possibly share any of my feelings about anything. My companion is a bit mad—his habits are so wild that he is very difficult to live with, & I shall try to get a job apart from him. The chaplain here is away at present but I shall make friends with him when he comes back—a Presbyterian. It will be difficult not to think of you at Christmas. I don’t know what sort of celebrations we shall have here. I always seem to get into some sort of a dead end affair—& dear old Erny lives such a fruitful life pulling forth the crops & speaking words of wisdom to the poor! And I’m doing no good to man or beast. It all goes to show, as I always say, that ‘having experiences’ means nothing. Erny has ‘had no experience’ much in the worldly sense. I dare say I know 10 times more about ‘life’ in one sense, but not in the real sense. Because fundamentally one only gets what one gives, & Erny gives such a lot. The narrowness of his actual environment & experience of the world don’t matter at all. These things all shall follow after. What we want is a greater simpleness & not a greater complexity. I expect I shall not feel so depressed when I get out of hospital & get some fresh air again. I expect Margy will be going to lots of Christmas parties & so on. I wonder when you will receive the dates I sent? I do not know whether you’ve had snow yet. The mountains here are white, & such a bleak prospect I have never seen before, white & rugged. I wish I had some real kindred spirit with whom to enjoy a wild tramp or two—(well armed against beasts). But old Mac is alright in his way Love to all, Frank. P.S. TO ERNY. Please if you have any books by Henry Williamson which you don’t badly want (except for the ‘Beautiful Years’ which she has already) send them to Sheila from me by proxy as a Christmas present. Children’s Hospital North Street Derby. She is very fond of his books. 36. Frank his family, Arak, 11 December 1944 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge J.F., Mon. Dec. 11th 1944 296 F.S. Section, Intelligence Corps P.A.I. Force. My dear mum & dad & Margy and brother, The letter opposite127 has been issued to all members of this command to send to our folks, so that you shall know what a nice General we have got. I have been out of hospital now since Saturday morning, & my thumb is nearly healed up. This week we have many exciting jobs to do; I am having some very amusing experiences, & I’m quite happy. It is cold & the ‘roads’ are all slush, but our little jeep is still undaunted, in mud & snow. We keep warm with a little oil-stove in our room. The mountains look tremendous with their gulleys & rocks & ravines all snowy-white. I have received the parcel you sent, and some of the things in it were a Godsend— for instance, the 1945 diary, which I needed very badly. I ate Margy’s beech-nuts in 127 See below. hospital! I have also received my WATCH, sent on from the Int. Corps Depot, & it is ticking away perfectly. I have received two letters from Grandma & Auntie Mabel, & one from Auntie Annie: also a letter from Marian Smithson! Yes, I get hundreds of letters from Sheila regularly. I’ve also got Erny’s airgraph No (5), & dad’s letters (7) & (8). You ask me why I wrote to you on Sept. 28 1944 saying I was on land, & to the young lady saying I was on sea! You stupid people—on Sep. 28th I was both on land AND on sea! Both statements were correct. Your air-letter cards only take 9 days to reach me, now that you have the proper address. In answer to Erny’s letter, you can send L.S.D.128 to me (if you are so inspired) in an ordinary letter, or even in Air Mail (ordinary) letter—I can get money changed into the proper currency here whenever I want. Everything is TERRIBLY expensive out here, by the way, but my army pay is sufficient (only just, minus extras & luxuries!). By the way, did I acknowledge your interesting air-letter No (4), Erny? You are right, dad, the mountain I mentioned north of Teheran was Mt. Demavend—a beautiful cone-like peak. I have GOT the book I wanted—’Modern Iran’ by L. P. Elwell-Sutton (George Routledge & Sons.) You would be very interested in it, but if you read it bear in mind that it is far too rosy-spectacled & optimistic. The Armenian communities who inhabit these towns are all Christians, & they have a little Xtn church of their own which I intend to visit. If I manage to pay a visit to Kermanshah I will look up Capt. Cooper—but I am not very near him. No, dad, I haven’t been up in N. Iraq, near Ninevah, but I hope to visit there one of these days. And I am NOT in the Elborz Mountains. Look at your map & you will see that there is another great mountain range! My companion, Sgt. McKirdy is a Scotsman from Paisley: he has fought in all the battles of the war. My ‘little room’ is on a station platform, & its walls are covered with maps & carpets. It has a stone floor, a sink in the corner, a desk & cupboards! You ask who serves my food? I eat with hundreds of other men (wonderful food) in a large, nearby camp. Yes, the populace are mostly Moslems. The few of them who are devout are seen praying in the public places. The rich oppress the poor, & live in idleness, ease, & stagnation. There is a film about P.A.I. Force called ‘Road to Russia’—all about our work in this Command.129 Try to see it if you can. Pounds, shillings and pence, i.e. money. ‘The Road to Russia: The Story of PAIForce’, dir. Frank Hurley (Ministry of Information, 1944), via YouTube. 128 129 Erny, I have been reading Constance Holme ‘The Lonely Plough’, which has moved me perhaps more than any other novel I have ever read.130 Please send me some more of her novels. I read it because, on seeing it in the hospital, I remembered that you once told me she was good. She is wonderful, prophetic, perfect. The book cut very deep with me. Happy Christmas Much love to all and everybody Frank P.S. Erny, give my love to old Nora! [An official letter is included in this airmail as follows] G.H.Q. Paiforce December 1944 This brings to the families of all British troops serving in Paiforce my best wishes for Christmas and the New Year. Christmas should be a time of family reunion, and although this is not possible this year, I want you to know that we shall be specially thinking of those at home for we wish the Christmas spirit of Goodwill to keep alive and strengthen family ties in spite of our separation from home. May God bless and keep you during 1945. Arthur Smith Lieut. General131 P.S. Please do not let this letter appear in the Press. It is a personal message and I dislike publicity. Constance Holme, The Lonely Plough (1914). Sheila is reading this in letter 42, and in letter 58 has sent on to Frank a ‘pile’ of Constance Holmes and other books. In letter 67 he has read ‘the Constance Holmes novels’ that have been passed around the family (‘scored & scribbled on by dad, named and dated by Erny, sent by Erny to Sheila, & by Sheila to me!’). Frank may indeed have read all the fiction of this popular novelist of Westmorland life. 131 Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Smith was the ‘last Commander-in-Chief of Paiforce’ (Paiforce, p. 19). 130 37. Frank to his family, [Arak], 31 December 1944 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge J.F., 8.0 p.m. Dec. 31 1944 [=5.0 p.m. in England] 296 F.S. Section, Intelligence Corps P.A.I. Force. My dear mother, brother, father, & sister, When I arrived on Christmas morning (very ‘washed out’ after travelling in the train all night) at our Headquarters in the city, there was quite a pile of mail waiting: Erny’s charming Xmas Carol air-graph—which certainly was a breath of English air & of the Xmas evangel, a letter from Sheila, Erny’s letter No. (7), mum’s letter no. (12), the letter which you forwarded from my dear old friend John Sawkins (from India), & also your package containing letters & copy of Gainsborough News & the Xtn New Letter.132 I went to an American service (as I often do) & the padre preaches in a sort of Cowboy drawl, very earnestly, & they sing in Negro Spiritual style, a pretty carol as follows:‘So old & strange the wise men seem, and yet—how well we know Twas your Dream & my Dream They followed long ago. The camel bells sound faint & far But though they fall so light… Twas your Star & my Star They followed through the night’. This was the best moment of my Christmas. Everybody was making merry & we ate an enormous lot, but I had a bad cold & I never felt much Christmas atmosphere in such a city. The Moslems were having a weird ceremony trudging through the streets chanting some gibberish over & over again & patting their heads & chests lifting torches in the air, obstructing the traffic & getting on every body’s nerves. But these are only the small minority of real fanatical believers. I came back here 2 days after boxing day. Yesterday Mac & I went a journey of 90 miles (180 in all) to a ‘city’ where it was lovely & warm & spring & where there is a wonderful golden dome (all pure gold) 132 The Christian Newsletter. flashing in the sun, set amid beautiful ornate minarets of many-coloured bricks.133 The journey was through mud-brick villages, & then across vast stretches of cold brown plateau with ragged & weird shaped mountains standing up all about, then into a valley where a patch of real tender green corn was growing—this took my breath away, because it is rare sight out here in winter: then down through a pass to a place where all the snow stopped & it became warm & dusty. It got dark before we got back, & the wild open tableland with the queer mountains looked terrifyingly desolate. The road is just rough gravel, but there is tarmac when you get near some of the towns. The wheel went ‘bang’ just before we reached ‘home’ (we could see the lights of our town twinkling under the black mass of mountain) & in the freezing night we had to change the wheel! In answer to some of your questions:— Yes, we can get the B.B.C. from here alright, on a decent radio set, though I don’t always keep up with the news. We have a Methodist padre, Rev. Brakespeare,134 with whom I am friendly & able to cooperate. There are also Greek Orthodox churches. The reason why I crossed the Jordan, was because I came back from Beirut to Haifa. Get it? I receive the Commonwealth literature which you sent on by the way.135 Better collect such stuff together over longish periods & send it all in parcel. Mac is gone to the city for the New Year, & I am left to work alone for a few days.136 Have you gleaned anything from ‘Under Persian Skies’?137 It is true they treat the poor donkeys & camels something terrible. This afternoon I saw a horse dying in the street, with a crowd round, which I dispersed! Yes I have met an American missionary in Teheran, Dr. Elder, who is a good chap & doing fine work. Thank you so much for sending a little present to Sheila—she will appreciate it very much—’specially since her remote young lover never sent her anything! Her Pop was in Gainsborough at Xmas. Did you see him? The two books I want most are Murry’s ‘Adam & Eve’ (E.N. has it) & the next book of C.S.L.138 Mac may go back to England in 3 or 4 months—I will ask him to visit you if he does. Qum. See also letters 31, 38 and 40. Revd. Harry Arthur Breakspear: see letters 43, 44, 48 and 49. 135 Literature from the Common Wealth Party, with which Frank had been involved during his time in Bedford. See letter 17 and note. 136 As a Scotsman, Sgt. McKirdy would unddoubtedly have wished to celebrate Hogmanay. 137 Hermann Norden, Under Persian Skies: A Record of Travel by the Old Caravan Routes of Western Persia (1928). 138 The most recent books by C. S. Lewis, in his series of wartime books on spiritual, ethical and philosophical matters, were The Abolition of Man (1943), Christian Behaviour (1943), and Beyond Personality (1944): see also letter 58. 133 134 Our best friends here are Mr. & Mrs. R., a charming family of Latvians, who have a lovely house, & where meals are so enormous & so tasty. We had a wonderful party there on Dec. 23rd., with 2 turkeys!139 Mrs. R. is a charming, plump, buxom, beautiful woman, who speaks English with a lovely Russian accent. They are Greek Orthodox Christians, & are teaching me a bit of Russian, which will be very useful to my work. Their house is only 200 yds from our room. Persian is an easy language on the whole—but terribly difficult to WRITE. I have a very good friend, a Seargeant, at the hospital where I was with my thumb, who gives me cough medecine if I get cold. I have kept very well on the whole, except for the poisoned thumb. I’m happy, & life is interesting I need civilian clothes & can’t buy them. Send please just my best pair of grey flannel trousers (wash and stand cupboard) & my sports coat. That’s all I want. All my love, Frank. Latvian Christmas celebrations usually centre on Christmas Eve, which in 1944 fell on a Sunday, so the big Christmas Eve meal was being shared this time on the Saturday, a day early. 139 10. Arak-Tehran-Abadan (January-May 1945) ‘they rush around in big American cars’ 38. Frank to his family, [Tehran], 11 and 13 January 1945 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge J.F., Jan. 11 1945. (12) 296 F.S. Section, Intelligence Corps P.A.I. Force. My dear mum & dad, Erny & Margy, To my great sorrow I have been torn away from my mountain home & returned to the big city, where my work is likely to be duller, & where I shall miss the companionship of my friend Mac. Two days before leaving we went a wonderful ride to a mountain valley, a fertile part where there are many villages & trees & land cultivated in a primitive way. The river there reminded me almost, for a moment, of England. I can tell you now I have been out at a place called Sultanabad, otherwise called ARAK. The place you were looking at on your map, Ahvaz, is in a torrid flat desert, one of the hottest in the world, where there are no mountains. In this desert of Khuzistan, which I did pass through once, there are a few swampy places where shrubs grow, & there are mud-villages. One of these is Shush, the site of the old Persian city of Susa. The Rivers Karun (the only navigable river in Iran) & Karkheh are just great muddy snakes like Euphrates, winding through the wastes. Sultanabad is on the northern slopes of the Zagros mountains, where they slope down to the great desert plain of Central Persia. The city with the golden dome I told you about, is Qum, still further north.140 I am sorry some of my letters were not properly numbered. I got your Xmas letters (No. 15) & various Xmas cards, & letters from A. Ruth, & A. Mabel, also the papers No. (6). I enjoyed your description of Xmas day at home. I hope I shall get to Isfahan one day, as you say. Your little bits of ‘lingo’ are a bit antique, & not quite as it is actually spoken. For instance ‘Goodbye’—God be with you (=literally Khoda Hafis) is always just ‘Khodafis’. The sour milk cheese you talk of is as common here as butter is in England. It is too salty, but nice when you’re hungry, & made of goat’s milk. 140 See Appendix, ‘Iran Fragments’, for Frank’s verses on the ‘Zagros Mts.’ and ‘Sultanabad (Qum)’. Tell Margy that the little girls out here have no Xmas and no Enid Blytons. They wander round the muddy streets barefooted begging for money & bread, & some of the little boys have to keep their parents alive by being shoeshine boys. Goodbye for now. Jan 13th 1944.141 I have just received lovely letter written to me by Margy on Dec 1 (No (9)) together with the pamphlet about Poland. Also I’ve got all Spectators up to end of November, & received one of the Leslie Church booklets from Wesley Chapel. I loved Margy’s own Christmas carol. My description of the little beggar children above does’nt refer to the city I am at now. Here everybody is rich & pompous, & they rush around in big American cars, & it is difficult to know anyone. I had a party with some (British) friends before I left there. It is warmer here. Here we are not so free, & we can’t do as we like. When I was with Mac I could carry on exactly as I wished from day to day—go anywhere. But still this is an interesting city & I think I shall get around & find some friends, & I shall go to an American church. Margy sounded much more grown-up in her letter than she has ever been before. It was more like a letter from a young lady! Is she any thinner?! Send me some family photographs sometime. Life up here is very dignified & sedate—one might almost be living in a rather poor sort of Paris or London. But it was more interesting in the other place. I shall get your letters quicker here. Now I must say goodbye—I have a little job to do in the city. Our house is in the outskirts. I wonder whether you saw Sheila’s father. He was at Park house at Xmas. Lots of love Frank 141 Dated the previous year in error. 39. Frank to Ernest, [Tehran], 22-23 January 1945 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge J.F., Jan 22nd 1944142 ET CETERA. My dear old Nulphus, First of all, brother, thank you so much for sending those books to Sheila for me. I received 2 letters from her this morning (before she got your books) in one of which she remarks: ‘the more you tell me of your brother the more I like him—at least I know I shall like him (not to be repeated please)’. Well, I have repeated it! She is making strenuous efforts to get out of nursing into college (perhaps Cambridge.) By the way, when you send her ‘Adam & Eve’ tell her that I command that both Bobbie & her Pop should read it, particularly Pop. I LOVED your description of winter jobs on the farm—more graphic than usual. I hope you DO find the woman of your heart! Little Alison, Sheila’s sister has recently had her picture highly praised by Augustus John.143 You would love Alison. O dear, but I must not dream of English girls! We had a new officer here, whom we disliked. It rained continuously for 3 days. Persian houses, with their flat, ricketty rooves, are not meant for such times. Suddenly the roof fell in on the head of the new officer. That in itself was very gratifying, had not all our bedroom rooves fallen in on top of us during the night. There was great pandemonium. There is a Polish refugee club here where beautiful Polish girls play Chopin & serve coffee. It even smells of Poland, with its wall-paintings of peasant girls with milk-pales. It is moving to see these emigré people, building their little centre of culture in a strange city. Living again a sedate & cultured life in the city, I am with young university fellows of my own age. I am particularly friendly with a young man called Kit, an artist, & very spruce & good-looking. There is a good ‘Services Club’ with books & music etc in the city. My job is one of mere ‘officialdom’—I am just a British ‘official’, & my work is in the city, through which I drive daily in my jeep. The traffic here is mad—so much that I wonder why I ever come home alive to our house. It is one mêlee of swirling, tooting vehicles, & our ‘Allies’ are nearly as bad drivers as the Dated a year early in error. ‘little Alison’ (nee Stuart, later Holmes) would study at Edinburgh College of Art and the Royal Academy Schools in London, and became a successful artist and portrait painter, later based in Crickhowell. Alison painted a watercolour portrait of Frank’s daughter Meggie Goodridge aged around seven, which the family still owns. 142 143 populous themselves! This morning I caught one on the servants setting light to a mouse’s tale, over which he had poured paraffin! He screamed with delight to see it rush round in flames. I summoned up the few words of Persian I know, I told him he was an uncivilized bastard! The American missionary people out here are very nice. Their chief work is educative. Under British influence there is actually a symphony orchestra in this city, & a very beautiful college, which, like all the best buildings, was built by the GERMANS. All the avenues of the city are built in squares & right-angles, covering an immense area. Thus it is at first almost impossible to distinguish one street from another. Jan 23rd. This morning I had a job in the very early morning a few miles out of town. The mountains looked so beautiful & clean & cold at sunrise—almost unreal in their uncouth rugged snow-capped strength. They look as if they are a stone’s throw away, because they are so big, but actually their foot is 25 miles distant! Remember me to Addie & Brownlow & any other of our mutual friends, particularly Nesta & Bay, whose photos on horseback I still have in my wallet. Send me some farm photographs of you & the blokes etc. sometime. I think it next Sunday you go to Gainsborough—or was it last Sunday? Such places as Newark, Gainsborough, & Derby, all seem still very near, despite mountains & oceans & countries 5000 miles across. Peace be unto thee, brother, if such a restless fool as me is capable of bestowing such a blessing! Your affectionate brother. 40. Frank to his family, [Tehran], 23 January 1945 23 J [paper torn] (23) 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge J.F. et Cetera. My dear dad, mum, & all, I seem to be getting lots of letters these days—yesterday one from Erny, a grand one about his work & his friends, 2 from Sheila, one from Alison, & one from Miss C.C. Ledger, of all people, who says she has sent me some books. Your No (18) came today. Frank’s pencil drawing of his friend Kit Stirling First of all to answer your questions (I hope!) the place I mentioned with the golden dome is Qum. Yes there are Greek Orthodox churches in all the cities around this part of the world. I can’t answer any of your questions about Americans. I have’nt received Parcel (13) yet. I can get all the odds & ends I need—you need never send me things like tooth-paste, but Benzedrine & such rarer articles are useful, & socks & suchlike. I shall think of you all on 28th with Erny.144 Sawkins & I are writing frequently to one another again. He is getting on well in India. Sheila told me in her letter that you had sent her a bookmark, and she says she treasures it very much. Alison’s paintings are now, she says, residing in the house of the best living English artist Augustus John, R.A., who has praised them highly. My best friend here is a very charming & good-looking man of my own age, who was at Cambridge & who is a good artist, & has the same taste as me in books & things. We call him Kit, but his name is Stirling & he is from London. We are all young men here now—8 of us, & we get on wonderfully together. One of them, Len, is a Roman Catholic, with a very incisive mind rather like C.S. Lewis. He is on the way to being a diplomat. Then there is Ted, a very earnest lad of the Plymouth Brethren. He argues with the Roman Catholic continually. Kit and I are always driving round town together. We are friendly with a rich fellow (a Persian) who has invited us to dinner on Thursday. It is difficult to get to know people here because they are all very snobbish—though they have’nt anything to be proud of, scruffynecks that they are. They really don’t like us Westerners. The American missionary people are nice—they run Bible Classes & services attended by British troops & others. I had supper with the American missionary & his wife, Dr. & Mrs Elder. They have a sweet girl & boy, & I love to hear the children with their American accent like on the films. Then there is another charming American missionary lady, Miss Doolittle, who looks after hundreds of little local children. Being up here, I have lost contact with Brakespeare. There is a beautiful Polish club which is a centre of culture for refugees, & we find pleasant friends there: Also a fine club for Servicemen, with plenty of books & music. I am going to do some teaching English to local schools very soon. Thus the cultural life here is almost as good as it was long ago in Bedford, & life is rather similar!! These advantages offset my disappointment at leaving my previous post. My job here is dull but lazy. I’m just a British ‘official’! This morning I had to go into the countryside very early at dawn. The mountains looked terrific in the cool morning, & it was biting cold. The bare plains stretch for vast distances, & although the mountains are 25 miles away, their rugged, snowy slopes are so huge that they look only a stone’s throw away. Erny seems to have enjoyed cutting down willow-stumps. I envy him. Sheila says in her letter ‘the more you tell me about your brother the more I like him’. By the way she is still trying hard to get from nursing to college. Her brother Gavin has just This may have been a Sunday visit to Newark, so that the family could be together for an early celebration of Ernest’s mother Ethel’s 46th birthday on Wednesday 31st. 144 got married, I’ve never met Beatrice, though she & I have often wanted to meet— that is Gavin’s wife. Alison once remarked how nice it will be when Beatrice is her sister-in-law & me her brother-in-law. The second part only now remains! Looking forward to receiving the books All my love, Frank. 41. Frank to his family, Tehran, 3 February 1945 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge J.F. (13) Feb. 3rd 1945 296 F.S. Section, Intelligence Corps P.A.I. Force My dear mum & dad & all, I received your parcel No (11) with books & papers. I don’t think there is anything else I have’nt acknowledged except the regular flow of Spectators & a letter from old Miss Holmes of Collingham, whom I only just remember. I have also had a letter from Mr. Ingham, my old English master. I have’nt got (13), (14), (16) & (17)—I suppose they are papers by sea. Did I tell you the news of my friend Gavin, Sheila’s brother, that he is supposed to have got married a fortnight ago, but I don’t know yet whether he HAS. My life here is very full now. I have found more friends & so I have quite a lot of engagements. This morning I spent cleaning my jeep because the officer angrily told me that it was filthy. This provided some amusement for the others—I am a constant target for everybody’s sallies of wit round here—I don’t know why. This town is so terribly expensive that I am having to make some money by teaching English—2 hours, 3 days a week. He is a very important personage, my pupil, & he comes from the weird country of Afghanistan. Being a member of the ruling class of that country, he is more or less educated, & has travelled in London, Moscow, Berlin, & Paris. He’s keen & intelligent. His ‘palace’ has a beautiful courtyard with rustling trees & running water, & he has 4 beautiful children, including a wonderful young, dark Oriental girl of 15, who sports herself shyly among the bushes. To reach his office one goes through 2 enormous banquettingrooms decorated with rich Eastern carpets & tapestries & ornaments, & with the walls covered with portraits of Kings & notables of Afghanistan—fierce-looking young men with black moustaches & cutlasses at their sides. He speaks French, & I get on very well with him. He is young & dark. I keep telling my friends that I will soon be able to introduce them into ‘Afghan circles’, & my dealings with this worthy notable have caused much amusement. I have also been out a lot with American friends. Also I now belong to an Organization for British Culture (!) which produced a very good play last week by J. B. Priestley, which Len (my R.C. friend with a mind like C. S. Lewis) took me to. We are quite a happy band of young men, & we are always arguing. We have a Jew who is always arguing for the true Hebrew religion against us Gentiles. I have had one or two letters from my friend Mac at Sultanabad. Particularly I am fond of my friend Kit Stirling, a Londoner who learnt Russian while he was at Cambridge. He is a very good artist. I am doing one or two drawings of my colleagues. My work does not take up more than half my time, & the rest is spend round the city or at home reading & writing & discussing. Thank you for the book ‘Brendon & Beverley’, which is being read by everybody here.145 I don’t think much of the one by Shinwell.146 I have never been with such a brilliant and intelligent set of friends before, & we all get on fine together, & all nearly all under 23. Ted (the Plymouth Brother) & I go to the American Mission on Sundays. They have services for all denominations. Two of our blokes are doing important diplomatic work—they are very lucky, but they are good linguists, that is why. My work brings me into acquaintance sometimes with interesting & important people. I hope Margy is persevering with her music, & practising every day! Remember me to Gainsborough friends—Marie, Mr. Whitton, Mr. Downes, Smithsons, Donald Handley, & the rest. I think of home too, too often, and Spital Terrace is closer to me than ever it was when I could slip down for a week-end. How is the garden dad? Does the Trent still flow? Speaking to a Russian who was going to London the other day, I told him he must visit Lincolnshire. He said ‘was it like the Ukraine?!’ All my love, Frank. 42. Frank to his family, Tehran, 13 February, 1945 Feb. 13, 1945. My dear mother & dad & Margy & Ern., Today I’ve just got Erny’s letter of Feb. 2, & yours of Feb. 4th. I think we need not number letters in future—they all seem safe enough. Your letters gave me a warm, rich picture of your week-end all together, which I drank like a steaming mug of Horlicks! 145 146 [Michael Foot], Brendan and Beverley: An Extravaganza, by ‘Cassius’ (1944). This is most probably Emanuel Shinwell, When the Men Come Home (1944). I got a letter from Sheila 3 days ago saying how thrilled she was with Erny’s kindness in sending her the books I wanted her to have, & she also loved Constance Holme. If you do invite her over any time, make it coincide with Erny’s week-ends. Yes, I think I detected a slight awkwardness of style in Erny’s description of Miss Tagg,147 which suggested he was feeling a certain melting feeling somewhere. I hope you, mum, with a mother’s usual insight, will facilitate their further meeting. Erny has not realised yet that love does’nt fall into one’s hands, it DOES have to be sought. I DO hope you are better, mum, but I think that housewifery probably did Margy no harm. We have a wireless now, & we can get various branches of B.B.C. wavelengths. Tonight we’ve been listening to the news of The Crimean Conference.148 As you might expect, we have many arguments, which usually start as we sit together round the dinner-table. But we all get on fine together—there are only 8 of us now. I’ve been very busy recently, rushing about in my little car. During my work I’ve met some important people, of whom you would particularly love certain Patriarchs & Archbishops of the Greek Orthodox Church, with long, white beards, grand, old men, rather like Simon Stylites. My English pupil, an Afghan notable, is progressing very well, & I give him Churchill’s speeches for Dictation! His servant always brings in tea without milk. I spend pleasant evenings discussing politics & other things with American friends—particularly two educated fellows, Tim and Bill. They come here partly because our FOOD is so wonderful. The people are always having holiday days in which the crowds of cars & people going to the mosques, make the roads quite impassable. The villages in this country, with their mosques & trees & cultivation, are beautiful with a wild, sudden beauty, which half reminds me just a tiny bit of our English village. ... I expect I shall travel much further before I ever set my face towards home again. We have no idea whether or not we shall stay hereabouts much longer. I think often of Margy, & try to picture her developement (outwards or upwards!) Let’s have some family photographs sometime. I have ordered a Food Parcel, which I think you will find useful, to be sent home to you, & it should arrive in some Pansy Tagg, whom Ernest would go on to marry. Now better known as the Yalta conference, this was the 4-11 February 1945 meeting between Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt which would determine the future of Germany and the shape of Europe. 147 148 months (1 or 2)—let me know when it does. I love reading the Spectators, but it is difficult to keep up with them. I would prefer the ‘Tribune’, actually. Above: another of Frank’s drawings of his army friends (this sitter unidentified). Did you SEE Peter Fürst? I am LONGING for news from him—why didn’t you tell me if he visited you? I have lost contact with him, & it is a memory I love to revive. I know you will never get a picture of my life from the hints I drop. You will have to be content. My outward circumstances don’t matter so much. Where your heart is, there is your treasure.149 Love Frank 43. Revd. H.A. Breakspear to Jonathan Brooks Goodridge, Sultanabad, 2 February 1945 Rev. H. A. Breakspear150 C.P.151 c/o Town Major, Sultanabad, Paiforce. 21/2/45 My dear Mr. Goodridge, Your Airgraph152 arrived about a month ago, just after Frank had left for the north. His arrival in Sultanabad was well covered with advice from Don Lee of Bagdad and by my DACE153 in Persia. During his short stay here Frank came to some of my services and we also had a meal together. Then this last week-end I made a special visit to Tehran to look up Methodists there and Frank & I saw quite a lot of each other. On Saturday he dined with two or three other Methodists, with me. On Sunday afternoon he took some of us for a trip into the snow covered mountains. On Sunday evening he came to the American Mission to the Methodist service. On Monday I dined with him at his mess. So you see that contacts have been made, and friendships established. I’ll be Matthew 6:21. Revd. Harry Arthur Breakspear (1908-84), entered the Methodist ministry in 1934, retiring from his military service in 1963 ‘at the rank of Chapln. to the Forces 3rd Class (Meth.)’ (Supplement to the London Gazette, 8 February 1967, p. 1185.) See also letters 37, 44, 48 and 49. 151 Company Padre. 152 This reference to a prior communication would suggest that Revd. Goodridge was using church networks to keep a benevolent clerical eye on his son, as he appears to have done elsewhere on Frank’s journeys. See for example letter 16, from Frank: ‘It so happens that our seargeant-major of our department is a Methodist, & knows the Rev. Hudson well. So when Mr. Hudson got your letter he asked the aforementioned sgt. major to contact me for him.’ Frank’s father worked hard on his son’s behalf, though not always happily, from Frank’s perspective: see letter 82, for instance. 153 Diaconal Associate of the Church of England, i.e. Revd. Breakspear’s Deacon. 149 150 seeing him again within two months, and will make a point of ringing him occasionally. He strikes me as a lad well fitted to look after himself. He seemed popular in the mess too, and his companions strike me as a sensible and steady set of chaps. I should say he has a fairly busy time and is doing a useful job of work; it is at least interesting and should be profitable from the point of view of experience. When Frank told me that you were his father and that you’d been in the Notts. District I couldn’t place you. The name was familiar but I’d no idea what you looked like: so when I was in Tehran I asked Frank if he’d a photograph of you and of course I instantly recognised you. I hope that your new circuit is providing a happy sphere of service for you. Sometimes I long for the good old days again and wish that I could leave the Army life and get back to circuit life, but at other times I’m jolly glad I came out on this job. It has been an interesting and revealing experience and on the whole I have no regrets, except perhaps two:— 1) That I’m away from my wife & daughter 2) That the War should be at all. That’s how we all feel I reckon, but maybe victory will be achieved soon and some of these ‘browned-off’ men will be able to get back to those whom they love. I understand that Rev & Mrs S. O. Gregory are both well and settling in at Bowdon. They have a son on the India Burma front; he’s been out some time now but is doing very well. He’s a Rydal Boy! My circuit at the moment is about 750 miles long and about 250 miles wide; I can’t do much concentrated work but I can at least help maintain the link with a few of the Methodists in this Command. Sometimes I travel 550 miles to take a couple of services, but it is worth while if only to meet one fresh Methodist. We had Dr. Church out for a short visit to Bagdad at the New Year. He was grand! Gave us all an uplift—there were three Padres, and almost 8 local preachers & a few other keen Methodists to greet him. Most of us travelled to Bagdad specially. The Army is very co-operative as far as religious functions go. The GOC154 is a keen Christian, & that makes all the difference. Must close. Kindest regards to you and yours Sincerely yours Harry Breakspear. 154 General Officer Commanding, i.e. in this context, Lieut.-General Arthur Smith. 44. Frank to his family, Tehran, 22 February 1945 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge J.F., Feb. 22, 1945. 296 F.S. Section, Intelligence Corps, P.A.I. Force. My dear mum, dad, Margy, & E. N., I received your letter-card No 22 this morning. I have’nt yet received parcel (13). They take a long time I am terribly sorry about your illness, mum. I just can’t imagine you being ill, and dad poking around the old house, & pottering around the kitchen. Is Margy standing up heroically to the situation? On Sunday Rev. Brakespeare came up to the city, & we had, what I hope, dad, you will appreciate, a methodist gathering. We had a wonderful mountaineering expedition, to a place which I have to admit is more beautiful than anything in Derbyshire. We climbed over precipitous rocks, with trees & ivy & moss, up a gigantic gorge leading up & up & up into the heart of vast, snow-peaked mountains, which gleamed above us. Far up in the chasm, with waterfalls & snow-drifts & great hanging trees, was a village of huts, far away & closed in from all the rest of the world, clinging to the great rocky, slopes. The padré lead the way up the rocks to the village. We had many slips & falls, & climbed over streams & along ledges. The villagers living in this silent chasm in the heart of precipitous rocks were really good people—different from the ordinary silly people in the towns. They offered us tea & spread a carpet for us on a ledge of rock. Brakespeare started singing a Methodist hymn, which sounded strange in those surroundings! We came back a different way over a donkey-track. At the very top we could see a vast stretch of plateau to the South, & the other great mountain-range in the distance—a hundred and 80 miles: And a glimmer on the Northern horizon of another Sea to the North—a strange sea. It was the dizziest view I have ever seen. The poor padre was wet & muddy & it was getting late & he had a service, so we scrambled back to my jeep, which was left in a beautiful little township which is the holiday-resort of all the people of the city. I went to his service in the Evening at the American Mission, & on Monday I invited him to lunch in our house, & he met all my friends. He recognised you dad, when he saw your photograph. Today it has been bright & the Spring has come. I slipped off in my car to a village in the country, & saw the mud-houses & trees shimmering in the sun, & the stony brown plateau coming to life. Let us hope that this country, which could be so beautiful, will some day blossom as the rose. Today there are red fairy lights all over—Red Army Day!! We, the British, did’nt pay for them to be put up! I still admire the Russians. My English pupil teaches me more french than I teach him English. He was a delegate at the League of Nations. Everything is very nice here. We sit round arguing and writing letters, with a couch, a table, an oil-stove, book-shelves, etc. Sometimes I forget how very far away I am, & this country does not seem strange—partly because the weather is very similar to England, though a bit hotter in Summer. I shall probably end up much further away & much hotter still! Be prepared for that possibility. Our seargeantmajor has been abroad 4½ years, & is coming back to England in about 3 weeks. He will go to Rotherham I suppose. You may have a visit from him, but I don’t know whether to ask him or not, because the others may all want him to. I suppose I could walk all the way to the Straits of Dover via the Sovietsky (as they call them) Republics! We are ‘Englesey’—that is always our title abroad.—Engleesy, Americansky, Rusky etc.! Well, I will now go and drain the water out of my jeep & go to bed. Our room here is warm, with a peculiar kind of stove which is peculiar to this country. But the bedrooms are cold. Our new officer is’nt a bad chap. I think always of you all, & especially of mum, wondering if you’re better yet. And also of Erny & the farm far away over the continents. And I think I shall want to spend nearly all my life afterwards in England, & nowhere else! Perhaps, though, I would like to take you all up that chasm in the heart of the Asiatic mountains. Down here on the plateau we are actually higher up than Ben Nevis. Goodbye & all my love, especially to you, mum (or MUTHER DEAR, as Erny says) Frank. 45. Frank to Ernest and to his family, Tehran, 7 March 1945 PLEASE FORWARD HOME IMMEDIATELY. P.A.I. Force March 7, 1945. My dear Erny & all, I received your letter of 18 Feb. yesterday—longer than usual, for an air-letter. I love your descriptions of the life there, so bound up with the old smells & sounds & sights which I keep remembering—wet English winter, squelch of gum-boots, breathing & munching of beast, crunch of ashes & shovels & cart-wheels, riverside wharfs & shunting trains, church bells & thrushes. Perhaps when one knew all these things, they did’nt seem so lovely. Whereas my life is a succession of cross-ways & partings & goings-away-from, yours grows always closer together. Silly old things which seem so long ago to me—such as chatting with Nesta or the bores by the river Trent155—are all part of your consciousness still. One day, perhaps, I shall remember longingly a few old smells & spots of Central Asia, & shall wish that when I was here & had realised how lovely it was, & wish for the stony plateau & the brown slopes & the dirty avenues of Iran. Don’t let Sheila give you the books back. She’s just being silly and shy. They’ve sent her to another hospital at a place called Sudbury on the borders of Staffordshire. I saw a Red Army Concert, which was inspiring & tremendous. When I think of our vulgar dance-band ‘shows’, I wonder what the Ruskies can possibly think of us! You should have heard their fresh, clear voices making our poor, old theatre ring to the songs of the Steppes, with a brilliant Orchestra, & the wildest & most wonderful dances, which in sheer energy & acrobatics & ingenuity were astonishing. Russia is a nation crude & capable of mistakes, but she has that confidence & intensity of effort & great seriousness as of a new & great people, mewing over the lustihead of their mighty youth. Very strange people to know. Let us hope that, in their lustihead they will not, like Sampson, bring down the pillars of the temple on our heads!156 I may have to leave here soon, but perhaps I shall remain for a bit, because 3 of our men are in hospital. In fact everything in our section is breaking up—1 man going home, 1 man gone on a diplomatic job, others ill, & me probably moving. It’s a pity, because we’re very happy together. My American friend Tim Penrose is very nice. I spend an evening a week with him. He wants me to go to Connecticut to see him one day! These Yanks are very generous and genial, but intellectually even the educated ones don’t seem really balanced in the way that Englishmen certainly are! We curse one another’s country black & blue. Neither of us minds. It is getting warm weather now, & we can sit on the flat roof of our house & look at the squalid buildings round about, & the clean white peaks beyond. I keep on wondering whether you are any better, mum, & how dad & Margy are getting on together, in a bond, no doubt, of mutual trust and cooperation. I go to the American Mission every Sunday, & the services are absolutely the same as in a Nonconformist Chapel at home, so that it is difficult to realise where one is. 155 156 The tidal bore or wave on the river Trent, the Aegir or Eagre, can reach as high as Gainsborough. See Judges 15:29. It is time you made another attempt, Erny, to get released for Relief Work in Europe—or even Asia. Keep plugging these people & they will give in—& if not, write to your M.P.. Give my love to all friends, Elliots in particular. Hope you see Miss Tagg again, Nulph. Remember I’m always in the family circle just as much as you, because I often feel as if Gainsborough & Newark were more real than—Blank—and I still see you all half the time, & I still laugh at old Dad, and nothing that happens out here ever makes any difference to me Much love, Frank 46. Frank to his family, Tehran, 17 March 1945 14655178 Sgt Goodridge J.F., March 17, 45 296 F.S. Section, Intelligence Corps P.A.I. Force. My dear mother, dad, Margy, & Erny, I have had your airgraph of Feb. 11th (long ago) and letter of March 3rd. I hope Erny sent my last letter on to you. Suit & book not yet arrived. Yes, my lessons keep me nicely afloat financially. I am so glad you are better, mum. Today I had a letter from Auntie Mabel. Yes, I have written to Mr. Whitton. You can tell him if you like, to change Spectator for ‘Tribune’, when it runs out. I hope to send you some photographs today, but they won’t arrive for a long time. I wrote to Mrs. Oliver Quibell.157 Sheila tells me she is very thrilled with your invitation to go over & meet Erny at G’borough at Whitsun, but she is afraid her horrible ‘Sister’ won’t give her leave. Their family is going to that wonderful place in Shropshire again, at the beginning of April, but she poor girl, can’t go. I have written to Peter Fürst but have’nt heard from him yet. How was he when he visited you? I would love to see Peter again someday. I am likely to go away from here soon to a town in the low-lying torrid desert, & then I shall have a summer of sweat & flies! Here it is like an English spring. Low, reedy bits of scruffy vegetation are beginning to grow up on the stony wastes, green corn is growing round the mud-walls of villages. Yesterday I was driving backwards 157 On the Quibells see note to letter 50, below. and forwards over a rough road in a biting wind, making my face raw. There is one road where camels & donkeys go, leading by trees & a mosque, which, in the rain the other morning, smelt of muck & mud almost like an English lane. Spring is lush like England up on the plateau in Asia—but not quite so refreshing in the Persian gulf & the desert. I have no opportunity to really explore these countries, or to go to the really interesting places, such as we associate with names like Isfahan, Meshed, or Samarcand. I don’t even see much of the wide open spaces—only a turgid, semiEuropean city, where life is’nt always very edifying. Two of our boys left for England today. One of them, or even both, may visit you, BUT don’t expect that they will be able to tell you anything much; in fact I tell you all that I can, & the rest is’nt very interesting. If I wrote a whole volume you would’nt be able to picture life out here. Don’t imagine it is so very different from life at home or anywhere. Admittedly the lavatories are mere holes in the ground, there are no taps to give hot & cold water, no water closets—the houses are built differently & are more dilapidated, the buses are ancient old charabancs, the poorer women all wear white linen cloaks that half-cover their faces, ... & there are no church bells save for an American mission tucked away obscurely. The land is mostly uncultivated, everything exists in a wide, open plain flanked & interrupted by great peaks & sudden, queer-shaped rocks & mountains: and people of all nationalities wander everywhere on very IMPORTANT business of course, including ourselves—and everybody considers their own nation or body or job to be more important than any other! That’s about all. A house with a flat roof, office, bedrooms, kitchen, sitting-room & a pool in the garden, & a garage for the cars. Why is it so different from home?! An English newspaper, & occasionally English books & periodicals. In fact we are more British then the British at home. Love to you, Margy, & hope you are happy in your work, especially the violin. All my love Frank 47. Frank to his family, Tehran, 18 March 1945 March 18 Sunday. I must write an additional note to the letter that I wrote 2 days ago, because yesterday I received your parcel containing letters, books Spectators, & clothes, tooth paste & Benzedrine. I am very glad of the suit. What a nice change it is to wear it, especially on a lovely spring day as it is today, reminding me of happy Sundays at home. I have wandered round a great Eastern bazaar—a place which I can’t describe. Closed alleyways beneath arches, & niches which make the eyes of an European boggle. Jewellery, carpets, gold & silver & pearls, donkeys & shuffling people, old bearded coppersmiths in hovels and bronze-workers, the smell of spices & scents. It was grand to read the ‘Adelphi’ which is always a grand refresher, & the other stuff you sent, all of which was just what I wanted. Miss Ledger sent me a lovely book about Persia! Please send her a note of thanks—it is difficult for me, I scarcely remember her and I wrote thanking her for some previous ones. It is warm spring, & I am going to sit on the mud-baked roof & read the books you sent. Asia seems very near England just now, & I can feel what it’s like in Elston & Gainsborough. The spring weather here is like early summer there. Glad you sent Henry Williamson—I wanted his books. These things not only give pleasure to me, but to all my friends. Much love, Frank 48. Frank to his family, Tehran, 27 March 1945 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge J.F., March 27, 1945 296 F.S. Section, Intelligence Corps, P.A.I. Force. My dear mum, dad, Margy, & Erny, It is getting very warm & summer-like here, and I have to get into my shirtsleeves already in afternoons. It looks as if I am not going to the hot place after all, & am likely to stay where I am for some months. In all probability I shall make the long journey to the Mediterranean for a holiday, on May 6th. Probably I shall reach the sea about May 8 or 9th., & return after Whitsun. I hope I shall be able to visit Damascus & Jerusalem & the Sea of Galilee. So if you are all together at Whitsun (and the damsel of my heart with you as well) you will picture me, I hope (if it comes off) in the warm, golden, blue of the Mediterranean shore. I am glad you heard from Mr. Brakespeare. I had a letter from Jean Smithson—thank her if you see her. Your letters get here in a week usually. Received mum’s of Mar. 13th.. I do hope you are quite better now. I did’nt wish you all a happy Easter, but I hope you’ve had one when you get this. I wish I could accept Jean’s invitation to go pear-picking this year! Yesterday Kit and I went up to the mountains & drove up valleys & through wild villages on roads which you would never believe any vehicle could pass. The colours & spaces are amazing in this country. The vast plain below looks like a great rolling sea of blue & white and the mountains like icebergs. We bought oranges from a little boy & stood under the rocks watching the waterfalls. There are a lot of little houses built high on ledges like Swiss Chalets. But most of the valleys are wild & contain only mud-villages, & the great watercourses wind up into the heart of the mountain like glaciers. I sent Sheila a mosaic box & some photographs. She will show you the photos sometime when she comes. I will send you some soon. My friend from Arak (or Sultanabad), the place where I used to be, is coming back to Head-quarters here, then going back to England for leave. I’ve been reading & studying quite a bit recently, and I’ve made friends with a Russian poet who is also a very fine musician & a very nice fellow. We often invite visitors to our house, especially Americans. Our Jew-friend George sits on the couch saying that the two things he misses most are kippers & honey. Kit sits drawing a portrait of the Sergeant-Major. Our little Scotsman-driver is making futile attempts to tune the wireless in to the B.B.C..—which is a rough picture of our life! Now someone is yelling at the top of the stairs for the servants to bring the afternoon cup of tea. Such is our hard life! Mohammed, the servant, downstairs in the kitchen, is absorbed in reading the Persian version of St. Mathew’s gospel which you sent me. He has’nt yet made any comment on it. I am hoping I may be here long enough to see the Japs defeated, & not have to go thither. Did I ever describe to you the bazaars in these cities? I fancy I did to Erny, but if I did’nt, remind me & I will tell you about it. I need one or two of those big paper-files with spring clips, to hold lots of papers. That is what you can send me for my birthday. Or else I always welcome boots. I actually need a pair of shoes, but I suppose you still have to have coupons. Shoes cost about £13 out here! Bye-bye, All my love, Frank 49. Frank to his family, Tehran, 8 April 1945 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge, J.F., 296 F.S. Sec., Intelligence Corps, P.A.I. Force. Apr. 8, 45. My dear mum and dad, Erny and Margy, Your last letter I have is dad’s of Mar. 22. I have also received Adam and Eve, which I am now in the middle of. The move which I had thought I might have to make was not further East, but to the hot southern part of this country itself. But I think I shall stay here a while now. I do indeed suspect that eventually I shall go further East. I am glad Mr. Brakespeare wrote about his visit here; we are going on a similar trip to the mountains today. I have’nt yet got the odds and ends parcel you sent Mar. 12, but I expect it will take another month. I have already received one birthday present—a lovely book from my friend Kit here. By the way, it turns out that Sheila only spent a fortnight at Sudbury, and I misunderstood her in thinking that she was there permanently. I hope you all get together at Whit. (I am only in a jumbly stage of typing so I keep forgetting when I reach the end of the line).158 This week I have made a journey of 400 miles and back to the old capital of Iran— Isfahan. This is the place where everybody wants to get a chance to go to, a name which sounds in the ears of most people like Samarcand or somewhere in the forgotten heart of Asia. We travelled over hundreds of miles of desert plateau with the monotonous juttings of rock of weird shapes and colours, looking as if the geological structure of the earth had been stripped and laid bare. You keep going up and up or down again to different levels—to one place where you look down on a vast stretch of salt lake and morass which is still unsurveyed and untracked which covers six hundred miles of mthe centre of Persia, and where an army was once lost in trying to cross.159 Then you come to the little mud villages, usually inside a mud wall, terribly squalid, far away from anywhere, and always looking like the remains of an old ruin than an inhabited place. These are surrounded by patches of green corn—tiny patches in miles of waste. All this plateau could be a great corn-growing This is the first typed letter. Namak Lake, on the route from Tehran to Isfahan, is 690 square miles in size. Vita Sackville West, following the same route from Tehran to Isfahan, noted its treacherous quicksand: ‘[We] saw below us the salt lake, shimmering like an opal, milky and wide, looking innocent of the many caravans swallowed by its quicksands.’ (Passenger to Teheran, ch. VI). 158 159 area if wells were dug, and here and there are salty rivers sliding through barren brown earth. Don’t imagine that when we say ‘desert’ we mean sand. There is no sand. We travelled in a big Ford car, over a terribly rough road—in England a mere track. These roads are the only approach to these cities. We had three punctures, and also made several great detours from the ‘road’ shooting gazelles—but only succeeded in getting a duck for dinner. After all this I only had two hours to see the city, and the interesting things are in the outskirts where I had no time to go. What I saw was just another pretentious but squalid town like all towns out here; with wide dirty avenues, old American cars, and ramshackle buildings and bazaars. There is also an enormous square built by one of the Shahs surrounded with the usual mosques with their shining mosaic domes. I did not see the adjoining Armenian city of Julfa where is one of the most famous Gregorian cathedrals, nor did I see the famous mosques and carpet-makers, the alleyways and bazaars of Isfahan. The only joy to my heart was the surrounding villages which were green and beautiful after the eyesore of the brown wastes beyond. On the roads the dust is so penetrating that it gets right inside the car and also your eyes and ears. Air letters are all free now, and I believe they have reduced also for you. We always wait for the plane to arrive with our mail and curse when the bad weather delays the plane. I keep getting these long letter from Miss Ledger as in the days of old all about travel and Bible Societies and cathedrals and things. I don’t know who put her on to it again, nor what instincts it can satisfy to send such epistles to strange men, but it really is a trial to have to read them! I got the K.S.160 Mag. with one of the Spectators which always interests me, though sometimes rather funny. I really am getting fed up with the Spectator now—its views get worse and worse; why not get it changed to the Tribune! I would like to slip home and do a bit of digging in the garden, and here Margy play the violin, and see young Marie-Louise striding cockily to chapel again, and shovel a bit of muck for old Arnold161 on the farm, and rush off again to Derby via Elston of course, where Erny would keep me at it all the time and Sheila would drag me out into the woods during a torrential thunderstorm. Also I long to go again to Bedford and London and Lincoln and even Wentworth itself! I have an idea that Kingswood School. Arnold Smithson of Park House Farm, Foxby Lane, Gainsborough, where Frank worked in the holidays in his teens. See the Appendix, part 2, for two poems he wrote about the experience. 160 161 I shall not complete a course at Oxford, but just go there for a year and a half or so. By that time it will probably be necessary to do something else. Goodbye, and lots of love to everybody, Frank 50. Frank to his family, Tehran, 17 April 1945 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge, J.F., 17 Apr. 45. 296 F.S. Sec., Intelligence Corps, P.A.I. Force. My dear mum, dad, Erny; Margy, I have three letters here which I don’t know whether I have answered yet or not— one from Ern 2.4.45 and 2 from dad, at least Margy and Mum, Apr. 7 and the other undated. I appreciated your quotations from the old Testament Erny, and Margy’s factual letters are always nice. I expect that by now you are all back from Bury and Rushden. I was very interested in your account of Oliver’s funeral.162 Yes, Margy, the worst of it is that when Daddy likes our friends he is sloppy with them. Please if Sheila comes don’t be too like that—I mean don’t talk as if it were a foregone conclusion that she and I were betrothed or anything like that! It looks as if I really have come to another turning of the ways. I am going away soon to the hot place after all, and so I say goodbye to the happiest community that I have been in since I’ve been in the Army. It really has been very nice up here. We are all very endeared to one another despite differences of outlook, and I shall miss my friend Kit very much. It really is no use feeling any attachment to anyone or anything in the army—it always breaks up, and even when you do get a sense of love and of community you can be sure it is only a pleasant illusion, broken up at the caprice of some unknown officer who sees you merely as ‘personnel’ on a chess board. I expect in the new place it will be mostly a matter of lying and sweating day and night! But I know the officer there very well and he is a charming man. It is now hot even up here, like an English midsummer already. Oliver Quibell (1863-1945), of Newark-on-Trent, a prominent agricultural chemical manufacturer, Justice of the Peace and former Mayor of Newark, who had died on 19 February and was buried on 22nd. The Quibells were a prominent Newark family, and there is now an Oliver Quibell Community Infant School in the town. Frank was evidently fond of Quibell and had asked to be remembered to him earlier. (See letters 2 and 3.) 162 Above: An anthology of landscape poetry with lithographs by John Piper that Frank purchased during his time in Tehran in 1945. The Sunday before last we all went for a day’s picnic in one of the most beautiful valleys in the world—high up among the rocks overlooking green villages, even lovelier because of the colours, than Derbyshire. Last Sunday we went round a famous Shah’s palace, which was oppressive with all its vulgar and ornate riches— marble and jewels all in decadent profusion. I shall have to say goodbye to my Afghan friend and to my dear old pal Len in the lovely garden of the British Embassy where he lives. Now we are getting into our summer clothes—shirtsleeves, which won’t improve the oppressiveness of the place where I am going. One just could not survive in any other dress. I have been doing a lot of reading, writing and drawing recently, and have finished Adam and Eve,163 which I am sending to Mr. Stuart when Kit has finished reading it. There are certain passages in it which are really prophetic—‘the entirely simple word, the entirely simple act’—would that some of us were in a position to do something really simple. It is all ‘after the war’—and the ‘war’ is only beginning for those of us who have been in the army for so short a time. I shall be sending some junk home before long. My property has accumulated terribly, and I have had to buy a big box to keep it in. In the place where I am going I shall be able to use the clothes you sent. One is continually scrounging one’s necessaries in the army, from wherever one can get them! I keep pinning up the advance of the Armies on my great, big wall map of Germany, but sometimes it goes so fast I get lost. I have got a letter from John Sawkins in Burma, containing not a very savoury description of that land. I only hope the people are not so utterly vulgar and stupid as they are here. However, I am not certain that I shall ever have to go there. If I do I ought to be used to the heat by then. We have just had dinner and the boy’s all have been having a great argument about something, so I return to the office to escape being involved though I am usually in the forefront. We have enormous meals here. Tonight I shall stay in and do some reading. There are some good bookshops in this city, and one can sometimes get hold of books out here which you can’t get in England. I have been buying a lot of books recently. Love to all, Frank. 163 John Middleton Murry, Adam and Eve (1944). See also letter 52. 51. Frank to his family, [Abadan], 24 April 1945 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge J.F., 24 Ap. Tues. 45 283 Field Security Section, Intelligence Corps, P.A.I. Force. My dear mum, dad, Margy, Erny, Now I have been in my new station 2 days. I find that 3 of the men here are fellows I knew very well before—1 I knew at Wentworth & the other 2 came over from England with me. I work with a small detachment of 7 men & they seem to be extremely nice fellows. I cannot describe this place to you at all, because if I were to tell you the really important & interesting things about it, I would be giving away important information. Nor can I give you any idea of my new job, which is entirely different from my previous one. Here we work very hard & have very little free time, whereas in my previous place there was very little to do. I can now tell you definitely what you may have guessed, that I have been in Tehran, & the beautiful Embassy which I once described to you in veiled terms, was the one where the Conference was once held.164 The mountains which I used to describe were the great Elburz range, between Tehran & the Caspian. The climate in my new place is hot always & close. In summer it gets as hot, almost, as any part of the world. Even the breeze is humid & hot & full of dust, & there are great dust-storms. The land is all dry as dust, but there are many acres of squat palm-trees, and there are trees in the town. It is an Europeanised town, quite unlike the ones I have been in before, thus there is plenty of water & facilities for combating the unhealthy climate. Once again I am wearing tropical dress—topey and shorts. I am in the process of learning a new job, which is complicated & demands considerable skill, both of a technical kind, and in dealing with the strange people with whom it brings me into contact. My little spare time is a good part taken up with bathing (once a day), & treating the spots which are appearing all over my body due to insects acquired during my journey, in spraying everything with disinfectant, & generally keeping hygienic & comfortable. Our circumstances are’nt bad. We live in a large hut-house affair with 164 The Soviet Embassy, where the Tehran conference had been held in 1943. See letter 31. quite a pleasant living-room. ... I don’t have a car of my own, but we all use a Hillman, which is all we’ve got. That’s about all I can say about it here. I am still very sorry to leave the other place & to say goodbye to my friends there. But I shan’t be unhappy here, provided I can keep out of illness. And this is a very interesting place to be in, despite its climate. Before I arrived, I saw the great mountains of Persia with their wonderful springtime vegetation; no longer just great bare slopes & rocks, but an absolute Elysium of flowers & green & shrubs, with flocks of goats & gorges whose sides are covered with moss right down to the water. It looked as if it were waiting for some better race of human beings to come & colonise it. Your mail will all come late now, until you start sending it to the new address. I shall probably have to work hard on my birthday! The date of my leave may have to change now I am here. Much love Frank Above: a newspaper notice for Frank’s 21st birthday on 27 April 1945, placed by his family 52. Frank to his family, [Abadan], 29 April 1945 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge, J.F., 29 Ap. 45. 283 F.S. Sec., Intelligence Corps, P.A.I. Force. Dear mum, dad, Margy, & Erny, On my birthday I received the little parcel of odds & ends with the letter of Margy’s & dad’s, of 12 March. I have also received dad’s letter of 12 April, & Mum’s from Bury of Ap. 15th, & the letters from Auntie Mabel & Grandma with the money, & one from Uncle Frank. If you ever send money, by the way, it should be in the form of a POSTAL ORDER, & you ought to register it. There may be difficulty in changing ordinary currency. It was marvelous to receive all your birthday greetings, which arrived marvelously at the right time, including Margy’s card. I also got a greetings telegram ‘Love & Best Wishes for Happy Birthday, Sheila & Alison’ & also a long letter from Alison who is now on holiday at All Stretton, the little place where I spent the week-end with them last year. Sheila only managed to get there for a day. Yes, dad, I did receive the civvy suit, long ago, & ‘Adam & Eve’. Actually on my birthday it was very hot & I was’nt feeling too good: I was on my bed most of the day, but I was thinking of you all. I am looking forward to hearing what happens at Whit—Erny’s travels & whether Sheila gets over. I have told Alison she can pop over any time too! Don’t bother about shoes unless you can get coupons easily. Size 7. Unless you have already sent them, I don’t need paper files now; I’ve managed to get some. Remember me to the Ellertons165 when you see them. Don’t forget to let me know about the sequel to Sir. Hickman’s death—I mean his property & the hall etc., & if there is a sale of anything, look out what you can get.166 My visit to the Mediterranean may be changed. In any case you don’t imagine I would travel all that way alone by car. The army provides transport. I shall get there sometime this year. It is a bit far-off to talk about my return. The end of the war makes no difference. The term is still supposed to be 4½ years. Don’t kid yourselves. It is a bit dull here where I am now. The climate makes one allergic to books & things & we are dreading the real heat which will be upon us within a month. The summer here is worse than Burma. When I get to know a few people I shall be happier I guess. I got a long letter from Kit at my previous place this morning, which made me wish I were back. I am reading ‘Tarka the Otter’ now.167 Here we have no wireless, & no B.B.C. & there is no daily paper in English, so I feel cut off from the news. Vague rumours tell us of peace-feelers & things, but I really don’t know what’s going on, despite the fact that it’s an ‘European’ town. I think I shall have to force myself to be absorbed in my books and writing, & then let The family of a Kingswood school friend, with whom Frank had stayed in Bournemouth at Easter 1939. See his letter to his family, Sunday 27 October 1940, in the preliminary materials section, above. 166 Sir Hickman Beckett Bacon, 11th Baronet of Redgrave and 12th Baronet of Mildenhall, died in 1945 without issue aged 89 at his home, the medieval Thonock Hall, Gainsborough (also known as Gainsborough Old Hall). He was known as an eccentric and never installed gas, electricity or bathrooms. The estate passed to his nephew, and the hall was gradually run down, though it has now been restored and is open to visitors. Frank discusses the Hall and its fate in letter 16. 167 Henry Williamson, Tarka the Otter (1927) and other works. There are references to wanting or receiving Williamson books in letters 23, 24, 35, 47, 52, 55, 62 and 67. In letter 35 he asks for ‘any books by Henry Williamson except for “The Beautiful Years”’ to be sent to Sheila. See also note to letter 23 on Williamson. 165 other things go by. One’s moods out here go up & down erratically—according to what the mail brings. Remember me to Whitton, & to Mr. Downes, & to the Grays, & all the other friends at G’borough & Newark. I had a letter from Mrs. O. Q..168 I must write to the dear old Elliots again—what strange memories! Nesta & Barbara. I wish one could know the same people all through life! Love to all Frank. 53. Revd. Joseph Dowell to Revd. Jonathan Brooks Goodridge, Aboukir (Syria), 3 May 1945 Rev. J. Dowell169 R.A.F. station, ABOUKIR M. E. 3 May 1945 My dear J.B., It seems a long time ago since you brought a glorious lily to greet Thirza & the new-born Janet. And since that time life has unfolded a very mixed experience for the whole world. For me, forgetting for a moment the less happy side, there has been a tremendous privilege , for my work has taken me via Africa, India, Persian Gulf, Persia, Iraq (Babylonia!), Syria, Palestine, Transjordan, Egypt—and in all those places I have been able to see the historical backgrounds & the sites which figured so largely in our Old Testament & N.T.170 studies. Recently I went up to the Caesarea Philippi,171 and in the time of April flowers it must be one of the loveliest spots anywhere in a glorious country. How I wish we could have taken a Monday morning walk up the hills towards Hermon, snowcapped and majestic against the lightly clouded sky. I quite often think about you all, Ernest, Frank, Margaret and your dear wife. Memories are very precious. I know how much you would love to walk around Galilee & see the Fields of the Shepherds from Bethlehem. You have lived so much in that country spiritually that I wish you could make the pilgrimage and think your thoughts in the sacred places. Mrs Oliver Quibell, the widow of Oliver Quibell (see note to letter 50). See Prologue, diary entry for 3 September 1939 and note on Revd. Joseph Dowell. 170 New Testament. 171 The site of an ancient city, Caesari Phillipi, in the Golan Heights, is mentioned in Matthew 16:13-20 and Mark 8:27-30, as the location of a key event in the life of Christ, where he initiated his church and playing on his disciple’s name, appointed Peter as the ‘rock’ on which it was to be founded. 168 169 To go ‘Bible in heart’ is to realise that the whole countryside seems to want to speak of Him, and does so speak to ‘those who have ears to hear’.172 My love to all the family and kindest remembrances to yourself. One of these days I shall be able to enjoy seeing you all again. Not yet perhaps…But in time! Yours as ever Joe 54. Frank to his family, [Abadan], 7 May 1945 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge, J.F., 283 F.S. Sec., Intelligence Corps, May 7, 45. P.A.I.C.173 My dear all, I have just heard on the wireless half-an hour ago that this is V day174—not that it makes any difference to us, but..... Before I forget, I must tell you NOT to buy me any shoes (if you were going to) because I have managed to get some quite cheaply myself. During this week, which at home I imagine has been one of sensations & flagwaving, I have been (now for 3 days) in hospital suffering from tropical diseases: Dysentery (a very acute & painful diarrhoea) & sandfly fever. The latter only lasts for 48 hours, but while it is on one just tosses about & sweats. For a couple of days I was in a horrid state, but now I am getting well again. Most people get a dose of these diseases when they come to live in these parts, but I shall feel rather weak to face such a terrible summer as we get here, & which is just beginning. At the beginning of this week I went on a voyage in a motor-launch. I sat at the tiller in the heat like an old seaman. It was marvellous fun until the heat of the afternoon. We get up at 5.0 am. & it is not unbearably hot till midday. Sometimes the evenings & nights are almost cool, sometimes warm, always close. There is no rain ever (except in winter) & no freshness in the air. This hospital, actually, is quite cool. Matthew 11:15. Persia and Iraq Command. 174 Now referred to as VE (Victory in Europe) Day. 172 173 I go mad in hospitals. I can’t do anything, except lie & dream of things at home, & things after I get out of this army, & suchlike. In any case, it is very difficult to keep your mind fixed or alert at all in this climate. There is one man among my new companions whom I like a lot, but I have nobody who could be a real friend here, & I miss the previous lot. I shall have to just learn to be patient. I have just remembered that next Sunday is Ern’s holiday. I hope Sheila turns up, but if she does’nt don’t be offended. When I think of Erny’s life in the fields at Elston, & then consider my own feeble, crawling existence in the squalor of this lifeless river basin, I am certainly made to feel very despairing. But there will come a day when I shall be able to get strong again. I expect I shall be out of hospital by the end of this week. I should get some letters tommorrow. Sorry my letter is not very edifying. I have nothing inspiring to say. I rely on you to do that—but not by moralising, please. You have no idea what life is like when you are cut off from everything that matters. Love, Frank. 55. Frank to his family, [Abadan], 16 May 1945 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge, J.F., May 16, 45. 283 F.S. Sec., Intelligence Corps, PAI Force. My dear mum, dad, Margy, and Erny, I have just received the letters you wrote on April 25 and 28th. Yesterday I was at last released from hospital, though actually I have been well for about a week now. Glad you received that food parcel. I look forward to getting the HENRY WILLIAMSON book—I am a bit short of books just now and I always like his. The Spectator keeps coming. I like mum’s description of Margy’s progress toward womanhood. Yes, I got all the birthday letters and money, which I have been able to change into the proper currency. I shall be wondering how all your Ernulphine affairs will be going this week-end, which I believe to be Whit.175 My V day was spent most tamely in bed in 175 A planned family visit to Newark to see Ernest. hospital. When the election comes off, I want you, dad, to keep me in touch with what is going on in Gainsborough—and in general. I hope you have kept copies of some of the newspapers during the recent events in Europe so that you will be able to send me them, and that you will do the same during elections and any other momentous affairs. And don’t forget where to put my vote.176 The weather has not reached its peak of heat yet, and to our great astonishment and surprise we have been having some THUNDERSTORMS recently, which is most unprecedented. But the sight of rain and lightning was very refreshing. In some ways this part of the world has its charm. In the early morning, before it gets hot, the gardens along the river bank, with their exotic flowers and trees and palms and scents, are delightful. But even at that time of the day one is getting clammy and the air is dense and oppressive. If you were to arrive here in early spring, however, you would be quite charmed with the place at first. I perhaps often give you a picture of certain things which is one-sided; I suppose you, like me would be thrilled at first, to see the strange prettiness of the sailing boats sliding along the palmy banks and lazy Arabs etc. But it is when you have to live in these parts all the time that it is so oppressive, without all the facilities which might make life in these parts tolerable. For all they say about Burma, for instance, it is a very beautiful and interesting country as far as I can gather—and certainly it has’nt half so oppressive a Climate as here. It is just that the blokes have to go there under such hopeless circumstances. Personally, I should go mad if I had to spend a large part of my life abroad, particularly the East, but some chaps get to such a stage that they do not WANT to return home. At a guess, I should say I shall be in the army for two more years or more, and that if I don’t go to the far East, which is not unlikely, I shall go to Europe. But I guess I shall be here for a year or so more. Have you received a parcel of old books and junk which I sent home? Let me know when you get it. Everything here is covered in dust, and it is a terrible struggle to keep decent. In fact it comprises half one’s earthly life. I still am expecting to go on holiday to the Mediterranean sometime this summer. Who told you that it is Beirut we go to? Or is it common knowledge? The Padre here Rev. Rycott, is the old vicar of Winthorpe, and he remembers you vaguely from the fraternals at Newark. Naturally I have had a good jaw with him all about Newark and Holme etc. and he sends you his regards, also an old friend of Mr. Goldsmark. It is a strange coincidence that I should meet him here. I met him at a service in the hospital on Sunday morning. He hopes to return to Winthorpe 176 Presumably ‘as Left as possible’ (letter 22). erelong. I think he will be a good friend when I can find where he lives and go to see him. Somebody wants to use the typewriter for more official purposes so I will have to finish. Love to all, Frank P.S. Just received a great bunch of letters, which have cheered me up considerably, including Erny’s delightful Birthday airgraph, & 2 letters from Sheila, & lots of others. Sorry if my letters are gloomy. Things are going fine, actually! No, Erny, I certainly do not lack the ‘riches of human affection’ you silly old fool! 56. Frank to his family, [Abadan], 22 May 1945 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge, J.F., May 22, 45. 283 F.S. Sec., Intelligence Corps, PAIC. Dear folks all, Yesterday I received your V Day letter—rather belatedly, together with a letter (prompted by you, I expect) from Jack Taylor from E. Africa—which was rather interesting. I have written in reply to him. I was wondering on Sunday what you & Erny were all doing, & whether Sheila paid her visit; she said she intended to try & get there, in a letter she wrote on VE+2. I guess Erny did a lot of talking. I suppose he is now at Cambridge or Uppingham. I don’t know why you did’nt get any letters for a long time. I was’nt long travelling & my holiday has been cancelled till later in the Summer. Padre Brakespeare turned up here suddenly on Sunday & came to see me. He travels all round the Command, & comes here every 2 months, staying with the Padre Rycott of Winthorpe whom I told you about. He wishes to be remembered to you. The real heat has not started yet—& it is a lazy life; I am patiently reading & writing a lot. I have made one or two civilian friends—English, & go round people’s bungalows now & again. Much time is spent in an office. There are also cars to be washed & looked after, & jobs to do along the river. But if one has pursuits of one’s own life is quite tolerable. I am getting more used to the climate. The chief trouble is that our hut is not a very nice place to live in, & we have no wireless & no news. At one time I got the ‘Tehran Daily News’ every day. There is also a paper called the ‘Basrah Times’ which one sees copies of occasionally. Sheila says I’m simply not TRYING to come home soon. There’s not much trying one can do! Most of my friends here have been abroad 4 years. People say they are bats when they get back. I hope you don’t take my mournful type of letters too seriously. It just is like that sometimes, & sometimes it is’nt. We don’t live a worse life than any civilians living in these sort of places, & we are lucky compared with most people in the army. Remember me to all the people. How are the Whittons & the Smithsons and the Grays & what not? Does Gainsborough look pretty just now? It seems pretty, to tell the truth, to My mind. What of Margy’s social activities? And her cultural activities? And also her MANUAL ones, if she has any!? She does’nt indulge in much epistolary activity towards her distant brother. Anyway, my love to Margy in particular this time, & to all, Frank. P.S. 23 May. Just got your letter of 15 May. Came quick by air O.K. 57. Frank to Ernest, [Abadan], 24 May 1945 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge J.F., May 23, 45. 283 F.S. Sec., Intelligence Corps, P.A.I.C. My dear brother, I have just received your letter of 15 May (I wish you would date them—I have to get it from the postmark. What’s the use of saying ‘next Sunday’ when I don’t know which it was!?) Your dissertation about dung does not fall on stony ground. But there is a difference between dung & shit. You live among fructuous dung. I live among festering shit. I am feeling happy because dad, with extraordinary affection & sincerity: ‘You need not think it will be a great effort for me to be affectionate to Sheila—because I like her very much’. Secondly because there is a chance that you have got to know her by now. Loveliness indeed there is. You have no idea what filth human society can be. ... Then I realise the loveliness when I suddenly read Sheila’s perfect, wistful, direct sentences of wide-awake wonderment & appreciation of the world, & your more masculine & conscious grasp of what is wholesome. Your letters are wholemeal bread. Hers are pure, seasoned wine. So, you see, I get my bread & wine still. I got the K.S. Mag with the note about me in—that’s Ingham. Your excitement going on the barge can’t help but amuse me, since half my life is spent on a motor-launch & other craft! But I must’nt make you curious. I am looking forward very much to receiving your various descriptions of what you have been doing this week. The sun, out here, is our deadly enemy. One morning when it seemed quite cool (in comparison) I worked on our Hillman car all morning stripped to the waste. Now my back is all blistered & peeling & raw, & I shall have to be careful to keep it from germs & septic. The jovial, diptomaniacal madman who was the bloke I liked best among our little bunch, after a series of childish quarrels & antagonisms which spoilt the life together, & made me wild with certain individuals, has got into trouble & been slung out of the whole caboodle into the infantry, which has meant that I have managed to ‘take over’ some of his civilian friends: the nicest being a Mr. & Mrs. Prentice, a Scotch couple, the lady, Isabel, being a charming girl who has just come out here. How I love to go to their bungalow & hear her cool, quiet charming voice with its slight Scotch accent, untainted by the rough-shod social existence which the people live out here—clear as a bell, straight from England. The English people here mostly live a life of nothing but going around one another’s bungalows & drinking all night. One can’t join in that sort of thing more than once a fortnight. But Isabel is a change. I don’t know what to think about you going into the ‘Ministry’. My only worry is this—& its sounds uncomplimentary, but you’ll understand. That your ‘ethos’, ‘background’, intellectual, social etc., is such that there is a margin of possibility that this immense energy of yours might unconsciously flow into certain channels of thought & action which, by their very thundering repetition, might become stereotyped. Even a man of such vitality as Cummings suffers from it. His enthusiasm limits him—his circle, his modes of expression. And yet he is of such vital thought & energy HIMSELF.177 And then, also, you would not be like Murry,178 fitted into a greater pattern of earth—of the rebirth of birth itself. You would be in a smaller pattern, the church pattern, of spiritual redemption. Let us first redeem the earth, & redeem marriage—man & woman’s love. Let it be social, yes, but social on the bottom level first, & then the other will grow. In the Church, such a volume of love & pity is emptied into the sand & wasted. We must begin as colonisers, simply. Life here hangs heavy & limp on one’s hands, like the soft muscles on one’s clammy body. O for the breezes over the hill, the shaken rain, the dew & mist of summer mornings & bellowing beast. O for sweet voices & tenderness. ‘Quietly, his finger probes, over & under & always, all ways, all days’ Much love, Brother P.S. There is no advantage gained in showing mum & dad letters in which I mention drink! 58. Frank to his family, [Abadan], 31 May 1945 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge J.F., 31 May, 45. 283 F.S. Sec., Intelligence Corps, P.A.I.C. Dear mum, dad, Erny, & Margy, I have received the C.S. Lewis book, for which I thank you very much. I also have mum’s of May 16th, and Erny’s of 21st, describing his week-end. Glad things went off well. Sheila would go & have ‘tonsil day’ or something! It’s always like that with her. You never told me about the afternoon you spent at Smithsons. I hope Margy’s violin will be O.K. Despite his brother’s caution, Ernest Goodridge indeeded follow his father into the Methodist ministry, and made an active and popular minister with special interests in church unity and world peace. See his account of ‘A Shetland Ministry’, published serially in Shetland Life, January to June 1996; his co-authored ecumenical study with Neville B. Cryer, Experiment in Unity (1968); and his two essays, ‘Hiroshima-Nagasaki Fifty Years After: An Historical and Theological Assessment’, Reconciliation Quarterly (Spring 1995) and ‘Theological Integrity’, Peacemaker (Sept. 1997), p. 4. These last two essays form part of Ernest’s full-length, unpublished study, The Wrath of God, an exposition of why he believed nuclear weapons to be incompatible with Christian belief. See also Rachel L. de Haan, J. Mark Goodridge, Joseph S. Goodridge and Kenneth Ingersent, ‘Obituary: Ernest Noel Goodridge’, Methodist Recorder, 28 March 2002, p. 21. 178 John Middleton Murry (1889-1957), a well-known and prolific author admired by Frank, evolved from Marxism to Christian pacifism, setting up a pacifist community in Suffolk in 1942. 177 I had a nice letter from Sackett written the day before Erny went there. It’s quite clear from Erny’s letter’s that he’s not in love, nor nobody else neither, or else he would’nt talk about ‘violating a personality whose sphere of service in the world has now been settled!’ Good heavens, Sheila would never be so silly as to settle anything, I’m quite sure. Well, dear folks, the glorious summer of the world’s hottest & stickiest town has really come. Flies are crawling over this paper. The temperature rises in afternoons to 120 in the shade (=170 in the sun)—in England 80 in the shade is a scorcher! Our beds are all outside on the ‘verandah’. The meat & eggs go bad on the way back from the stores in the car, & the great ice-block melts in the ice-box before the day is out! Water is boiling in the showers. Chairs, tables, walls, mattresses, car steering wheels are burning hot to touch. One’s body is always wet, even at night, but one gets used to that. The fans blow hot air on to one’s face. The squash & soda is drunk by the gallon—& one does not urinate, one sweats it all out. I have some charming friends, Mr. & Mrs. Prentice (or Isabel—a charming girl with a Scotch accent, straight out from England, & therefore not corrupted by the rough-shod life of the place) whose bungalow is a cool & quiet retreat on sticky evenings. We have also lots of other friends whose bungalows are always open, & one fellow lends me interesting books. Sheila sent me a pile of books including some of the Constance Holmes which Erny gave her. Thus I had the amusing experience of getting a book a/ Scrawled on by dad b/ Signed & dated by Erny* c/ Inscribed by my lady-love. A charming combination. I am finding my work quite interesting. I do a lot of sailing. I am astonished to hear of Erny buying new clothes. Think not, Erny, of what ye shall put on—consider the lilies of the field. I am sure there is no need to be so mundane as to buy clothes; your Heavenly father will clothe you.179 We just wear towels round our waists when we are at home & nobody is about. Our cook is a good old boy & the food is’nt bad. He conjures fresh tomatoes from somewhere— Heaven knows where. But our ‘sweeper’ is mad. He giggles to himself when he sweeps & giggles when he brings the tea, & is positively hysterical when he cleans out the lavatory. There now, he has just gone past chattering to himself like a monkey. Ask for an egg, & he brings a scorpion.180 179 180 Frank teases his brother with the help of Matthew 6:28-30. See Luke 11:12. Send me some ice-cream, or an iceberg, or a bucket of cold water, or something. I must go & get some squash. One gets used to this life just like any other. All my love, Frank. P.S. Just got your letter of 23rd May. * Top of cover: ‘E.N. Goodridge Newark April 1941’ etc. etc! 11. Abadan (June-August 1945) ‘facing present necessities as they arise’ 59. Frank to his family, [Abadan], 10 and 16 June 1945 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge J.F., June 10, 45. 283 F. S. Sec., Intelligence Corps, P.A.I. Force. Dear mum & dad, Erny & Margy, I got mum’s letter of May 29 a few days ago. I seem to be having hundreds of letters recently,—from George Brettell, from Nesta Elliot, from Mr. Stuart, and from all sorts of people. All of them come with a zephyr of life, and the surge of energy which emanates from everybody at home pierces the deadness of this outpost like a rainbow. Yes, we do get a good supply of vegetables & fruit—though I find it difficult to figure out where it comes from, since I have never seen where vegetables grow around here. We manage to get all this wonderful food by paying a large subscription & supplementing the Army ration by buying local fresh food. Of course we get cold water, because we have large blocks of ice each day which go into our ice-box, & then fill bottles up with water & put them on the ice. Trouble is caused when we are too lazy to fill it up again after using it. I enjoyed your descriptions of all that has been going on. Erny & dad give all the facts, & mum fills them in with her own touches of intuitive perception! I shall envy you in the Lake District. June 16th Today has been a hot, sweaty day. If I could tell you what I have been doing, which I can’t at all, it would make quite a colourful description. Imagine, however, a broad river, twice as wide as the Thames at London, whose waters filled up with the tides from the distant sea, roll under a beating hot sun. On one side of the river a broad belt of low palms—a jungle of them, only a ¼ mile wide, & beyond them the deserts. Mud huts & native Arabs on this side, with primitive bellums (their boats) like this:— On the other side of the river, opposite this primitive scene, a modern port, with jetties and big, old Tankers & ships, stacks of chimneys, installations, roads (whose tarmac splits & crumples in the heat), & bungalows with gardens & trees watered by pipes. And beyond this town another baked desert, then another river estuary bordered with another belt of palms. And in the middle of the modern, suburban township, a native quarter, with its filthy, burning hot streets & narrow, baked alleys, and a creek full of ancient hulks, the waters of which are rancid, being used for all the natural functions, as well as bathing & washing & everything else besides. If you could only smell it. And that’s as far as I dare go with my description. I sit on a couch at a small table on the ‘verandah’ (ground-floor—there is no upstairs) of our hut-bungalow. The verandah light attracts all the insects. Although it is dark the air is still heavy & I am still sweaty, but the evening is cool in comparison to the day. All our beds (wooden beds with mattresses) are arranged along the inside & outside of the verandah, with the nets tied to the wooden beams. There is a dirty back-yard (just baked earth—no grass) surrounded by barbed wire & old oil cans, where the jeep & the Hillman & a couple of lavatories are. In front of our hut, on the other side, is a big modern cinema (closed down in summer since it is too hot to sit inside & watch a film—there is another open-air cinema at the other end of the town), which faces a main road. Not far away is the afore-mentioned creek, the smell of which wafts to my nose through the close air. I am drinking a large glass of lemonade with chunks of ice floating therein to keep it cool. Which reminds me—all this fuss about me having been under the ALFLUENCE OF INCOHOL (as one of my friends calls it) is quite unnecessary. Drinking is NOT an inveterate habit, and it certainly is not refreshing in the heat. It in fact is the worst way to make oneself thirsty! We drink soda & squash and ginger-beer & iced water all day, which is not very bad, is it?! Do not set much store by the news in the papers about the Persians asking us to clear out. By the way, I think the world is in a worse mess than in 1939. Thank God for blokes like Erny who don’t get involved, & who simply work for the Kingdom of God. God Bless everybody, All my love, Frank. 60. Frank to his family, [Abadan], 19 June 1945 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge J.F., June 19, 45 Tuesday. 283 F.S. Sec., Intelligence Corps, P.A.I. Force. Dear mum, dad, Erny, & Margy, I don’t think I’ve yet answered Dad’s letter of June 2. I think that we shall stay where we are for quite a while, despite the Persian Govt.’s representations. I don’t know any more than you. At least we have got a daily paper (of a sort) laid on, & I am trying to pick up the threads of the news again. I am very glad that you are staying longer at Gainsborough. I would hate to come back to a different home. You will be at Kirkoswald just as the Summer here reaches its worst. We still have 4 months of it to look forward to! Every day is so tortuously the same as the last, & the atmosphere is such as to make me lack all inspiration, I have to confess (for the first time in my life, I think) that I really don’t know what to say. I have heard that the Govt. is providing £250 a year after the war for university students who can’t pay their way. From this they would subtract my £100 scholarship, so I should still get £250, which will certainly be fine! I don’t expect Erny will get it. If when I ever get home, I start walking around the house naked, or going to bed on a plain mattress with no clothes or blankets, you will understand that it is just the habit one gets into in these climes. What a struggle it is to persuade myself to blow up my jeep tyres or even to test the oil level! Those are the only sort of ‘strivings & strugglings’ there are—simply to fulfil the necessities of life, or else to be an intolerable nuisance, especially since everybody is more ‘nervy’ in a place like this, than they are at home. Heaven knows how the Goodridge family would get on in such circumstances. I know one thing, dad would soon get out of his habit of sleeping in his under-clothes. Actually one has to wear a vest & pants, because otherwise the perspiration comes through to one’s shirt & shorts, & one looks bedraggled & wet. The vest just soaks it up! I took the roof off my car, but I had to put it on again because the seats got so hot you couldn’t get in, and the steering wheel was untouchable, so the blokes cursed me. Our attempts to dig the garden plot have been very funny. Chopping up the earth & rubble baked as hard as a rock. We only did it to pass the time of the early morning when it was cool enough. But the grass has withered & the plot is bare, despite all waterings. I thought of Erny in his rich fields of sugar-beet as I toiled at this stubborn bit of land. Perhaps I may get some bushes to grow! Send me a crate of earth out, from the garden, & a bit of muck, & I’d do wonders. All my love Frank 61. Frank to his family, [Abadan], 24 June 1945 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge J.F., June 24, 45. 283 F. S. Section, Intelligence Corps, PAI. Force. Dear mum, dad, Erny, & Margy, First of all with regard to the election. Of the three photographs, I should say the liberal party man certainly does look the most intelligent, & I have as much sympathy with most Liberals as with most Labour people. The only point is that I feel one ought to vote Labour merely, alas, as a matter of policy, because whereas the Liberal party is not likely to be strong enough to defeat the Tories, the Labour party might well succeed. Therefore it may be very admirable to vote for an individual Liberal candidate whom you like, but you may not be thereby doing anything to help defeat the Tory. This sounds negative, I know. Did you never receive any notification of any description that I had appointed the Rev. J. B. Goodridge as my proxy? If not, I can’t see why, because I filled in the necessary Army form stating you. However, I have a vague idea that the system has been changed, & we are to vote direct by means of slips to be sent out & filled in & returned by air to England before polling-day. So the best you can do is make enquiries to find out whether the proxy system still works, & if so how to go about it. If perchance this is so, I’d rather you put in a Labour vote for me, then allow mum to decide whether to follow my lead or yours! Got Mum’s letter of June 14th, & very sorry to hear you’re ill again, or have been. Yesterday I went a long journey in my car over the howling deserts. The tarmac roads are all crumpled & blistered with the heat. There was a strong wind, boilingly hot, scorching my face as it blew great clouds of white dust. There is no horizon, just a watery shimmery mirage. It is just a great waste of baked dust & rubble. Every now & again you stop as you are enveloped in a dust storm. My sun-burnt knees bumping against the scorching-hot metal of the dash-board, I listen to the hot roar of the engine, hoping the water is’nt boiled away or the oil. Then suddenly it ends & you come to a few huts, a swamp, & a forest of low palms growing among swampy reeds, & the road winds through (comparative cool) with the smell of decaying vegetation, as soothing as an English lane, after the terrifying miles & miles of howling wilderness, where you drive along alone, on a road that looked as if it could’nt possibly lead anywhere. Then you come to a pontoon bridge over a wide, greenery-watered river. The port of Basra, which I have visited a lot, has a certain pretty Venetian touch about it. But it simply festers in the heat, & tries unavailingly to look pretty under the dusty air, blown from the deserts beyond. Modern docksides look funny side by side with primitive huts & swampy palm-groves. I don’t want to tantalise your geographical curiosity, dad, but I’m NOT on the Tigris, nor do I live in Basra. Nor am I at that wretched town Ahwaz, which you seem to have discerned on your map. Nor do I intend to visit it again if I can help it. It’s a boil on the face of the earth. Our holidays at the Mediterranean may have been spoilt by the French troubles.181 Poor old Marion Smithson! What WILL she do without Miss Dixon’s private school? I think she should do some farming instead. Erny is incapable of writing a letter to me without some mention of ‘Pansy’—so that it certainly plays no little part in the pattern of his thoughts. But we are a very nosy & fussy family. Why not leave the poor old boy alone! We still have not got a radio so the news I get is scanty & I have’nt heard any of the Election speeches. The Levant Crisis of May 1945. French troops had tried to suppress Syrian nationalist protests, with violent results, and Churchill then sent in British troops to quell the French and confine them to barracks, which almost brought the two allied nations to war. Frank discusses it further in letter 66, and says that he ‘saw the ruins where French shells had burst in the recent troubles’. 181 I am glad Margy is ‘happy & REASONABLE’, but not so glad that she is still stout. She seems to be so alive to the forces of nature—flowers & rabbits. She is certainly an image of life & fecundity—both physical & mental. When I think what a poor little boy I used to be. But Erny & agriculture—as well as my farming episode, & the general atmosphere of earthiness which we seem to have inculcated into her young life—seem to have produced great results, in more senses than one. Is she really delicate enough to play the violin, or dance & sing? Is she a bit clumsy, or is she neat & nippy? Can you picture her growing up very refined!? I wonder who will ever marry the lass? She really is a wonderful piece of work, & despite all our family worries, we are all sufficiently alive I think to have made Margy into a girl not insensitive to the beauties & joys & possibilities of human life. Don’t you think so? Sheila has got a bunch of photographs of Tehran & of me in parts of Persia. I’ll tell her to lend you them, & I’ll send you some more which I have. Sorry I never sent them to you, but exchanging photographs is one of the simple little blisses which make love worth while! I will write to Whittons sometime, & to Smithsons. We have a tiny little dog who keeps untying my shoelaces with his teeth. He nearly pants to death in the afternoon heat, which does’nt suit him. He is called Rufus. (This paragraph is for Margy’s benefit) Love to all, Frank. 62. Frank to his family, [Abadan], 4 and 6 July 1945 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge, J.F., July 4, 45. 283 F.S. Section, Intelligence Corps, PAI Force. Dear mum & dad, Erny, & Margy, Today I received Gainsborough News account of V Day services, and also the Gollancz book you sent—anthology of acts of kindness done in the war.182 A few days ago I also received the Henry Williamson book you sent. For all of which I am very grateful. Also got dad’s letter of 23 June. I never heard of a place called ‘KORMAK’ dad. Are your maps out-of-date? Anyway, Persia is NOT Iraq. Can’t you explain to mum 182 George Catlin, Vera Brittain and Sheila Hodges (eds), Above All Nations: An Anthology (1945). the reasons why she should NOT vote for Capt. Cruikshanks183 or Mr. Churchill? But it’ll be finished with when you get this. I’m losing my interest in politics. I’ve been reading Richard Jeffries ‘The Story of my Heart’, which despite all its professed love of the countryside strikes me as a foolish, piffling book.184 I got a letter from Aunty Ruth in which she said (poor dear) that she did’nt know what to write to me about because I did’nt know the people there. I’m afraid Auntie is still lost without her bit of gossip. She made the astonishing statement that ‘John & Ethel & I went TO THE CEMETRY to see Miss Stokoe’. I trust Miss Stokoe is still alive! There has been suddenly a lot of work during the last week, & so there has’nt been the time or inclination to do anything except sleep during spare time. Lunch is at 11.0 a.m. because one does’nt want to eat when it is really hot. I am getting used to the climate, so that I don’t notice it a terrible lot. It is so constant that it is a matter of course. Sweating is as common as breathing. Occasionally one realises the state of physical lethargy which one is living in, & it comes as a shock to realise how easily one accepts it & gets used to it. July 6th. Sorry I’m so late in writing this time. I got tired when writing the above & I’ve been terribly busy the last two days. If one likes one can spend all one’s time here doing jobs for the good & comfort of all. We have been digging a pit to get underneath the cars, painting ice-cupboards, clearing up the yard. One pours sweat with the slightest exertion, but one gets used to it. Pumping up a wheel makes one’s vest & pants soak right through! This morning I was under my car & I allowed the sun to get on my shoulders & burnt my skin. Work here comes in spells. Perhaps a fortnight without much, then a lot. It itself seems very pointless—what we do. Once again the days are largely a matter of facing present necessities as they arise. I can’t very well picture exactly what is going on at home. And there is’nt anything going on here except the inevitable day to day jobs. We have been very energetic recently renovating our poor bungalow & getting ourselves organised. I don’t know whether it’s worth it, because it may not last much longer. If my letter shows a lack of inspiration that is’nt because I’ve forgotten all the things which usually inspire me, but that there is’nt anything to bring them forth at present. It’s a question of getting one’s reports typed out & getting the natives to do one’s washing and seeing that the cars keep running etc.. The river is beautiful Harry Crookshank (1893-1961), Conservative MP for Gainsborough from 1924 to 1956, and a senior politician under Churchill. Crookshank had served as a Captain in the First World War, and was raised to the peerage in 1956 as the 1st Viscount Crookshank. 184 Richard Jefferies, The Story of My Heart: An Autobiography (1883). 183 sailing along between the palms at sunset when it is cooler. There is something beautiful about every place in the world. All my love, Frank. 63. Frank to his family, [Abadan], 11 July 1945 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge, J.F., July 11, 45. 283 F.S. Sec., Intelligence Corps, PAI Force. Dear mum, dad, Erny, and Margy, I have received your letter of June 26th which was delayed because the post was full of voting papers. With regard to this question of my vote, what should have happened was that when you went to the polls, you should have found a vote for me there as well. Many men filled in special forms by which they were to vote directly by post, but I never heard anything about these until it was too late. On the other hand the proxy vote which I arranged for dad to have for me was still operative, so you must tell me whether you had it or not. If not, I shall kick up a fuss and demand explanation from some quarter. I read today that Britain was having a ‘heat-wave’, and that the temperature had actually reached 79 degrees. Well, we could’nt help laughing. 79 degrees—a heat wave. This afternoon, not exceptional, it has been 120 degrees, and really it did not seem bad. That is how one gets used to it. I am feeling very worried about your illnesses, mum. It sounds so strange. I never thought of you as being ill. You always nursed me, and so I suppose my childish subconscious made me think that it followed you were always well. I am quite looking forward to meeting Miss Tagg one day, after all the things you have told me about her. What our family always needed most was to join with somebody else and to feel them one with ourselves. We always closed ourselves in, even though we all felt the need of a wider atmosphere. That is why I used to revolt and try to make, foolishly perhaps, contacts and associations which were not very pleasing. Of course, I was wrong, until I met Sheila by chance. I think that dad’s chief fault towards mum was to often unconsciously exclude the possibility of making wider association with people of more varied type. I think it is Erny who has redeemed us all by his husbandry of peace and goodwill and sense of community. Sheila has reached a stage where it is necessary for her to see things more clearly. I wrote to her and told her that it was not any use thinking we could simply go on living in such passionate dependence on one another’s letters without facing its implications. I told her that I did not regard her as a happy schoolboy’s lover. Either our love was a mere illusion –a consoling dream that would come to an end sooner or later, or else it was the beginning of a whole life, and indeed a whole eternity together. I said I was not satisfied simply with the thought that it made us feel happy. I am a man, in the army (to my everlasting shame), living far away. Already I felt as if her people were my people and mine hers. It was therefore foolish to go on living on a pleasant dream, and unless we were definite about it I would be merely deluding HER. I am not one who believes in schoolboy love affairs that mean nothing. And I have seen enough of the world to scorn everything except the simple love of human beings. Everything I see only increases my faith in the things the world tries to deny. And she must grasp the fact that I will not live on what, for practical purposes, might appear to be yet another of the million dreams destined to dissillusion. She is at the same time too, too wise and too, too simple. Her father writes to me and we agree about most things. I liked the Vicky cartoons you sent and they are stuck up on the notice board.185 I await the news of the election eagerly, but I feel more and more depressed at the course of the world affairs. I have been reading articles by Max Plowman in a book I bought at Tehran, called ‘The Right to Live’.186 And although part of me carries on with the work I have to do as efficiently and conscientiously as possible, I find that my sympathy with the peace movement, and with these men who are true husbanders of peace, is quite unchanged. All the things which Max Plowman said before the war about the nature of the tragedy which Europe was plunging into, seem even more true now than they did then. But there are still some men who have fought for life, men like Murry and Ernest Goodridge,187 and it is their faith I shall have to build on myself. My time has been taken up with work, and I have not done anything I can tell you about. In the afternoons, if one is not sailing around the river, which one usually is (NOT for pleasure, by heaven), one has to go to sleep. Much time is spent keeping the place, and keeping oneself decent. The rest is occasional reading and writing Victor Weisz (1913-1966), ‘Vicky’, was a popular British political cartoonist, a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, of an independent but broadly left-wing hue. 186 Max Plowman (1883-1941), The Right to Live: Selected Essays, with an Introduction by John Middleton Murry (1942). Frank’s copy is inscribed ‘Tehran, Apr. 45’. He passed it on to his brother Ernest in one of their fraternal book exchanges, in September 1946. 187 John Middleton Murry; both were Christian pacifists and ruralists. 185 letters. I also keep an album of all book reviews that interest me, so that I shall not get entirely out of touch with all the books that have been brought out. Then there is a lot of typing to do. Also our work comprises a lot of nocturnal duties. You could not imagine what I am doing some nights at 2 and 3 in the morning. The thing that is really nasty in the army is the continual necessity of being careful what sort of impression one gives, the continual fear of slipping up and getting into a mess (especially in our job), and the impossibility of being anything much more than a deceiver as far as one’s superiors are concerned. This is not the fault of the superiors. It is just a natural distortion of values which is inevitable in a semi-totalitarian system. We have to be so tactful in some respects that we are completely mad amongst ourselves as a mere relief. Also it prevents us from getting too irritable (which we are), and from letting the climate fray one’s nerves. Even such facetious tricks as walking into walls and pretending they are the door seem funny enough to a set of men who are trying not to get too unbalanced. I will write to the Whittons sometime. Love to all, including such heterogeneous people as Marie, and Marian and Jean, and Mr. Downes, and the Whittons, and also give my love to Miss Tagg (please do), and particularly and above all to Miss Goodridge of Spital Terrace. Frank. 64. Frank to his family, [Abadan], 22 July 1945 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge J.F., July 22nd, 45. 283 F .S. Sec., Intelligence Corps, P.A.I. Force. Dear mum & dad, Erny, & Margy, First of all thank Margy for letter (July 7th) & dad for letter July 11th. Margy’s selection of items of news gives a fairly all-round picture of the things which absorb her life: much more creative than anything which absorbs mine. Funnily enough, your description of Stoke Fields in the rain absolutely THRILLED me, though you meant it to be dull. O to feel the soft drizzle of the rain over the old Car Dyke! O to be ploughing up rubbish in the fields of Nottinghamshire! I think you should realise that Brownlow Horner,188 like all other farmers, is affected by the weather, & his mood on that day was therefore grumpy. 188 Of Stoke Fields farm, where Ernest now worked. My last remembrance of him was a summer morning last year189 when I left the farm for the last time, & he generously gave me exactly double the sum I had earned. Of course the atmosphere of the farm has become part of Erny’s outlook. The fields & woods & seasons, the anxieties & strains of that life have become part of him. But how I envy that part! I would give anything for a similar solid background of contact with the earth, instead of all the varied & silly bits of life which I have lived with. I certainly agree he should get out & do other things for a while. There certainly is an element crude & ungenerous about the life of the soil. But I know enough of the world to realise how better it is than any other conceivable life. Ask your friend Miss Tagg what she thinks about this. I enclose a letter addressed to the Chairman of the G’sborough District Council, which is its own explanation, & which I leave you to forward. It is certainly unfair that youths from school are going to universities to study English, & we remain in the army. I think I shall write to C.S. Lewis about it. July 23rd. I have now written to C.S. Lewis asking him to keep me in touch with any possibility which may arise of obtaining release for University. There are yet 2 months—the worst two months—of Summer to face. Physically one is very debilitated at this time of the year, & one simply has to wait apathetically for a time of coolness in which to recover one’s strength. It is’nt ill-health, it is just the weakness & debility which make it so difficult to do anything, and the strain which the Army imposes—of always giving a good impression at all costs, which is characteristic of all totalitarian systems. Even in a free mob like ours, the Army is still such that one man can help you or if he likes he can finish you, or make life a continual anxiety. There is much friendliness, but also much rancour. And though I like my friends here, there is’nt anyone who shares my faith in anything—not even in ‘love’. They are somewhat cynical even in reference to their own wives!—a thing I can never understand. Forgive the shortness of this one. Much love to all, Frank. 189 In error for ‘the year before last’. 65. Frank to his family, Abadan, 2 August 1945 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge, J.F., 283 F.S. Sec., Intelligence Corps, PAI Force. Aug. 2nd, 45. Dear mum, dad, Ern, and Margy, Owing to certain annoying exigencies I have been so busy recently that I have simply not had time to keep up to date with anything. Yesterday, which was my day off, was spent working like a cat on hot bricks to get done some overhanging work— in fact I typed out precisely 14 reports. And in this climate, once one has exerted oneself, it is well-nigh impossible to summon the mental energy to carry on and do something else. For instance, the other day when I got Erny’s letter about how he will have to leave the farm, I spent an hour in which I forgot this place altogether, and I was with you, figuring out and picturing the problems at home. I was trying to write all about them, and began a letter to Erny, but something else made it impossible, and I was forced to forget the whole thing, despite the fact that it is ten thousand thousand times more important to me than anything out here. One can never feel fresh or lively in this climate, and it is a terrible effort to do anything, especially to put one’s mind to anything which matters. Always one needs another ice in one’s drink, or gusts of hot air paralise one’s mind, or sweat starts trickling down one’s collar, or septic, little spots caused by heat rash begin to itch. You just could not believe me when I tell you how much it is possible for a human being to sweat without it worrying him particularly. Sometimes one can wring out one’s vest and cause a big puddle—I know it sounds unpleasant, but there it is, and one gets used to it. I got Erny’s letter of 20 July, and dad’s of 24th. You know what I think about the farm. I think you have misunderstood the whole thing completely, and it seems that even your friend Pansey has missed the point too. To leave the place will be a terrible sacrifice for Erny to have to make, it will be like relinquishing a whole life which for 4 years has, to his everlasting glory, been his breath and happiness. It certainly won’t be a ‘relief’ from a great strain. And anyway the Horners were always generous to me, and I regard them as friends in the same way he does, and so I’m NOT going to join the foolish chorus about these ‘gloomy’ farm people. Erny has worked and lived with them for 4 years, and I envy him those 4 glorious years with all my heart. Moreover I shall be terribly sorry that he finds it necessary to give up farming. ‘SHEIBA’ (properly spelt Shu’aibhur) I know only too well. It is the first desert part where, if you remember, I spent my first fortnight out here. Who told you about Sheila’s holiday in Wales? I’ve had several letters describing it all to me. They always pick some lonely and unheard of spot. I just can’t think, dad, what town you are referring to in your guess of my whereabouts. Certainly the name of the place does’nt suggest flowers or trees. There is no harm in you telling me what your guesses are, I just can’t deny it if it is’nt true. It amuses me your sailing on a barge. I do quite a lot of that sort of thing, but it no longer affords me much excitement. Next week, Aug. 8th, I go on holiday at last. It is a terribly arduous journey, but I hope to take all my books and papers with me and get some relief and quiet. The trouble is, I shall be so anxious to do some exploring that I shall probably be more tired on my return. Especially due to the arduousness of the journey. Nevertheless it should be a mental relief. I could have gone to TEHRAN again, but I preferred to explore a new country. 2 months of summer then it won’t be so bad. Apart from this skin trouble which has suddenly attacked all of us, I have so far done quite well. One of our chaps is struck with scabetic spots all over, like poor old JOB. We can’t help laughing at him. Hope I’ll be able to write more later. Love, Frank. 12. Palestine and Lebanon (August 1945) ‘and I came ‘even unto Bethlehem’’ 66. Frank to his family, by the Mediterranean in Lebanon, 14 August 1945 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge J.F., Aug 14, 45. 283 F. S. Sec., Intelligence Corps, PAI Force. Dear mum, dad, Erny, & Margy, I am at present on holiday by the blue, blue Mediterranean. From my tent as I write I can see the surge of the tideless, blue sea beating against the sand, and behind me rise the magnificent, bushy slopes of the Lebanese mountains, with their quaint & beautiful villages, their vineyards & peaches & tomatoes. It is more lovely than anything I had imagined in the world. The day before I was due to leave the hellish, low heat of the Persian deserts, I got a slight attack of dysentery, & I thought I wouldn’t manage it. But the next morning i felt a lot better, & the doctor gave me some powders & off I went. Having missed the convoy by this time, I packed up in a terrible rush with a throbbing head, & went by car over the dust-blown tracks, catching the others up at a place call Ma′quil190 (which is the port of Basra, on the Shatt-al-Arab, estuary of Tigris and Euphrates.) We then travelled by night to Baghdad, the most terrible train-journey in the world, crushed in a tiny compartment with wooden seats & dust blowing in the gaps which are meant for windows. I slept not a wink, & arrived at a horrible army camp in Baghdad feeling terrible, wondering whether I should have to turn back, & wishing I had’nt come. Iraq is a depressing land, low-lying & baked with heat. The railway which follows the valley of the Tigris, passes first a vast, sunken desert of salt, which is marked on the map as a lake. Further north, the land varies between stretches of desert, & stretches of lush growth & palm-groves, where the squalid villagers till the soil in patches with crude & primitive means. It gives the impression of a land sunken & depressed which flourishes in patches with the lushness of the garden of Eden, but which is being left to turn more & more into one vast desert. At times, in the freshness of morning for instance, it is rich & beautiful. But it is a melancholy land. I 190 Al Ma’qil or Al Maqal. have no wonder the children of Israel wept when they remembered Zion. The little town of Hilleh191 is beautiful & rich with trees & flowers. At Baghdad my stomach felt better. Tired & depressed, I summoned my courage for the long & desperately uncomfortable 3-day lorry-drive over the desolation of the Syrian desert, by night.192 We left in the evening, & crossed the Tigris at sunset. The damp vegetation of the Tigris, the goats & cattle & low-lying trees (a strip only an eighth of a mile on either side of the river) looked wonderful as the sun set over the escarpment of the vast, bleak desert beyond. For one brief moment it looked like the Trent creeping through the fields of Nottinghamshire, then the lorries crept on in a file of blazing head lamps, up into the dark waste beyond. We passed the great salt-lake of Habbaniyah just as the last light was fading. This lake has no vegetation around it at all. The lorry bumps on over trackless desert all night—a terrible bumpy road. On the thick layer of straw we lay together like sardines all night, but slept not a wink. All along this 800-mile road desert camps with petrol stations are the only thing to look forward to, at intervals of 200 miles. At 10.30 p.m. we reached the first, Wadi Mohammedi, where we had a meal & went on again at midnight. At 7 o’clock the next morning we reach Rutbah (a tiny dot on most maps, marked in the very middle of the Syrian desert.) A few squalid Arab huts & an Army camp. Here we ate, slept in tents, & sweated all day till we went on again at night. Another desert camp at 10.30 p.m., a meal, & on again all night, to reach Mafraq the next morning, the last camp on the other side of the desert. All the time our limbs were stiff with the shaking of the lorry, our heads aching & drumming. After breakfast straight on again into the borders of Syria. This convoy, famous to all men of PAI Force, is known as the 3-day agony-waggon. As you move on into Syria the desert gradually ends, the hills begin, & the valleys get more & more fertile. The first real village we came to was wonderful. Hewn almost out of the rocky slopes, the little flat-rooved houses seem to be almost built into the landscape, rising in tiers, just the kind of desolate village you imagine when you read the Bible. The people are all industrious, with animals of all kinds, horses, asses, camels, & bullocks. The corn is ground by means of spreading it about a foot thick in a large circle on the ground, then a man stands on a board (like a sledge) & has two bullocks pull him round & round the heap of corn, so that the weight of the board sliding over it threshes it. How refreshing it was ... to see these simple, industrious Syrian people, beating their bread out of the rocky slopes, all working hard. 191 192 Hillah. See Appendix, ‘Iran Fragments’, for Frank’s verses on the Syrian Desert. More valleys & villages, getting more & more fertile as you get further into the country, till eventually you see the great fields of maize or of water-melons: and then, suddenly the road winds down into a broad valley beneath the towering slopes of the Lebanon mountains, the most richly verdant & lusciously green & fertile valley I have ever seen in the world, & you come to what has proved to be the city of my dreams—Damascus. It may be just because I’ve been living in a terrible place, but Damascus struck me as the most beautiful place on earth, a veritable garden of Eden. It is smothered in remarkable greenness. Up above it tower barren mountains, but the valley is lush at all seasons of the year. It is every inch orchards & gardens, cisterns & canals & streams. The trees & vegetables & fruits are so thick that you cannot see the city for the verdure. Not an inch is uncultivated. The trees are thickly bunched in every garden, in every street, in every corner of this wonderful valley. Great sleek cows & goats are everywhere. Enormous sunflowers, tomatoes as big as grapefruit, carrots & cabbages, walnuts, limes, & laburnums. Crazy old houses a hundred times older than the trees. Trees growing in the interstices of an ancient wall, where Paul was once let down in a basket.193 And amidst it all a modern city with trams & clubs, & cinemas, & prosperous Arabs driving along the sweeping boulevards. The reason for the remarkable fertility, is the wonderful irrigation system built in ancient times by the Romans. We stayed in Damascus afternoon and evening. In the afternoon I was so tired I had to sleep, but I went into the city in the evening, & talked to a grand, old English woman who had been working there in the Y.M.C.A. since 1911. I saw the ruins where French shells had burst in the recent troubles.194 All the French have been cleared out now. The Tricolour has been taken down, they are hated & have lost all their influence, which is a terrible pity, & it was utterly stupid of them. It seemed to me disgusting that we should have had to fight in a country so real & feminine & lovely as Syria or the Lebanon. How different from the stupid, lazy, pretentious cities in Persia! Even to see people prosperous & working hard & in good clothes was wonderful. But never mind, Persia is a thousand miles away over the desert, & for a happy fortnight I can forget it. We left Damascus early this morning & had a wonderful 5 hour ride to the coast, through rich & beautiful valleys, over great, bushy mountains, winding through gorges & in & out in hair-pin bends, till suddenly you come over the brows of the 193 194 Acts 9:25. The Levant Crisis: see letter 61 and note. last mountain-range & look down as if from an aeroplane on the beautiful, populous coast of the Mediterranean. Out of Damascus the road runs up through a great gorge, full of trees & villages & flowers, lovelier than Cheddar or Eyam or Curbar! Over the first range of mountains & down into another valley, even lovelier than Damascus itself, which you look down on from high up on the mountain-tops. Here at a beautiful rustic village, with quaint villas, we stopped for 11 o’clock tea, then on over the next range. The Lebanese mountains are rocky & covered with bushes, with little villages sprawling over them with their sudden patches of thick trees. All the hillsides are terraced with vine-yards. But the final view from the mountains down over the sea, is the most breath-taking one of all. Now I am staying in a camp by the sea. Everything is laid on for us & it is a perfect place. This afternoon I have been swimming in the warm, salty Mediterranean. The climate is not very much hotter than a really, hot day in Cornwall, and the sea-breeze & freshness of the place is wonderful. After living in the nauseating, choking atmosphere of the Persian Gulf, the freshness of the air here is like wine. My illness has departed, & I’m glad I took the risk & made the journey, even though it was a week’s agony, & another week to get back. Next week I shall go on a tour round Palestine, & I may even take a boat-trip to Cyprus, but we’ll see! Only a brief precious fortnight. I shan’t get any of your letters this month till I get back ‘home’ (Ugh!) This evening I am going to see a film of the ‘Song of Bernadette’ which is on here.195 How fine it is to be eating fresh vegetables for a change, & even tasting fresh milk. I shall get on very well here. Lots of eggs too. I can’t possibly write this all over again & tell Erny, so you must send it on to him. As it is I’ve got to send the whole account to Sheila, & I shall be writing half the time. Being abroad has its thrills as well as its tortures. On my way back I hope to see Damascus properly, & find out whether the street called Straight is really as crooked as people say it is. I have no wonder that old Paul had a vision coming down the gorge from those barren mountains into such a luxuriant valley. It’s a pity it is’nt Christian. More later. Much love to all, & the folks at G’borough (& to Pansy!) Frank. P.S. Aug. 15th—turns out to be VJ Day! That’s good. 195 ‘The Song of Bernadette’, dir. Henry King (Twentieth Century Fox, 1943). Letter 67 has the simple, hand-stamped letterhead of the ‘Church of Scotland Huts’, the chain of hostels where Frank stayed in the Levant; note also the blue pencil of the censor, ‘6084’. 67. Frank to his family, Jerusalem, 23 August 1945 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge, J.F., 283 F. S. Sec., Intelligence Corps, P.A.I. Force. Aug. 23rd. 1945 7.30 p.m. AT JERUSALEM. Dear mum & dad, Margy & Erny, I think I am feeling happier & healthier than I’ve ever felt since I’ve been abroad. I am in the middle of the most wonderful holiday I have ever spent. I was determined to see all the places, & despite the fact that it is costing me altogether about £12, I must do it, for it is perhaps the one chance of my life, and I have crammed every moment with activity. In fact there are so many things to tell you, I shall have to miss a lot out. The first part of my holiday, which I spent in the Lebanon (I return there on Monday (27th Aug.) was spent quietly reading, writing, bathing, & exploring the beautiful old city, which is a delightful one—Beyrouth.196 It is surrounded by rich orchards, & behind it the great mountain-slopes are covered with villages & orchards & vineyards. The crazy, narrow streets & bazaars are full of traffic & antique-looking trams, gardens & cypresses, fruit-stalls & shops & cafes. Bookshops, at Beyrouth, Haifa, & Jerusalem crammed with new books from England, have tortured me all along since it’s foolish to buy anything. I’ve read the lovely Constance Holme novels, scored & scribbled on by dad, named & dated by Erny, sent by Erny to Sheila, & by Sheila to me! I’ve also read the Henry Williamson book, 196 Beirut. which I agree was selfish in outlook, but which I loved because of the richness of experience, the perfect writing, & the character of dear little Barleybright.197 I left Beyrouth by train last Monday (20 Aug.) & travelled along the rather barren coast of the Mediterranean, which looked as blue & calm as a picture-postcard, through the little ports of Tyre & Sidon & Acre, standing out on promontories with rich banana-groves behind, to Haifa, where I spent afternoon & evening. Haifa is not so pretty as Beyrouth. It is a busy, modern city, with squat shops & streets & flats, surrounded by the usual wreckage & dumps of a city, but not by beautiful orchards. The view of the port & of the blue sweep of the bay from the top of Mt. Carmel is very fine. The town creeps half way up the mount, which, on top, instead of being bare & rocky, is a suburban area of avenues & cafes & schools & pretty parks. There are magnificent hostels in all these towns for troops to stay at, chiefly Y.M.C.A., & Church of Scotland, of which I have chosen the latter. They are as good as the most expensive hotels at home—sheets, showers, meals, lounges, & luxury. The facilities for troops, & the cultural activities in the Middle East are better than in any town in England. The genius & efficiency of the British only seems to act abroad. When I think of our poor little canteens at home, these places are like palaces. The cities of Palestine are clean & bright & full of life. I left Haifa for Jerusalem on Tuesday, (21st) & arrived here at midday. The train goes S. along the coast then cuts inland across the central plains of Palestine to Lydda,198 then goes right round & approaches Jerusalem from the south climbing & chugging up a great gorge to the city at the top. Central Palestine is all fertile & cultivated, but it is not pretty. The trees are sparse & small & the landscape lacks that rich warmth & greenness & rain of the English fields. The little towns with their fruit-groves & bananas are pretty, & are all ‘set on a hill’.199 The first thing one sees of Jerusalem, to one’s surprise, is a beautiful, smart, clean, busy modern city, with masses of shops & well-dressed people, modern churches & avenues, flats & hotels, bookshops & cinemas. The modern city (One might call it New Jerusalem) is certainly one of the nicest cities I know. I love the place, in fact. The Central Y.M.C.A. is a great, sumptuous building like a palace, where I heard a pleasant concert by the Palestine Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra. The ‘Old City’ close to which I am living, is the most complete contrast. Enclosed by the massive walls built by Herod & by the Crusaders, & entered by one or other of the famous Gates (The Jaffa Gate, the Damascus Gate, St. Stephen’s Gate (the Gate The Sun in the Sands (1945). Lod. 199 Matthew 5:14. 197 198 called Beautiful to the old Temple area, where Jesus entered on Palm Sunday, is now blocked up), it is one bustling maze of alleys & bazaars, walls & shrines, the ‘streets’ being 2 or 3 yds wide, made of cobbles or in steps (like Clovelly) & filled with shouting Arabs, Jews, & donkeys, or covered bazaars smelling of spices & all the smells of the East both sweet & unsweet. Indeed it is the same as it was in Jesus’ day. I have wandered for hours with tired feet, pushing & shoving my way under the ruined archways, lost in a maze of steps & alleys & walls & Arabs selling their wares. There is so much life crammed within the four walls of the old Zion, that it is my very life & happiness to explore every nook & cranny of the tortuous city of the four hills. There is another side to the picture, which is a disgusting blasphemy & mockery to God. Long ago, Jesus took a whip & drove the money-changers out. And today, the whole rigmarole of the ‘Holy Places’ is a great money-making racket, cheap & vulgar & revolting. The Guides who take you round are Arabs or Jews, who make lots of money out of it, & who dupe their superstitious pilgrims by rattling off, in tones of (cynical) piety, the old stories, without any real scholarly knowledge of modern investigations of the facts, I.E. ‘This, ladies & gentlemen, is the third station of the cross, where a lady wiped the sweat off the brow of our dear Savour Christ’— etc. How I hated them. I almost could see how Jesus would have driven them away with the fire of his anger. Moreover, these Holy Places, have been not only the subject of violent controversy between the Moslems & the Christians, & even more between the Catholics, Armenians, & Greek Orthodox Churches, but have been made the subject of imperialistic ambitions of all the Kings & Emperors of the world, for 2000 years. So many times the churches have been destroyed & rebuilt, that one can only see relics of the old places by going down into dark & mysterious vaults & caves underneath. Most of the churches on the ancient sites, are modern buildings, decked out with the most vulgar & gaudy decoration & ugly & sumptuous riches. For instance the Church of the Dormition (in the place where Jesus spent the night in prison) & various other Catholic churches, was built by the German Kaiser, so that when he conquered Palestine the Germans would claim the ‘Holy Places’. For the first time in my life, I felt I was a real Protestant, & felt hatred & disgust towards the Popery & graven images & mumbo-jumbo of it all. I felt rather like starting another crusade. No Protestant church, thank God, has any part to play in the ownership or running of these Holy Places. For instance, in the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem the Protestants have their Christmas service in the country and outside. The various shrines are parcelled out between the Catholics, the Armenians, & the Greek Orthodox, all of which have strict rules preventing the others from using their shrines, & who squabble violently as to their rights of devotion. As a result the Moslems are used to look after places of dispute. For instance the following story:—The Church of the Holy Nativity at Bethlehem consists of two churches, the ancient one with pillars set up in days of old by Constantine, is in the hands of the Gk. Orthodox, the modern one (whose bells, which I saw, ring out every Christmas Day) in the hands of the Catholics. Between the two is a stained-glass window. The Catholics decided to clean the window, but the Greek Orthodox priests refused to allow them to clean their side of it, so the window remained dirty until eventually, to settle the dispute, a Moslem was called in to clean it for them. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, an ancient structure propped up by iron bars, with the buildings of the bazaars huddled around it so that, save for its dome, it is scarcely discernible, is filled constantly with a vulgar rabble of people, behaving in a way in which nobody would behave in the last ugly Methodist chapel of the British Isles. It is a great, dark place, mysterious with gorgeous shrines & candles & vaults with steps & various levels, & deep below the cave which is the place where the Queen Helena was supposed to have found the 3 crosses. Each shrine is one of the last 8 stations of the cross, owned by one of the 3 churches mentioned above. Blackcloaked priests argue & noise about, & Arab guides stand on the altars & loudly deliver the rigmarole ‘This is the exact spot where they knocked the nails into the hands & feet of our dear saviour’ etc. etc.. Images are bedecked with gorgeous jewels & mosaics contributed by Kings & Emperors of Europe. It is all very vulgar. One is shown through a cubbie-hole a bit of the natural rock which is split by a tiny crack, which is where, they say ‘the vale of the Temple was rent in twain’! It is all a mixture of truth & real interest (which scholars would explain) with a lot of superstitious idol-worship. I thought to myself, whimsically, what our dear old friend Cummings would do if I took him here. He would want to drop an atom-bomb on Zion itself & destroy the lot, I’m sure! But in the middle of it all there is a certain awe. The Holy of Holies, which is supposed to be the actual tomb of Christ, is an altar which one enters (made of marble) inside into a tiny cell built in the bare rock, with a tiny entrance. One is told to go inside singly & say the Lord’s prayer. I went in & found myself in this tiny cell richly decked with bad pictures & ornaments & candles, & a priest standing inside fingering COINS, expecting to be paid, presumably, for the prayer. I neither prayed nor gave him a sou. What is more impressive is the little courtyard where stood the house of Caiaphas,200 with a beautiful little Armenian church, the wailing wall, where Jews even this very morning were still standing along the outside of the great wall of the Temple, built by the King Herod, wailing for their lost citadel, & the Great courtyard of the ancient Temple itself, & the Dome of the Rock where the Ark of the Covenant stood. The old Temple is now a great courtyard in Moslem hands, with sleepy Arabs lying around, & two enormous mosques of great & superb magnificance. The mosque which is on the site of the ancient temple, stands round the enormous slab of rock, whereon thousands of bullocks were slain by the Jews. This morning I gazed at the rock, & almost smelt the sacrifices. A great hole in the rock leads down in a channel to the Kedron valley, where the blood of the lambs used to pour. Around it a pompous & magnificent mosque of wonderful mosaic and great columns. Through here to the ancient house of Herod, now a barracks for the British Palestine police, up the narrow length & steps & cobbles of the Via Dolorosa. All along this alley are little Catholic churches for the various incidents of the ‘Stations of the Cross’. The modern street is 3 feet above the old one, which is inearthed201 in vaults under the above mentioned shrines. But it looks the same as of old, & I could picture silently the throng pushing up the narrow alley, up the steep steps to Golgotha, & the criminal . . . . Yesterday afternoon I went up the Mount of Olives, where I met the ‘famous Ali Baba of the Mt. of Olives’, a cynical Arab with only one arm, a very amusing character who frankly admits the villainy of his trade, & who is the Guide who shows you the shrine of the Ascension, where Jesus is reputed to have risen to heaven, & with a sort of sceptical amusement shows you ‘the imprint of Jesus’ foot in a rock’—Ugh! But the view from the Mount is magnificent. On the one hand the arid wastes of the wilderness & mountains right down & down & down to a blue streak far, far below, which is the Dead Sea. It is like looking down into the mouth of hell. On the other hand the great panorama of Jerusalem, the walled citadel of the old city & the lovely buildings of the new city stretching far over the hill. Indeed as I looked at that grim old wall, fought over by a hundred armies, I almost felt the thrill of Hezekiah himself, & imagined I saw the armies of Sennacherib coming over the far horizon:202 I could understand what the ancient Jews felt concerning this rocky citadel of their God, & remembering Iraq, how they felt in exile—‘If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget her cunning, may my tongue cleave to the roof See Matthew 26; John 28. Interred, buried. 202 See 2 Kings 18-20. 200 201 of my mouth…’203—and Jesus, sitting in more or less the same spot, weeping over the city. And in a moment of sudden joy, I ordered my taxi-driver to take me to Bethlehem—Back through the city, over the rocky hills with their olive-trees, to the little town clustered round the slopes of another barren & rocky mountain. And I came ‘even unto Bethlehem’.204 I remembered Christmas, & sermons in chapels, & looked at the rugged rocky hills, & saw a few shepherds with goats on the slopes which are called ‘in the fields’ in the Bible.205 There are certainly no fields. But in its quiet, rugged, stony way, Bethlehem is a beautiful little town. I drank tea in the Y.M.C.A., & a guide took me round the Church of the Holy Nativity. There are one or 2 houses of the old village, which still stand, & the squalid modern hovels are built in the same way as they were on the first Christmas. Seeing these places, it was obvious that the stables are all in caves or cellars underneath the houses. Thus the vaults beneath the Church, which are built in caves of natural rock, are probably in actual fact the stable under the Inn. Here one is shown the place where the manger lay, & deep in the caves & vaults there is an awe which makes the rich pictures & ornaments no longer distracting. In Bethlehem the villagers make beautiful little brooches & ornaments, with perfect minute workmanship (representing stars of Bethlehem & scenes of the nativity) out of shells of mother-ofpearl which come from the Red Sea. I watched them working with loving care on these, & could not resist buying two of them—one for Sheila, & one for Margy, which will arrive before Christmas as an Xmas present from Bethlehem. She must wear it, not only as a token from her brother, but also because it will be a symbol of the angels song, ‘On Earth Peace to men & women of good will’, & if she follows the footsteps of her big brother Erny she will learn what it means better than I could teach her. This afternoon I took another taxi-trip to Jericho, the Jordan & the Dead Sea. I went into the Garden of Gethsemane where a Catholic priest gave me the enclosed leaf, which I send for mum, with love. I’m sorry that the prayer is for the dying, mum! I saw the ancient olive-trees & went into the great & lovely modern Catholic church which the friars have in the garden. The Road from Jerusalem to Jericho, today a shining strip of tarmac sweeping in great hairpin bends down & down & down & down, is indeed the roughest & most howling wilderness, barren & bleak & rocky mountains, the wilderness of Judaea. Psalms, 137. Luke 2:15. 205 Luke 2:8. 203 204 One can see a donkey-track creeping down the bottom of the dry valley, which may be the old road Jesus referred to. As one goes down it gets hotter & hotter, past a notice board which says ‘Sea Level’, & when one gets to the arid plain below it is as hot as the Persian Gulf. Save for a strip of thick vegetation by the banks of the river, & the mass of trees & groves round the Oasis town of Jericho, the valley is a wild wilderness, like the bottom of a dried sea. In the midst of this, Jericho is a pleasing & pretty little township, made fertile by the waters from the spring of Elisha, which the old prophet once sweetened from salt to pure water.206 This spring is under the lee of the Judaean mountains. It is a little reservoir of limpid water with a crystal clear brook running down to water the village of Jericho. How refreshing to see it in this monstrously thirsty land. On the edge of the mountains above Jericho, perched like a crows nest on the bleached rocks, is a monastery in the supposed place where Jesus was tempted by the devil. The Jordan, about the size of the Derwent at Curbar (what a contrast!), runs through a narrow belt of jungle, like a river of Burma. I drank lemonade in a café by the side of good old Elisha’s spring, & looked at the grim & sweltering mountains of Moab—Transjordan—where poor old Moses saw the Promised Land. I could’nt help feeling that it can’t have looked very promising. Then I went down to the Dead Sea—a beautiful blue sea between the brown & grey mountains—to a small settlement with a few trees where the Jews have a Potash factory. It being swelteringly, beastly hot, I bathed opposite a little cafe, cutting my feet on the shingle. Bathing in the Dead Sea is a strange & ridiculous experience. It is salty & bitter as gall, & if the water gets in your eyes or nostrils it smarts terribly. The water is warm, almost hot, & crystal clear—But so full of salt that you can’t sink. Honestly, dad, you just sit or lie on the water without moving (like a dead fish) & it weighs you up, & if you try to sink you can’t. If you stretch out & try to do the breast-stroke the water pushes your bottom out of the water, & your legs kick the air. I went out a long way into the sea into deep water. If it had been ordinary water I could never have swum back. But you can just stop & have a rest—or smoke a cigarette—floating. I came back up the road from Jericho in the cool of the evening, with the sun setting over the far-distant mount of Olives high up to the West. The amazing thing about Judaea, & all deserts for that matter, is that whereas it looks ghastly & torrid in the heat of the day, it looks magnificently beautiful in the cool evening. The glow being gone, the varied colours of the rocks & of the dry grasses is brought out, red & yellow and brown, in the evening sun. Back up the long climb, through the rugged little village of Bethany, which Jesus loved, I’m sure, because of Mary Magdalene, 206 II Kings 2:19-22. looking so wild & beautiful against the sunset, & over the Mt of Olives again to see the city in the last light stretched over the hills. Tommorrow I go to Nazareth, Capernaum, Cana, & Tiberias, a long trip which will cost a lot, but if I can manage to get a taxi I shan’t be able to resist it. Then on Saturday I’m going to the modern Jewish city of Tel Aviv for 2 days, & returning to the Lebanon on Monday. The two fellows whom I brought with me are stupid, dull fellows, who can’t appreciate the wonder of anything, so I’ve abandoned them. They found Jerusalem just boring. I start the return journey to Persia on Sep. 1st—two extra days holiday for V J Day. So I have 5 days rest before going back, in which I shall get my photograph taken for you.207 I’ll send some photographs of the Holy Land, & tell you about the rest when I get back to where all your letters are presumably waiting for me in distant Persia. My head aches with writing after a day of rushing around to a thousand places. It is 11. O’clock now, & I must get to bed. How I wished you had been with me. I’ve missed out lots of things. Send this to Erny & anybody who may be interested in my travels. Much love to all, Frank. 68. Frank to Ernest and his family, Lebanon, 28 August 1945 Please forward Home. 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge, J.F., 283 F. S. Sec., Intelligence Corps, Aug. 28, 45. P.A.I. Force. My dear brother & all, This is the last instalment of my travels, which you must send on home. I am now back in the Lebanon & in two days (Sep. 1st.) I go back to PAI Force, an almost unbelievable prospect after what has seemed an eternity, the only pleasure being that all your letters will be waiting. I have sent you a book & sent a small parcel home as well. I hope you are still at the farm, but expect news on getting back, & will write home then. 207 Reproduced below; the only photograph the family still has of Frank’s time in the Middle East. Frank Goodridge in Beirut, August 1945, ‘a photograph of myself taken on the beach at Beyrouth in the Lebanon. I know it looks very self-satisfied but there we are’. (Letter 69) On Friday, the day after my visit to the Dead Sea, I went on a day-trip to Shechem,208 Nazareth, & the Sea of Galilee. We set out early in the morning over the rocky hills of Judaea, through Samaria, up into the broad plains of Esdraelon209 208 209 Modern Nablus. Modern Jezreel. (where so many battles were fought of old,) & into the mountains of Galilee. But first I must digress. Some people who travel across these hills covered in rocks & stones, imagine that Palestine looked the same in the days of old: they picture Jesus springing from a land of desert & rocks & of squalor. This, of course, is a childish misconception, shared by Tissot210 who painted the pictures in your books. The historical facts are that:— 1/ The population of Palestine in the time of Jesus was twice or thrice that of today, even after the Jews have gone there. 2/ It was at that time a rich & fertile land of forests & agriculture (including the now even more hideous wastes of Transjordan), one of the richest countries of the Roman Empire. 3/ It was full of Roman highways, aqueducts & water-systems & irrigation more complex & complete than any such system today except in some parts of the U.S.A., a country of stately houses & cities, chariots & merchandise. ... The book I have sent you explains all this in detail, & puts forward a great scheme for the restoration of these countries. I hope you will share my enthusiasm.211 * * * * * The hills of Judaea & Samaria looked beautiful in the cool early morning. In the deep valleys are groves of olives, & a little boy sold us fresh figs, which are wonderful—nothing like the dried figs which we eat at home. We went through Shechem (now called Nablus), Jenin, & Afula, to Nazareth. Near Shechem we visited Jacob’s Well, where Jesus asked the woman of Samaria for a drink.212 A friar took us through a gate into a garden, inside the ruined columns of a half-built church, to a little shrine in a vault beneath the paving-stones. In this delightful little church was a well, lit with candles, where the friar let down a vessel by turning the handle, & gave us to drink the coolest, purest water. He then let down a tray of candles which he floated on the water far below, to show us the great depth of the well. Obviously it was one of the ancient wells dating back to ancient times, & probably the authentic Jacob’s Well. The plains of Esdraelon were cultivated by smart Jewish settlements, & the villages and townships beautiful. The road climbs very-high up & very abruptly to the hills where Nazareth stands high up in the cup of the mountain. On reaching the top one looks back to see a wonderful view over the plain. Nazareth is a busy James Tissot (1836-1902), painter, best known as an illustrator of Biblical scenes. See next letter and note. 212 John 4:6-29. 210 211 township, full of people & troops. We saw the usual pompous churches where the dwellings of the Holy Family were supposed to be, & were taken into vaults which we were told were the ‘caves’ where Jesus & his parents lived—as if anyone imagined they lived in a cave: then climbed up a hill through a narrow, smelly, & rancorous bazaar alley to a tiny church supposed to be the ancient synagogue. From Nazareth we drove over the hills of Galilee—more beautiful & grassy than those of Judaea (they say covered with flowers in spring) through the pretty little village of Cana, & on to the top where I saw, miles & miles below, my first sight of the Sea of Galilee. A great round sweep of the brightest blue, cupped like jewel deep down below, among what are now grim & desert mountains. It fulfilled all my expectations, & was magnificent. In the misty heat beyond, the forbidding mountains which made me remember so vividly a certain sermon by Alexander Findlay concerning the Gadarene swine. The only city left today on the shores is Tiberias, a busy & charming, but deadly hot town, half-Jew, half-Arab, nestling under the hills. Here we had lunch at the Church of Scotland Hostel—a lovely modern house—& went down to the Sea. We saw the Hot Springs of Tiberias where boiling, sulphurous water gushes up out of the depths of the rocks. Then we stopped in a rocky cave overshaded with trees (about a mile N. of Tiberias) & for two happy hours I bathed & paddled among the shingle. The water is limpid clear, & absolutely fresh & saltless, so that you can drink it. I could’nt persuade my driver to take me on to the dug-up ruins of Capernaum, nor could I persuade him to return to Jerusalem via the Jordan valley & Jericho—he said the road was too rough. So we went back the same way, missing Nazareth however. The next morning I took a bus to Jaffa, & from there got a taxi to the adjoining city of Tel-Aviv, where I put myself up again at the Ch. of Scotld. hostel. The whole of the coastal plain of Palestine, 30 years ago all marsh & sand-dunes, is now a smiling land of orchards & farms & fields & flowers. Tel-Aviv is a beautiful modern city, with clean boulevards, with trees & parks & modern flats, shops full of enticing objects, & a promenade where thousands of people sport themselves more sumptuously than at Bournemouth or Southend. This city was built entirely by Jews during the last 19 years, & was built on rolling sand-dunes. All the people live in beautiful blocks of flats, each forming a community of its own. A charming Jewess showed me & a few Yanks all the sights of the city, lecturing us about all the proud achievements of her people. She took us to modern schools & hospitals, exhibitions of industry & agriculture, & explained everything in great detail. I spent an hour on a nearby co-operative farming community, & saw healthy girls milking & crushing oranges & building up dykes, & had lunch with them in their refectory. They all (all the Jews) speak Hebrew and English. I admired them. ‘And the wilderness & the solitary place shall be glad for them’.213 They shall build ‘a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarcity’,214 & their ‘children’s teeth’, I pray and trust ‘will not be set on edge’.215 On Monday I came back here via Haifa, & have spent my last few days quietly by the sea. So much for my holiday. * * * * I do not expect to get out of the army before Christmas 1946, after careful consideration of my age & Service Group. Nor do I have the slightest idea how long P. & I. Force will continue, nor where I may go if it does’nt. It still may well mean a longish period in the Far East or Europe or the Middle East itself. If we leave Persia, even so we may remain a long time in Iraq, which is worse. Dad, please renew my subscription to the ‘Adelphi’ if it expires (I forget when it does) & renew ‘Spectator’ at end of year. And I would like to receive the ‘Times Literary Supplement’, Erny, if you can afford it: or I’ll forward the money. But please order it to my address. Love to you & all at home, Brother 69. Frank to Ernest, Lebanon, 29 August 1945 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge J.F., Aug. 29, 45. 283 F. S. Sec., Intelligence Corps, PAI Force. My dear brother, Herewith a book216 which I would like you to read carefully, & having read it I hope you will be an ardent supporter of the schemes & proposals which it contains. I know that it can’t be quite as interesting to you as it is to me, since I’ve traversed & seen most of the country & the places concerned, but it will be good for you to understand the problems of a kind of agriculture entirely different from the kind you have been engaged in, & also to know what heroic & strenuous efforts on its Isaiah 35:1. Deuteronomy 8:9. 215 A play on Jeremiah 31:29. 216 Walter Clay Lowdermilk, Palestine, Land of Promise, with a Foreword by Sir John Russell (1945). 213 214 behalf men & women are making under conditions which it is difficult for anyone at home to fully realise. Moreover it is a question which concerns every politicallyconscious person in the United Kingdom, since it depends entirely on political decisions made almost immediately by the British Government. Obviously this particular book approaches the matter from an angle (that of a soil-conservationist) which should appeal to you more than any other angle, & which is in fact the most important one. Above: The book Frank bought for his brother in Tel-Aviv, August 1945 I enclose a photograph of myself taken on the beach at Beyrouth in the Lebanon. I know it looks very self-satisfied but there we are. Love, Brother. P.S. I hope that if you are as impressed with this book as I am, you will publicise it among friends & get people to take an interest, & find out whether the Government is doing anything about it. 13. Abadan (September 1945-January 1946) ‘Tankers, tankers, & more tankers, Oil & more Oil’ 70. Frank to his family, [Abadan], 12 September 1945 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge, J.F., Sep. 12, 45. 283 F. S. Sec., Intelligence Corps, PAI Force. My dear mum, dad, Erny, & Margy, I am still here, doing very little except pursuing my own pursuits, reading and writing, and sometimes chatting with friends in evenings. I have sent off a parcel of books home, addressed to Erny; let me know when you get it. There is’nt much to write about just now. We are more or less just waiting around and having a pleasant, lazy time. I had a very delightful letter a few days ago from Sheila’s father who has left the YMCA, and appears to be doing nothing except, as he says, getting to know his home and family, which he rejoices in so indulgently, even better. He says that even he is always finding new mysteries in his own daughters, and never fails to find more as he muses over them and understands the strange depths of their characters which you can never get to the bottom of. He says he thinks Sheila is ‘developing in the right direction’, but, he says ‘even I can only leave that to time—and to you’, and that he hopes she will develop more and more towards me. ‘But she is a very delicate plant, and the gardeners, of whom you are one and I am another, must be very gentle’. Considering therefore his kindness and my friendship with him, I can only laugh when I hear what most people say about the people who may be their ‘inlaws’, whom most men consider a hindrance. Young Alison, our little artist-genius, writes to me that:— ‘I have always thought of you as if you were another brother, as some day I hope you will be’. My ideal is that while pursuing perhaps our varied activities in the world, we should all at heart be one community, sharing alike in one another’s happiness or sorrow, and even in time setting up a sort of centre to that community, from which our various activities should radiate. Even the process of bringing up children into the world should be something in which all, as well as just man and woman, have a part—grandads and grandmothers too. I want the woman I marry to be as much Erny’s sister as she would be my wife, and I want Erny’s wife to be as much my sister. And then one day too we can look forward to another brother in the shape of Margy’s husband… But being so effusive it is strange that Sheila should tolerate me because she is so reticent. That is why you must not press her to visit you if she does’nt find it easy. She is wistful and wondering, and really very trusting, so that I am not worried if I don’t hear from her for 3 weeks. I rush in on the sanctuary of her slow and shy method of realising things, and expect her to be as blunt and clear-cut as a Goodridge, instead of being a laughing, subtle Stuart, who explores life in the shifting mirror of a fine and rich sensibility, and only reaches conclusions after a long gallery of experience leading to a sudden moment of realisation. But twould make a good combination. It is still very hot and sultry and this morning I was driving across a desert in a scorching dust-storm on a motor-bike, the dust even penetrating my clothes. I have’nt got a car now. One never walks anywhere in a country like this, and it will seem strange when I come home to use my legs at all. Am much looking forward to a letter from you, Erny, giving your impressions of your new life I can imagine mum packing up your food for you as I used to have, and you getting up early before the house is awake. It would be better to ask Arnold if you can eat at the farm—would be much simpler.217 We always found the picnicking idea a nuisance. But perhaps you are energetic and cycle home for lunch. You must persuade Arnold not to use so much sulphate of ammonia on his land— I’m sure it spoils it in the long run. The fact is he’s got no idea. There’s nothing much to talk about concerning out here so I have to talk about things at home. Love to all, Frank 71. Frank to his family, [Abadan], 26 September 1945 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge, J.F., Sep. 26, 45. 283 F. S. Sec., Intelligence Corps, PAI Force. My dear mum, dad, Erny, & Margy, For some reason I have had scarcely a letter for weeks, except for dad’s letter of 8 Ernest was now working for Arnold Smithson at Park House Farm in Gainsborough, having finished his four-year stint working Stoke Fields Farm. 217 Sep., which did not tell me much of Erny’s reactions to Park House. But I expect that you are all very busy, and that I shall hear more of your new life all together very soon. Sheila, too, has gone into one of her blackout periods, during which, for some reason she finds letter-writing impossible. So I have been cut off a bit, and still have been living my quiet life of reading… more ‘News Chronicles’, Spectators, and books which previously have been lying unread for weeks and months. Did I tell you, Erny, about the wonderful novel I have been reading, and which I have at last finished tonight. It is a book Sheila once sent me—Franz Werfel’s (author of ‘Song of Bernadette’) last and greatest novel, ‘The Forty Days’ …an enormous chronicle, similar in character in some ways to ‘War & Peace’, telling of a cultured Armenian, who by some chance of fate was stranded in Syria during the last war, and was driven to become the leader of a group of his tortured and massacred people who held out for forty days on a mountain against the onslaughts of the Turks.218 Like Tolstoy, he uses the history of a whole era—that of the Ottoman Empire and the Armenian people, to bring out the struggles of individuals, and how they become heroic when caught in a web of what might seem blind and meaningless fate. But to give you thus the bare bones of a book which for a whole fortnight I have lived in, scarcely noticing the outside world, and carrying out my duties with the perfunctoriness of a worn-out ritual, is to destroy it for you before ever you begin it. But when I send it home you must read it. It is at last considerably cooler, and the nights are no longer hot. If they were to drop you here by parachute you would find it stifling but to us it is pleasant now. At about 4 in the morning you actually require to put a blanket over you. Of course we still sleep outside. My friends the Stuarts do NOT spell their name STEWART, dad, and I once was nearly murdered by them for making that mistake. I can guess pretty certainly now that I shall remain here for another few months. It is almost equally certain that we shall leave Persia before the end of February next year, but that does not necessarily include Iraq. If the university authorities secure me an early release, I do not expect it to happen before next autumn at the very Franz Werfel, The Forty Days of Musa Dagh [1933], trans. Geoffrey Dunlop (Boston, MA: David R. Godine, 1934). This was not translated into English in full until 2012, so Frank was reading an abridged version. Alex Ross describes the novel as the ‘first great fictional reckoning with the psychology of genocide’. Werfel was a best-selling Austrian writer, ‘the son of German speaking Jews in Prague’, who became one of the group of Hollywood exiles from Hitler in the 1940s sometimes called ‘Weimar on the Pacific’, where despite his political conservatism (he was ‘prone to outbursts against the Bolsheviks’) he was ‘well liked—a mystic in a crowd of skeptics’. (Alex Ross, ‘The Haunted California Idyll of German Writers in Exile, New Yorker, 9 March 2020.) 218 earliest. I will keep in touch with Oxford. Meanwhile there is no harm in looking ahead and finding out all about the new scheme for grants and suchlike. Tonight I was expecting a visit from some South African friends of mine off a ship, but am rather relieved that they have not turned up, so that I have been able to finish my book and write this letter. Our Sgt-Major has just come back from leave. I met him on his way at Damascus while I was returning. He did a different thing from me, he took a ship from Haifa to Cyprus, where he spent a happy five days of exploration. From what he tells me of Cyprus, I almost wish I had gone there, but one can’t do everything. I am now embarking on another enormous volume, which my friend Kit gave me for my 21st Birthday before I left Tehran, a book on the philosophy of history, by a favourite American critic of mine, Edmund Wilson.219 It is wonderful to be studious again—it reminds me of the far-off days of Mr. Ingram.220 I am actually compiling a note-book called ‘Post-war plans’ (it is difficult for us to think of the war as being over until we actually get back) in which I put all the things which suddenly come to me which I must do on returning to England. It is arranged under various headings, and is typical of the Goodridge—Ernulphine habit which I share of putting every thing down. It includes such things as the following:— ‘Starting a proper money account, assessing my fortune, starting a proper collection of book-reviews and of all important books published, sorting out all the rubbish accumulated in my drawers at home, buying all necessary clothes to keep me going during university career, trying to discover whether Sheila has any plans and if not, helping her and her old man to frame some, even a list of priorities for my activities at Oxford, which are these:— 1. Studying for English degree. 2. Learning french thoroughly. 3. Current affairs. 4. Agriculture. Then I have reminded myself in capital letters of the necessity of regaining the same physical health with which I left Park House, and of farming whenever possible, together with rigorous ‘No Smoking’ orders. It is almost like a Stakhanovite Five-Year plan. The point is that if I did nothing to remind myself of all these things I should be so dazed at getting home that I should forget all my practical necessities. And in my dreams of coming back the tiniest things are not forgotten. I even spent hours considering what will be the most important books to buy with whatever money I am able to use for books, and trying to figure out how I should arrange them on the shelves which I propose to make. I suppose it’s all very Frank appears to be reading Wilson’s To the Finland Station: A Study in the Writing and Acting of History (1940). 220 Frank’s English teacher at Kingswood, who had helped him to a decision about his call-up: see Prologue, ‘Reaching a Decision’ above. 219 selfish, but it’s better than landing back in a gaping void as to what really is ‘the next thing’—I seem to remember one of your sermons on that text. Have you yet carried out any sweeping reforms in the cowshed, Nulph? Don’t you think something ought to be done about the system of drawing water from the pond? Do you stand there pumping every morning like I used to do? Ha Ha Ha To think of you at Park House amuses me more every time I think of it. Do you still have to go and fetch loads of water in the water-cart from the spring at the bottom of ‘Cow Close’? Has Marian yet made any approaches to make you one of her elete circle of admirers? Or is she still in the ignoring stage? I consider it your solemn duty to break into the self-satisfied humdrum of the Smithson family with the same elephantine tactics I used. Tell them that the Government is about to nationalise the land and send inspectors round all the farms. That’s what they always dreaded. Enough nonsense, Jonathan. I must go to bed. Love to all, F. P.S. The Smithsons are just about the dead opposite of the Horners.221 I don’t know whether I prefer the gloomy industry of the one, or the gushing charm & selfsatisfaction of the other. It’s the contrast which makes it so funny for me to think of you at the latter! 72. Frank to his family, Abadan, 30 September 1945 Sep. 30, 45. 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge J.F. As usual Dear brother, mother, sister, father, There has been a slight hold-up in mail owing to riots in Palestine, so I got mum’s letter of 17th & of 24th Sept. together. Such a lot seems to be happening at home, and you only gave me the bare bones of things, so that I have to guess & read between the lines. I am absolutely longing for this great screed from Erny which you say will come. I want to know chiefly all about the farm & the new life he’s living there. And secondly I want to know—how silly!—all the details of what Sheila said when she came. Did she make you walk up to Park House with her after the service? And how did she introduce herself to you? And what did you talk about with her at dinnerThe two families who owned and ran, respectively, Park House Farm, Gainsborough, and Stoke Fields Farm, Newark, the two farms where Ernest (and earlier Frank), worked. 221 hour? I suppose it sounds childish, but that’s what I want to know. I should also like your opinion of the Smithson daughters, Nulphus. It always amuses me to see how dad goes through mum’s letters & corrects them! It was funnier this time, because mum writes a letter on one side of the page, in which she says that dad’s ageing a bit, & dad writes a letter on the other side saying it’s nonsense, he is’nt. Sheila always used to sit gazing wistfully into the fire, & sometimes puffing a cigarette through the middle of her lips, & whatever buried thoughts go through her mind heaven knows. I expect she was very diffident & seemingly careless, but that’s only a mask to her real feelings. I know you probably could’nt make her out at all. She never told me anything about it, & has’nt written for a long time. That often happens. I’m sorry I sent Pansey my ‘kind regards’. It does sound feeble, I know! But one never knows with people one has’nt met, even the nicest, sometimes like to sound terribly respectable. I’m glad she does’nt, & I won’t send her my ‘regards’ any more! I know well what the ooze is like in the crew yard, Erny. I always used to get the cart stuck & have to fetch a gear horse to assist. What field have you been carting it to? There is no more censorship of letters & I can tell you where I am. The only restriction now is that covered by the Official Secrets Act & one or two special matters, including things about the precise nature of my job. But anyway, here goes. I am stationed at ABADAN the central Oil Refinery of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, & the port to which most of the Tankers (British, American & all nationalities) come to take Oil & Petroleum. It is situated on the Shatt-Al-Arab (a long stretch of water rather like the Amazon!) which is the confluence of the Tigris & Euphrates, & it stands on the East Bank of the river (twice or 3 times the width of the Thames at London) on what is in fact a large island. It is 50 miles or so from the sea of the Gulf. Our side of the river is Persia, & the other side, where there is only palmtrees & mud-villages, is Iraq. The town, which did not exist before the Oil Company existed, consists entirely of an enormous Oil Refinery—just a gigantic factory, covering miles, where all the Oil is refined & pumped out in pipes to the ships at the jetties; surrounded with pretty avenues & bungalows where all the English employees & high-class Iranians live, rather like an English suburb. There is also a filthy, crowded native quarter, the most horrible mass of squalid alleys imaginable, which has grown up like a fungus. The whole place reeks of Oil, & one gets so used to it as not to notice. Save for all the trees planted by us round the houses & roads, & the small belts of palms along the river, the country round is scorching desert. The town is busy with trucks, & in order to persuade men to come here every modern facility is provided by the Company. The whole place belongs to the Company, more or less like an English colony. The majority of the English people here are dull & unimaginative people, who stay here for 8 or 12 years & become quite insensitive. My job has been concerned entirely with ships, & I have been on ships all the time. We have a large motor-launch & go round the river, climbing up ships ladders; sometimes in dust-storms when you can’t see an inch & the launch bobs up & down like a cork. Sometimes as flat as a pool glistening in the heat. Tankers, tankers, & more tankers, Oil & more Oil. That’s Abadan. There are other ports further up river which were used for Aid to Russia—Khorramshahr & Basra. These we often visit. The river often looks very beautiful & Amazonian in the cool of the evening, but all the ships regard it as easily the worst port in the world, & hate coming here. Today I am moving to a bungalow to do a slightly different job with a different set of fellows. But I shall still see my friends here, and shall be living in a beautiful house instead of a hut. Having nothing better to do we have been out fishing in the river recently, but have so far caught no fish. I shall have to look after a jeep again now, but I expect we shan’t be here much longer. It is cool now at nights. I am now over & moved in to the bungalow & have a pleasant little room to myself. My address is as before. My previous place is only 500 yards away. I have taken to smoking that curly pipe of Brownlow’s again. What have you done, Erny with my books & clothes & the junk in my drawers? What sort of a sermon did you preach on the evening when Sheila swooped silently upon you? See you one day Love to all, F. 73. Frank to his family, Abadan, 13 October 1945 As always. Oct. 13, 45. My dear mum, dad, & Margy, My big letter to Erny containing all the items of distant brotherly affection will have been received by now, so I’ll only write a short one this week as I expect he will read you whatever news there is from me. Despite the fact that the Palestine troubles are still causing delays in our mail, I got yours of Oct. 2, two days ago. The oil refinery at Abadan (from PAIForce, HMSO, 1948) The tedious tropical summer is still giving us its last spell of heat, with another hot wind coming over the gulf, after which I hope it will subside to a pleasant coolness more like July at home—and by December we may see some rain again, which will be beautiful. The other morning to my astonishment we woke up all wet and clammy to find a thick fog just like the early mornings in England. It LOOKED wonderful to see a fog again, but it felt awful and wet and drearily hot. There are’nt any blackberries on ABADAN island. In the late afternoons it is now cool enough to sit in the garden under the trees which gives a pleasant illusion of home. All the bungalows in Abadan have gardens because there are pipes which supply plenty of water from the river, and long ago when the oil company was started they shipped lots of sweet earth from England and made these gardens which are kept growing by daily waterings. Ours is quite profuse. Thanks for the photographs which were delightful. Last night at a party I met a Catholic priest and had an argument with him. The combined Protestant services here are half-hearted and feeble, and I’m afraid the few Oil Company people who attend it are merely the nostalgic type who go there to conjure up a little feeling of a far-away home which they need never have left had they not wanted to come here in order to make money. There is no real Protestant community really worth the name, and no non-conformist minister at all. The few Catholics I know here are very generous and charming, but again they make their religion more of an escape than anything else. The type of person out here is the type whose only idea is to make a lot of money then go back to England and live in comfort for the rest of their lives. Indeed I had never believed that there could be a community of English people so spiritually dead. Any little hamlet in England would have more in it for me than this town where I have to deal with selfimportant officials and people sitting behind office desks and inter-departmental squabbles. Thinking that they are upholding the great tradition of Britain by ‘giving work’ to a lot of miserable half-starved coolies. Honestly this is really one of the most miserable concerns in the world, despite its comfort and efficiency. I even prefer the rough and ready fellows I meet on board the ships. All for the sake of OIL. If anybody mentions OIL to me when I get home I shall scream. Let the Yanks have the lot of it if they want. Some of our ships are going to England nowadays, so you ought to get a bit more petrol ration. If you were to go to a certain English port you would find many a captain of a Tanker who would remember me. And they’d tell you that it was their primary ambition NEVER ever to go to Abadan any more. They say it’s the dullest and most horrible port in the world. The Yanks look at us in astonishment and say ‘Gee you guys kind of have to LIVE here I guess’. I shall laugh to think of you when the snow comes and you start putting chains on your tyres. My jeep has two punctures which I’ve got to mend—how I hate that sort of job in this place. One of the blokes went home yesterday and we wrote ‘Going Home’ on the back of his car and cheered him off just as you would a honeymoon couple. Hope he gets through Palestine alright without being held up by any riots. Have you ever seen any of these romantic films about the beauties of old BAGHDAD. If ever you do, and if you here roars of cynical laughter from somebody, you will know that the man who is laughing has been in PAIForce and seen what a miserable place Baghdad is. Sheffield is ten times more beautiful than Baghdad. O to be in SHEFFIELD (My typewriter has no exclamation mark). I will send you a lot of dates for Christmas. That’s all we’ve got out here which you would enjoy. Please send me a diary for 1946, which I shall need badly. Must go and tackle those tyres. Lots of love to Margy and all, Frank. 74. Frank to his family, Abadan, 22 October 1945 As before. Oct 22. 45, Monday. My dear mother, brother, father, & (not least) sister, I have 2 letters to answer—Erny’s and dad’s. First Erny’s. Well, brother, you did tell me most of what I wanted to know in the confined space of your letter-card. I am tremendously glad you like Park House, & your comments about it & the blokes tally exactly with my impressions. Perhaps you will find more in Joe Swinton as you get to know him. He has a strong personality buried deep, and would have had powers of leadership but for the bitterness of poverty and unemployment. And his cursings are not really lacking in humour! Sheila’s the last person on God’s Earth whom I’d expect anyone to appreciate straight off, & I agree she’s immature & potential rather than complete. But she has shown her maturity in one way. When she was in Wales she had some connections with a young Welsh farmer whose fondness for her was excessive. This caused a black-out for me for 8 weeks—then a letter, telling me every bit of the story, full of misery. ‘Robin was a thick curtain between us, but I have succeeded in gently drawing the curtain aside, & am glad I have forgotton about it!’ Most young damsels would not have thought much of a young fellow far away in the Persian Gulf, when a great, charming Welshman, with a quaint voice & the pride of the local village, a bard in his neighbourhood, & a rustic, lyrical cottage far away in the hills—when such a one had sollicited her attentions with all the passion of a Welshman. And she LOVES Wales & everything Welsh, just as you loved Kirkoswald. (Actually, now that he’s faded out, I have sympathy for poor old Robin, to be beaten by a fellow like me!) This terrible conflict was going on in her mind when she went to G’borough, & you did something to solve it. But I don’t like your adverse comparison between my wayward little girl & your fine lady of character! You talk about women as if you were talking about men, & you never make any mention of their charms, Nulph. You point out the obvious fact that S. is immature, but you don’t comment on her deep blue eyes! (Gosh!) And I would dare to suggest that even the noblest girls, even the mistresses of Arts, enjoy a little praise as to their outward as well as their inner virtues, and when they dress up in fine clothes they like a fine young man to escort them. Dad’s story of the Newark episode was so terribly funny, I chuckled for hours—I chuckled at my desk, & in my bath, & in my car. To think of the great Nulphus repenting in dust & ashes222 & apologising to a lady! Sorry if I’m malicious, but I must say, dad, that your description of the incident was the wittiest thing you’ve written for a long time. I begin to think that, despite your old age which mum talks about, you are (as Sheila said to me in a letter) getting quite FLIPPANT! Anyway, you have to remember that Erny’s only a good old Nottinghamshire Yokel, after all! Too much occupied, like good old Jeremiah, in crying out against Jerusalem, than in attending to the niceties of love! The reason for the ‘scurfiness’ of my face in the photograph, is this: when I had it taken there were a lot of bug-bites on my face & neck, because at Haifa I had slept in a bug-ridden bed! The photographer, who was a Syrian, promised me they would’nt show up, but they DID. Thus he had to ‘scrub them out’ of the negatives by using some sort of chemical—thus, the effect of skin disease! AB-ADAN means ‘beautiful (adam) water (ab)’. The word AB means ‘water’ in Arabic & Persian. Thus you’re all wrong about the ‘place of ruin’ though that would have been appropriate. You will find, good brother, that the Smithsons, whenever they sense the commencement of a happy liaison between a man & a woman, have a habit of fostering it by inviting them to tea together! In your case it does’nt seem to have worked. I’ll have to revert to pencil since my pen is lost & the ink’s gone. 222 Job 42:6. I’m not quite so fed up with things as I was before. The blokes with whom I lived before are coming here, so that we shall all be together in 2 bungalows side by side. The temperature in the shade at the hottest part of the day is now not more than 95100, which is’nt bad by our standards. At night it is quite as cool as midsummer noon at home! Last night I went to church & the preacher was a bit more inspiring than he usually is. Usually he’s like the man at Creswell who preached about ‘what is man’. It is nice to write a letter after one has spent two hours writing a lengthy report about the sordid goings-on of a lot of nefarious Customs Officials—or some such nonsense. At the present moment we feel our job is pointless, & if there is any point in keeping us here the reasons are political, & our actual function amounts to nothing. There are thousands of men doing nothing now, just champing to be allowed to do something. Our influence in the world would surely not decine if the Government gave the Army some real reconstruction work to do. I think men are very patient. When fresh troubles arise the world over, when nobody can see any signs of peace or real reconstruction, here we hang on, powerless even to tackle the insuperable problems which these countries, Iraq & Persia, present. Hoping that our presence will keep everything hanging fire. The more I see of things, the more I know that the Dick Sheppards223 & the Middleton Murrys & the Cummingses of this world are the only ones who were ever right. There is something grim & terrible & monstrous about the glibness with which they show the ruins of Berlin & a vast portrait of Stalin in the middle. I am very glad that Atlee is not one of these ‘Great’ leaders. God send us a few simple men for a change! The war has only turned the world into a mass of festering boils. I think England is the healthiest spot. If a married man wishes to be a candidate for the Ministry, what happens? I can’t believe that he has to be divorced first, or that he’s not allowed to be a candidate if he’s married. Therefore the obvious thing to do in my opinion is get married first, then you don’t have to wait for years & years. O dear, I always give the impression in letters that I’m being cynical, when really I’m not at all! And don’t imagine that the dullness of life out here has changed my outlook one bit, because it certainly has’nt. It has made me feel a greater longing for what dear old dad calls ‘the higher things’! And, believe me, I’ve see the lowest of the lowest things on earth. Many a night I have chased drunken seamen out of brothels the stench of which would kill an ordinary civilised man! Then I shove the man in jail for the night, & release him the following morning! A glorious life, it aint ’arf. Dick Sheppard (1880-1937), Anglican priest and Christian pacifist, and a prolific pamphleteer in this cause. 223 So much for that. Not for Margy’s consumption, I fear, though I always include her in the address. Lots of love, & to Pansey, & all the friends at home, Frank. 75. Frank to his family, Abadan, 31 October 1945 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge, J.F., Oct 31, 45. 283 F. S. Sec., Intelligence Corps, P.A.I Force. My dear mother, brother, father & sister, This afternoon I have received your parcel containing those articles I wanted. They are all just what I needed—just the little things that one can’t get here—so thank you very much. I have also got dad’s letter of 22 Oct., and the diary of two days later, which is also very good & very efficient of you. At last, at long last, the RAIN has come to us! For the last 3 days the sky began to glower, the atmosphere got heavier & heavier & damper & soggier & clammy, & tonight the wind blew up & the rains came in a vast thunderstorm with tremendous lightning & a huge downpour. Of course, by your standards it’s still warm & dense, but the rain—it is weird & wonderful to see the rain again. We have a little dog called Rufus who was born in May & is now quite big. But he has never seen rain before, or lightning, & he sits on the step outside the house staring in mute awe to see the unbelievable miracle of water from the skies! Poor little dog, as if he were seeing the sea for the first time ‘Silent, upon a peak, in Darien’!224 Most of the country for hundreds of miles North & round the shores of the Persian Gulf, changes from desert to swamp in winter. This island used to be a swamp until the Oil Company came, but there is a wall built 50 miles down river to keep it back. And so instead of dust, dust, dust, it will be mud. Mr. Stuart (whose name is NOT STEWART), has’nt written to me since his visit, but I hope you liked him. He’s quite right about Alison (whose name is NOT ALLison), being seemingly more mature than S. But that’s because she only wants one thing in life, which is painting, & has’nt the vicissitudes of deep feeling which her elder sister has. Sometimes when you address my letters, dad, you just put ‘F.S. Section, Intelligence Corps, P. & I.’, which is very absent-minded of you; there are about 8 224 Keats, ‘On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer’ (1817). different F.S. Sections in Iraq & Persia, so you must put the number 283 F.S. Sec., otherwise it causes trouble to the Army Postal Service & delays its arrival. I have bought a Christmas present for mum & Margy which cost me quite a lot, so since it is something which ought to give pleasure to all the family, & since I may not manage to find anything suitable for Males, Erny & dad will have to forgive me if I forget them! Also I can’t gauge whether it’ll arrive anywhere around Xmas! This business about Erny’s health worries me quite a bit, not because I imagine it to be very bad, but that it is likely to be one of those nuisances which keep imposing restrictions on one’s activities. What it all points to is that a man who is oblivious to the dangers which appertain to this mortal flesh of ours, needs a wife to square him up & calm down the tempo of his energies! I have no idea whatsoever what it means to have a high blood-pressure, & I thought that Bright’s Disease was a cattle-disease! Farm life is alright if the diet is balanced & good. Stokefields food for years would have killed me—heavy, proteinous, starchy masses of stuff, cooked in the worst way possible. One has to be more scientific & studied in what one eats, & in one’s own health. One can’t just trust blindly to the great energies by which nature sustains us. One can’t just go on using those energies without gauging the effects. Anyway, good brother, I hope you will relax more and eat bags & bags of greens, & I have’nt much fear for your health. I think honestly that you are too keyed up; noone can work so hard & live life at such a high pressure & with such intensity & vigour as you do, without discovering sometime that perhaps there is a strain, which you yourself don’t notice & which is probably hard to believe exists. You, who were brought up on the milk and sweetness of a public school, (& you were’nt much of a tough egg at school actually) suddenly go & live the life of a hard-baked countryman for years & years. It is difficult to believe that you’re doing it without sustaining some minor trouble. I don’t see why it should persist, anyway. Good old Nulph— what with schoolchildren poking fun at your lady, and now doctors nattering about your blood-pressure. Trials & tribulations, Nulph. Come to sunny Abadan, & your blood, good brother, would soon run thin! O that I had some of your ‘Blood Pressure’,—’cause it’s the other way round with me—blood lassitude or something. I’m glad you got the parcel. Do I look any DIFFERENT in the Beirut photograph, from what I looked when I left home? I’ve had a charming letter from Marian,225 who says that she is proud to think how Park House has meant something to us & how we all seem to be drawn there—me, & Sheila and you. She says that she feels that whatever made it happen like that, they are very lucky. She has improved, & she’s a good girl—I used to like her on the 225 Smithson. sly quite a lot. At one time she was in a stage where she would have looked askance at you as a pacifist! I’ve also heard from my very beloved friend Kit (my Tehran comrade) who is in Vienna. This is what he, an ardent Socialist, says about the Russians, whom he sees every day: ‘The Russians are PIGS, without the slightest idea of decency, law, justice, sanitation, socialism, or humanity’. Just chew that over. I know too—I saw them in Tehran,—O yes, with all their banners & beautiful songs. There were only two really great Bolsheviks & their names were TROTSKY & LENIN.226 But they failed.227 Poor old John Wesley, having his ‘PRIVATE’ life anatomised by Pansey in a Methodist Guild! I personally find other people’s love-affairs boring, but I think it’s a fine idea to make people realise that their idols were not the kind of people they imagine them to be. I would like her to tell me whether or not John Wesley was a teetotaller (which I very much doubt), & I would like her to give a lecture on the various wines & spirits drunk at marriage festivals in Galilee in the time of Jesus. I would also like to know about the glamorous dancing-girls of the Roman era, such as Mary Magdalene! Whoopee! I’ve been suffering from terrible toothache & neuralgia, so I have been in a state of nerves! But the tooth has been pulled out—a big one which the dentist had difficulty in extracting, causing me much pain—and now I’m fine again. Finally, brethren & sisters, I hope you are preparing a place for me in my father’s house, wherein there are many mansions to be built.228 I feel like a revolutionary exile, doomed to inactivity.229 But if there is any consolation in hope, etc. I’ll try to be patient. Lots of love to all (which includes the lecturer on John Wesley’s private life!) 230 Frank There is a heavily deleted phrase here. These remarks would seem to confirm that Frank was reading or had recently been reading Edmund Wilson’s To the Finland Station (see letter 71 and note), which deals at length with the two Russian Revolutionary leaders. 228 John 14:22. 229 Again an image from the lives of Lenin and Trotsky, as discussed by Edmund Wilson in his book (see letters 71 and 75). 230 Pansy Tagg. See letter 88 on the book about the ‘private life’ of Wesley that Frank, and perhaps Pansy, were reading. 226 227 76. Frank to his family, Abadan, 12 November 1945 Nov. 12, 45. 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge J.F., 283 F. S. Sec., Intelligence Corps, Persia & Iraq. My dear folks, I got letters of Nov. 1st from mum & Erny yesterday, which were very lively & full & refreshing. I am unfortunately suffering from a sudden attack of bronchial catarrh, due to the changes of climate, and the ‘Formalins’ you sent are therefore proving useful. I am staying indoors today, & I think it will soon be better without having to go to hospital. I am afraid one is always a bit run down in a place like this; I can only wait for the time when it will once again be possible to get really strong. As for Erny’s trouble, I think he is very strong but that there is just some fever which will be cured. I do see the funny side of it Nulph, but I think you’re a bit too nonchalant. Seeing you read all my letters to Pan, & seeing she seems to be the kind of person that one is pleased to have one’s letters read to, I may as well address them in future to mum, dad, Margy, & ‘(Erny & Pansy)’. Anyway I’m glad that my remarks about the womanliness of woman were sufficiently taunting to have the desired effect—i.e. to make you come out with a piece of manly & lyrical praise. I was very amused by mum’s remark ‘ERN has a lot to LERN’. Tell me more about Donald’s ‘NICE GIRL’. Remember me to Miss Raynor, & wish a happy Christmas from me to those whom I forget to greet. The temperature now does not rise above 80° in midday & it is cool like England at night. Frequently now the weather is dull & cloudy. One can sit out in the garden in the afternoons, & wear one’s battledress in evenings. The other day I gave my jeep such a do-over that it ought not to need any attention for months. I managed to squirt Oil into every one of the most awkward & obscure nipples, I topped up every crank-case & transmission case, gear-box, steering-box; finally I cleaned every inch & cranny inside & out with paraffin. I get a great sense of creative satisfaction out of working on my car, & to feel how smoothly everything runs afterwards. All the jobs which you take it to the Garage for, we in the Army have to do ourselves. If any of you are ever in Sheffield (or better still, Rotherham) or any large city, try & get me an Intelligence Corps hat-badge & send it out, because I’ve lost mine. Also the green shoulder-titles ‘Intelligence Corps’ which we are supposed to wear now that it is peace-time. Frank’s ‘rough map of the locality’, letter 76 I’m afraid I sent off my Xmas parcel to you too late for it to arrive in time, & I expect you may not get it till the New Year. Never mind, I hope that when it comes you will admire my sewing. There is also another danger. I sent a real, little lambskin for Margy. But I have since remembered that, just as dogs which come into the country from abroad are put in quarantine for a few months on arrival in case of infectious diseases, similarly, if the Customs open my parcel they may decide to burn it, because furs & skins come under the same interdict. Anyway I hope Margy gets her lambskin! I hate Customs officials. Only yesterday I had a rough with a Persian Customs fellow here—horrible, slimy, avaricious creatures. He was allowing passengers to come ashore from a ship without them showing their passports to ME! I told him that I did’nt care if the Shah of Persia arrived, I would still want to see him first. At present I have 180 passports in a basket, & my wonderful & imaginative job consists of checking through them all carefully. On American ships one can buy vests & shirts & all sorts of clothes, which is very useful. It is difficult to live here long without unconsciously acquiring a business instinct for being always ‘on the make’. Everyone here is like that. Rackets & thieving & suchlike are the very atmosphere of the whole place. Every Persian struggles for life at the expense of everyone else. And in the bazaar the cripples, & the children blinded by their parents at birth to prevent them joining the Army, & the deformed—the dwarfs & the legless & the people with 4 feet or enormous heads, the syphilitic multitude with sores & filth, these are the people that exist beneath the surface. We have seen pictures of Belsen Horror Camp, of starving & deformed people, & so on, & been terribly shocked. But I only have to go 200 yards & I am in a Persian bazaar where literally, there is more horror than in all the horror camps, and where the living & the dying are all together—half of the children do not attain the age of 3. [Above] is a rough map of the locality. The island of Abadan is 50 miles long. The thick black lines are the only roads. Must get to bed early tonight, & sleep away my cold. Love to all, Frank. 77. Frank to his family, Abadan, 25 November 1945 Abadan, PERSIA. Nov. 25, 45. My dear mum & dad, Just a short note to you this week, as I wrote a special letter for Erny. It’s been a very queer week. Firstly there has suddenly been a terrible lot of work for me, because of certain things that have been happening, & the work has’nt been very pleasant but very worrying, causing a certain amount of wrangling among ourselves as well as being very unpopular with certain other people; the excitement of having some real Intelligence work to do for a change soon wears off & one gets very fed up with it. It’s the kind of job where one a/ has to be so terribly subtle & terribly tactful that it is a great strain on the nerves. b/ has to be completely misunderstood, loathed, or laughed at as the occasion demands, and in general has to be someone quite unlike what one really is like— perhaps a surly upholder of stern justice (or injustice), perhaps a genteel & courteous & very English gentleman, or just a snarling policeman, or anything. The other thing, much nicer, which has given me some excitement is the fact that my little girl in Derby has suddenly been writing the most exuberant spate of letters I’ve ever had from her—all because she at last has a chance of getting out of nursing. For months & years she has been cramped into a limited environment which she has hated. It had made her unable to make up her mind about anything, & sometimes miserable & silent & almost sullen. Now she has at last been told that if her father can get her fixed up at some college, she will be released. This has opened great new vistas for her; she is able to think & choose & decide again, & the first result is a sudden gush of adoration towards me, partly because she thinks that I persuaded her father to do it, & secondly because the sudden release has made her feel free & her old self again. All of which was very thrilling for me. I’ve also got lots of letters all of a sudden from all sorts of people, which has cheered me up considerably. I expect you’ve read in the papers about affairs in N. Persia. 231 Actually it’s a long way from us & we’ve got nothing to do with it, but the papers have I think made too much of the whole business. We are having rain & cool weather nowadays. I don’t know whether it would seem very cool to you but I’m quite chilly. I think it’s sort of English September— October weather, but I can’t judge. My cold is a lot better. My jeep is covered in mud! Auntie Ruth wrote me a very snotty letter saying that she wondered whether she still had relations in Gainsborough because they had’nt been writing, also that I did’nt write; I told her that she was privileged to have the best relations in the world in Gainsborough, & that she would’nt be forgotten, even by her nephew in Persia! Poor old Auntie! She said ‘I’m sending 10/- to YOUR FATHER for you for Christmas’. I’ve sent off hundreds of Xmas cards to people. Bye bye. Love to Margy & all. F. This refers to the ‘Azerbaijan Crisis’. The Allied occupation of Iran was to have ended within six months of the war’s end, but an independence movement was formed in the north in September 1945 and by mid-November had captured the key posts in the territory. Initially Stalin supported this for his own strategic reasons (it has been called the first crisis of the cold war), but it crumbled a year later and the leaders fled to Moscow. 231 78. Frank to his family, Abadan, November 1945 (sent with gifts, 5 December) PERSIAN GULF. Nov. 45. Dear folks, Here are some presents which are SUPPOSED to reach you for Christmas. The tablecloth, which was made in a Persian bazaar by Persian artists, is for mum. I am afraid that I can’t guarantee that the colour will not go faint if it is washed, so keep it clean! The tobacco and cigars are for dad, & the sweets for Margy! The lambskin, which I also bought in a Persian bazaar, is also for Margy. It can be used if she likes to make fur to put round the collars of coats, or else as a tiny mat. Poor little lamb! The book, which is one Sheila sent me, is for Erny, & it’s the book I told you about in my letters—one of the best novels I have ever read.232 Happy Christmas. Much love to all, Frank. 79. Frank to his family, Abadan, 4 December 1945 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge, J.F., 283.F.S. Sec., Dec. 4, 45. Intelligence Corps, P.A.I. Force. My dear folks, Today we had FROST in the early morning. It looked like a miracle—real, ‘English’, hoar-frost & ice in the puddles; & so it really is quite cool now. For the last three days I’ve had a bit of a temperature. The doctor thought it might be malaria, but found out this morning that it was ‘just a flu’ chill, & now it’s gone completely after 2 days sweating in bed. I got your letter (dad) about 6 days ago. Sorry if I’ve caused any embarrassment by ‘linking’ certain ‘names’ together, but then they always go to you, so you can do what you like with my exuberant extravaganzas. One can never gauge such things from a distance. What Erny says sounds so definite, but then there is such a thing as Most probably Franz Werfel, The Forty Days of Musa Dagh (see letter 71), though Frank had also praised Constance Holme’s The Lonely Plough in superlative terms (letter 36). 232 inarticulateness, I know. However, from what you all tell me about Pan I should’nt say she’s the sort of person who would fail to take a very straitforward attitude towards things! I am looking forward to your parcel for Xmas, & I hope you get mine, as well as the Xmas cards, in time. I thought I had written to the Whittons when you first told me about their illness, but perhaps I did’nt, & I certainly will before Christmas. It is very difficult to remember all the people with whom one would wish to remain in contact. There are hundreds of letters I would like to write. As for the Spectator, please do renew it if W.E.W.233 does’nt. I can supply the subscription; if you give them my address they’ll send the bill. But let them keep sending it to Spital T. because I may move at the beginning of next year sometime. I must also write to Donald Handley. If you see him tell him I’ll be writing soon. I enjoyed your quotation from Wesley about brewers & distillers, but I don’t understand what he meant by ‘Blood’. ‘Blood is their foundation’—does blood mean ‘lust’, or what? I have now sent off all my Xmas cards & Xmas presents—quite a lot of them. I have’nt forgotten to send a card to Auntie Ruth! We have a new officer who is a very charming man, & we get on very well with him. The blokes are all going home one by one (having been in the Army for 5 or 6 years), & it looks as if I’ll be pretty important round here before long—since all the men senior to me are going home. I think that whatever the Russians do up North we shall probably move across into Iraq before March next year. Tonight, I am going to see that film ‘Keys of the Kingdom’ which has come to ABADAN at last!234 There are at least 2 FOOD PARCELS should arrive for you—one before Xmas, the other probably around the end of Jan.. Let me know if & when you get them. I’ve sent for some dates from Basra which I hope to get also. As the senior blokes go away I am gradually inheriting all the best beds & boxes & bookshelves etc.. Then when I go away I’ll have to sell them! You’ll see a picture in the British newspapers next year ‘The Last British Sgt. To Leave Iran’—me. I can imagine Park House in the winter, Erny: Carting the Mangolds & swedes235 out to the old beasts down in Cow Close, & the fuggy old cowshed & the water- Mr Whitton, a Gainsborough friend whom Frank regarded as an advisor and mentor, and who paid for a subscription for Frank to receive the Spectator magazine. 234 ‘The Keys of the Kingdom’, dir. John M. Stahl (Twentieth Century Fox, 1944). 235 Frank has actually written here the near-homonym ‘seeds’ in error. 233 pump, & the great muck-heap outside the cowshed door, & the slosh in the crewyard. Also how you have to manoeuvre the horses out of the stable & round the side-door opposite the house, then through into the stack-yard to hitch them up: and the blokes munching their greasy fat-bacon sandwiches in the granary or the cowshed. I expect it’s all the same. Does Arnold still love to lead the sheep around from field to field in a vague sort of manner, & lose half of them on the way? It is now dinner-time. Sometime when I get home we’ll have to fix up a long holiday for you Erny & we’ll all roam the hills together. The idea of an university life in which one is treated still partly like a schoolboy is a bit unpalatable after you’ve been bashing around in the Army. The idea of gowns & Provosts & bedtimes & things is rather exasperating. But I expect I’ll get used to it because there are such vast compensations. It will be strange to be starting side by side with boys of 17 straight from school. One will have to be very humble & tolerant. Thank heaven I never went there 3 years ago! It’s a good thing we’re not possessed by a passion for ‘getting on’, like some blokes, or else we’d never go to Oxfd. at all! Sorry this is a dull letter. Love to Margy & all, Frank. 80. Frank to Ernest, Abadan, 9 December 1945 Abadan, PERSIA Dec. 9, 45. Dear brother, Thanks for letter. I was very surprised that you did’nt rebuff me more severely for that ‘pernicious’ letter. Thank you for finding out about Fürst for me. I shall advise the War Office that Pan be recommended for the Intelligence Corps. By the way, tell the folks that I don’t need an Int. Corps badge after all, since a kind soul has given me one. Strangely enough, ladies & gentlemen, I too saw the ‘Keys of the Kingdom’ only last week. I felt the same about it as you did, with one or two limitations—in that I felt a certain weakness in the putting over of the Christian gospel in the thing—a certain half-baked shyness on the part of the actor in mentioning the name of God, a certain weakness of backbone as if they felt rather silly mentioning Jesus in a film. When I come back, Erny, we shall have some fine times, but there will also be some serious aspects. We’ll have to get organised—financially, practically, & in every way. I shall have so much on my hands & so many threads to gather up. But as long as you & Pan will be sensible enough to vouchsafe one fortnight of oblivion in the form of a holiday, which I think is crucial, I shan’t mind. I asked you to make investigations about the rulings for ‘Class B’ release for University scholarship holders. Surely there is a means of getting the dope—even in Gainsborough there should be a Forces Advisory Bureau or something. You see I can’t find out about it out here. Magdalen Tutorial Board said they’d do their best, but they have so many men to deal with that I’m not satisfied & I must try everywhere at once! Much as I disapprove of our dear dad’s obduracy concerning the car, I can’t for the life of me see why you could’nt go to Sheffield by bus or train! How nice it must be to have driving lessons with the chocolate thrown in! Actually I fear you still did’nt quite understand me about the deadliness of life out here. I was’nt describing to you an experience of pain or suffering or anything so elevating. I was describing a relationship to the world which, save for the promptings of conscience & of imagination, is purely nihilistic: my friend & I have come to the conclusion that it is impossible to explain why it is that a place like this reduces life to meaningless insignificance. All I’m telling you is that the qualitilessness of everything, the unnerving of the will & the sickening of the heart, is something which a/ you have’nt known, & b/ you never need to know. I am not speaking of the real struggles or the real pains of life. I am speaking of a deadly suspension where the things one does are merely a choice between themselves & something worse or duller: where men’s minds are like the back-curtain of a stage with no distance, no subtlety, no gradation, & where Jesus does not exist save as a subject of perverted humour. For me there are moments when I still hear those feet coming with majestic instancy. But save for the very simple or the very great, it is a world whose processes are such that conditions can sometimes make reality impossible. And anyway, Nulph, two paragraphs later in your letter you make my point so obvious yourself, when you admit that ‘life proves full & exciting’. Can you honestly tell me that for long periods you have ever found it otherwise? For various personal reasons Uttoxeter is the perfect place for me. It is near Derby, near to the places where my folk there have their holidays in Shropshire, & I just love the idea of going there better than anywhere, except that I’d prefer to stay in Gainsborough. Goodbye & sorry the letter is so dull. Much love, Brother. P.S. PLEASE persuade Dad to go to Uttoxeter. It thrills me, honestly, 20 or 30 times more than Derby.236 81. Frank to his family, Abadan, 23 December 1945 Persia. Dec. 23, 45. Dear mum, dad, & Erny, I have received dad’s letter with the 10/- note, & also the parcel with Erny’s and Pan’s books. I enclose a note for Pan thanking her for hers, and to my ‘beloved brother’ thanks are not necessary, since the ties of fellow-feeling are such that my appreciation is already stamped in his brotherly heart! I DO hope you get my parcel before Christmas, & that the book which is for Erny therein enclosed will be read by you & dad & Pan with the same thrill which it gave me. It is one of the really great books. Margy at least will no doubt have got her Bethlehem brooch, & mum’s tablecloth is with the parcel. I’ve sent some dates which should arrive in a couple of months. I have not started ‘The Robe’ yet, but have got going on Rom Landau & his mystics.237 While I appreciate the wild search he makes for new aspects of modern religious faith, & the belief in Providence & in the pattern of life, I have a slight feeling that he is too fond of ‘cults’ for their own sake. ... I am expecting that we shall be leaving here in the middle of January (possibly Jan. 15) & I shall then move to Basra in Iraq (at least for a time) which is 266 F.S. Sec., INT. Corps, PAI. Force. If not Jan. 15 it will be Feb. 1st. That is for your private information. My officer tells me that not long ago he got a letter from his Persian interpreter which began:— ‘Dear Sir, This afternoon I got wife trouble, & so I cannot come’. As a Wesleyan Methodist minister Frank’s father needed to move with his family to a different circuit at this time. Revd. Goodridge had in fact ministered on the Uttoxeter Circuit once before, as a Probationer Minister during the First World War. See J. B. Goodridge, Why Am I in Paradise? The ‘Great War’ Diaries of J. B. Goodridge, ed. Ernest N. Goodridge (1994). 237 Lloyd C. Douglas, The Robe (1942), a historical novel about the crucifixion; Rom Landua, God is My Adventure: a Book on Modern Mystics, Masters and Teachers (1935; new edition, London, 1943). 236 I too, Erny, share your prayers that an abundance of divine Grace will seep this Christmas into the deserted crannies of our hearts. It is difficult for me. If I were to write a Marxian analysis of this place’s economic foundations, I would say this:— 1/ In the Army the chief value-commodity is liquor & beer. 2/ The economic set-up of an Army mess is based on the quantity of liquor consumed, the profits of which allow for extra food. 3/ If you don’t drink at Christmas you are not contributing to the turkeys. 4/ I therefore shall go into the wilderness & be an outlaw! 5/ Abadan is based on a vast accumulation of ‘commodities’, primarily liquor (this is economically a fact). Since the money is debased & valueless these commodities have exchange-value out of proportion to their use-value. Liquor is primarily both. 6/ THUS—social life is entirely based on drinking. 7/ For some of us there is therefore no social life. QUOD ERAT DEMONSTRANDUM. In the above rigid stratas of an utterly decadent community, the generosity, the tenderness, the flow of give & take between human beings simply does not exist. That, too is NOT an exaggeration. Dec 25 It is now Christmas & we have just had an enormous dinner of turkeys & pork & Christmas pudding. Two nights ago I had a most happy evening. Everybody was very quiet in the room because I got Bach’s Christmas Oratorio from London on the wireless, & it was so wonderful that everybody listened, & I sat by the electric fire & read the Rom Landau book all the evening. This morning I felt bad because although I had made up my mind to go to the miserable little church, I got up too late & missed it. But everybody was very happy in the mess-drawing-room. I had decorated it with vast palm-fronds and flags which I got from the captains of ships—all sorts of flags. They were sitting reading & listening to the wireless where there were some carols on the far-away but audible B.B.C., and it is nice to see the blokes sober & happy. I played chess & sat on the carpet wondering what you were doing & Margy. The rest of today I shan’t go out but stay in my room & write letters. It is now 3 o’clock so it is 11.30 in Gainsborough & Erny & dad will be finishing services. Some of the blokes have gone to an Arab feast in a mud-village with a Sheikh, right down at the end of the island on the Gulf. I would have liked to have gone because I’ve never been down there & also because I’ve never been entertained by Arab nomads: but it would have meant eating probably a whole lamb & various horrible dishes the contents of which are indescribable, & probably drinking lots of Arak which is like paraffin, & also probably being very sick, & so I decided to forgo the experience & think of Christmas. There is a slight chance I may not go to Basra, but may have to stay on here with one other bloke in civvies till the end of February. My present job of looking after the port officially will end on 31st of this month, & I have handed over most of my duties to officials of the Oil Company. The first fortnight of January will be taken up with packing up our whole bag of tricks, which is a big job. I have got the Smithson Xmas card but there has been very little Christmas mail & I’m hoping for some this afternoon in a few minutes. (P.S. none today.) I have lots of apples & oranges & sweets & we have far more food than you get at home but that does’nt make it Christmas. Poor John Sawkins238 is in Sumatra, & I have heard a lot from him. The Army has at last published its scheme for release of scholarship-holders. It so far is only for men of release groups 1-49, and mine is 54, and it is done by direct negotiation between tutors & the War Office. The Colleges are fighting hard. Bye-bye everybody, All my love, Frank. 82. Frank to his family, Abadan, 2 January 1946 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge, J., 283 F.S. Section, INTELLIGENCE CORPS, Persia & Iraq. Jan 2, 1946. My dear mum, dad, Erny, & Margy, I think you will have got my letter thanking you for the books. I am so glad you got my parcel & everything was safe. I’ve received Margy’s & dad’s letters (15 &16 Dec) & also dads of 18 Dec.. I would have loved to have been at Margy’s Christmas party. Tell her that in Persia we get together & have Christmas parties, but that the people who live here are Mohammedans so they don’t. Also tell her that we use palm-leaves instead of Christmas trees. There’s no question of you being ‘ungenerous’ to me this Christmas, because whatever you sent would probably have to be returned erelong. I have read both 238 See letter 14 and note. Erny’s book & Pan’s, both of which were like new wine being poured into a stale bottle (that’s me). With regard to the former, I am greatly impressed by the teachings & discoveries of Rudolf Steiner, & intend to study them. Altogether it gave new aspects on the whole of ethics & of living, & the final chapter was very profound and realistically accurate.239 Since my friend Mr. Stuart is interested in such things, I’ve now sent him the book, thus keeping up the circulation of ideas which creates a hidden link between us. After all, the book you’ve got, Erny, is Sheila’s, and it is nice to think that these treasures should come all the way out to Persia in the course of their travels then go back elsewhere. You know, dad, that I am completely sympathetic with your interest in spiritual healing. But I think there is a danger in making it too easy. It seems to me necessary to study the very roots of human personality, its relationship to the earth,—yes, and the very stars too, & to God, in the most intense & difficult way, before one can put one’s faith in any direct healings of the body: to learn slowly how to be a complete person, and not to believe that a sudden emotional feeling towards somebody is tantamount to a creative, healing power. But I shall be very interested to know more of the woman to whom you refer. ‘The Robe’ is certainly the most thrilling and vivid ‘Romance’ of Christianity that I have read. The truth of it lies in its naïvete & simplicity. There are weaknesses in the story, but not in the picture as a whole. It is far better than that other gaudy book about the early Christians—Quo Vadis.240 And just as one’s picture of the story of ‘Adam & Eve’ is always coloured by ‘Paradise Lost’, so one’s picture of Jesus, of the ‘Big Fisherman’, & of Miriam & Bartholomew, will always be stamped with this book. It is yet another proof that the only explanation of Christianity which is logically possible, is just the fact that in ordinary human life among certain people, these things happened, & God did live with them in the flesh. Remember me to Miss Rayner when you see her. I expect I shall be hearing from you soon how you spent Christmas and all the rest of it. I expect Pan was staying with you, and I hope she had my pillowcase & took my place in the morning round the fire pulling things out. I hope Sheila comes again sometime, because I have a feeling that Pan should be able to plumb her enigmatic Of Steiner’s very many books, the likeliest here would perhaps be The Philosophy of Freedom (1894), trans. by Hermann Poppelbaum as The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity (1939). Steiner’s idea of ‘anthroposophy’ was taken up by some people in the circles Frank would join, including C. S. Lewis’s friend Owen Barfield. See Humphrey Carpenter, The Inklings (2006), pp. 36-7. 240 Henryk Sienkiewicz, Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero (1896; numerous translations from Polish into English from 1906 onwards). 239 personality better than Erny did. But don’t invite her—she’ll turn up again, in her own inscrutable time. It’s funny that Alison writes as often as she does, and yet nobody ever questions her devotion! When I want to find out what she’s up to Alison tells me all about it, in the manner of a very loving young sister, never dreaming that maybe I’m in the dark if she didn’t. She regards it all as a fait accompli—I’m her brother, No. 2, & that’s that. When Sheila writes, her letters are the most wonderful letters I could possibly imagine, so absolutely sincere. There is a rareness about their whole family, a sort of richness & generosity without any superficial gushing, which after a year & a half I still value as much as ever. _________________ Jan. 5, 45.241 I have now got Margy’s letter of 23 Dec., with her report, and dad’s of Christmas Eve. This afternoon I sent a parcel home of books & old letters to Erny for safe custody, which should arrive in a couple of months. I am glad Sheila sent you the big photo, though I don’t think it’s really awfully good. I am thrilled to see from Margy’s report that in dancing her footwork is so good! With regard to the business of your writing to Magdalen about my release: I am grateful for your enquiry from Capt. Cruikshanks, but I hope you have’nt written to Magdalen. All I asked you to do was to find out what the system was, & whether I was eligible. If you have written to Magdalen you will have only annoyed them considerably, because (as should have been obvious) I have been in touch with them, & have long since given them my particulars, & so has Mr. Sackett. Surely you could’nt have thought I was so stupid that I did’nt know that I had to write to the Tutorial Board of the College. They are very busy doing their best, & it can’t be very nice to keep getting letters about a bloke whom they know all about long since. 242 Actually the scheme has been now published (at last) & so I don’t need any more information. Capt. Cruikshanks, our venerable M.P.,243 if he had made proper enquiries from the War Minister, would have found out that it only applies as yet to men in Release Groups 1-49,—I’m in Group 54. What he says about doing it through the Dean is obvious, & we knew all about that years ago, & the aforesaid Dean Misdated a year. Frank’s father would continue to be zealous on his behalf: see for instance C. S. Lewis’s letter to him of 26 April 1949 (Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, II (2004), pp. 936-7). 243 See letter 62 and note. 241 242 knows all about me! Still I don’t suppose it’s done any harm. It might even help to convince them how anxious I am to get there; so never mind. Two days ago I took three blokes half-way to Baghdad to set them off on their journey home for demob.. I would willingly have driven on for the other 3000 miles. On my way back my car (a Hillman) broke down completely on a road straight in the middle of a 100 miles of Arabia Deserta. Just desert & darkness & a long road. I tinkered with the engine then gave it up. The stars span round & I sank down on the mudguard despairingly. It was uncannily silent, the desert was freezing cold, & I wondered whether there were any tribes around who might want to rob a wayfarer in such a sorry plight. I was woken up by the glare of headlights, & an Indian with a large truck towed me with a rope all the way back as far as Basra, where I arrived at 4 in the morning. I left the broken car there & hitch-hiked on to Abadan yesterday. Hillmans are awful cars. The Americans have left most of their camps derelict & have gone away. We shall follow soon. I’ve had letters from Auntie Mabel, & also a very amusing one from Marie Gray, all about her prospective engagement, marriage, & honeymoon! Tell her I’ll write erelong, if you see her. Our officer & our Sergt.-Major are gone home & we are just a bunch of 5 Sergeants. We are packing up & getting rid of all our furniture & everything gradually. Hope to hear soon from you about Christmas at home. Letters are taking a long while these days. Much love to all, F. 83. Frank to his family, Abadan, 9 January 1946 Abadan, Persia. Jan. 9, 45. My dear folks, Since I wrote a few days ago various of your letters have come which I must reply to. Got mum’s (Dec. 29), Margy’s (2 Jan), & Dad’s (2 Jan.), and a short note from E.N. in hospital. I had a long letter from Mr. Stuart all about the way they spend their Xmas, in which he asked me if I could get him a watch. I bought one from him, costing £9, and told him to send that sum to you, dad, for my Savings Account, so you’ll get the money shortly. I am going to try to buy a Persian carpet & bring it home: the reason being:— a/ It is a wonderful possession in itself. b/ A carpet bought in Persia, say, for about £20 sterling can be sold in England for about £100. £80 of clear profit would be of great use! (Aint that just rascally & wicked.) I am of course anxious to hear about Erny’s tests, & you will let me know as soon as you get any information. Don’t ever send any money to me, mum. It is better put in my savings, since my Army pay is enough for all my requirements out here. I am glad Sheila sent the photo, though I don’t think it’s very good. If I get home this year the only difference you will note in me is that I’m very thin. I’m afraid I never received Margy’s bookmarks, unless they were in the bookparcel & I missed them in the wrapping. I’m sorry, Argus dear, but they must have gone astray! (Yes I did get one—I’ve just found it!) I think it is very noble of Margy to give the proceeds of her carol-singing to the N.C.H.O.244 The thought of Erny in those surroundings is pitifully comical. You must persuade Pan245 to take him some flowers & calves-foot jelly. Obviously the poor fellow can’t eat much when he’s so ill. When he comes out Mum will be telling him not to ‘overdo himself’. Forgive my joking, but really… I can just feel his annoyance when they come & stick things in his mouth & bring him bottles & make his bed. A bit different from battling against the rain on a winter’s afternoon at Stokefields. Dear O Dear. Do they fasten you down & put a ring in your nose, Nulph. I shall call it ‘The Taming of the Bull’. Don’t let them make you ill, brother. Tell Pan that in Persia we hunt boars & bears & gazelle in jeeps, which is less energetic than the mount. I think she should learn to ski. I tried once or twice but was no good. ‘The irksomeness of eating in bed & trying to get comfortable between these METICULOUS sheets’. That’s a beautiful Ernulphine sentence. Your analysis of the effects of drinking or their causes etc. is a pretty good effort, dad. But it merely covers people who have formed a chronic habit of consuming alcohol, & who have lost their good sense. National Children’s Home and Orphanage, the charity for which Margaret’s aunt, Annie Goodridge worked. (See letter 11 and note.) 245 Pansy Tagg. (See letters 90, 91.) 244 I leave here on Feb. 1st, & go to Basra,246 where my address will still continue, I think, as 283 F.S. Section. I talked with our big Chief from Baghdad yesterday & he said that I might have to stay in Basra or Baghdad for a while, even perhaps all next summer, but there was still a chance we might quit Iraq & go to the Middle East. You don’t tell me what reply you got from Magdalen, & naturally therefore I suspect that they were pretty snotty. I’m afraid that they must think I was’nt satisfied with their reply & that I told you to write. Never mind, be patient, & I’ll do everything necessary. I talked to the Big Chief about it yesterday, & I am now fully conversant with the facts of the situation. Please send me the reply you got, if you did get one. I will quote a bit of a letter I just got from one of my old Bedford friends:— ‘The spring has started already, and it is a memorable one, for it coincides with a turning-point in our human affairs. At last the healing forces can outpace the destructive ones, & give us another chance of saving our civilisation. It’s a small thing, really; if this one smashes up, another will come in a few thousand years. Nevertheless, small though it be, it is our own. We share it with Buddha & Plato, Aristotle & Shakespeare, & with Jesus Christ. We owe it to them not to throw away prodigally what they have helped us fashion’. That, I think, is a very true & heartfelt letter. With love, F. 84. Frank to his family, Abadan, 16 January 1946 14655178 Sgt Goodridge, J.F., 283 F.S. Sec., INT. CORPS, PAI Force. Jan 16. My dear mum & dad & Margy & Erny, I have not heard from you any more since I last wrote, so just a short note this week. These last few weeks in Abadan I am doing absolutely nothing except writing letters and reading, and doing a bit of clerical work in the Section Office. We are in trouble actually because a stupid young fool whom we have with us, an utterly mad In fact Frank remained on the Iranian side of the Shatt-el-Arab until he was sent to Baghdad in Mid-February. It does not appear that he was ever stationed in Basrah, though he often visited it, and anticipated being posted there more than once (see letter 81). 246 & irresponsible idiot, has nearly killed himself by trying to run his jeep up a lamp post. This means Courts of Enquiries & a Court Martial, & a vast amount of unnecessary work which will only end up with 6 months detention for him. We are all very angry that this should happen just before our departure. Otherwise I’m just occupying myself with such desultory activities as pressing my trousers, buying one or two souvenirs of Persia in the bazaar, and answering Christmas letters, and typing out documents: also making my motor-bike shine like a new pin, & tuning it up so that it purrs along smoothly & gracefully. I so much love to have a car or a bike to look after that I shall miss it very much when I come home, not only because it gets you about but also because I adore looking after it & nursing it. I could do yours, of course, but that’s not the same as nursing a baby of one’s own. I miss my Spectators. I wrote what I thought was a very nice letter to Mr. Whitton, in which I casually mentioned how I liked getting them, but he did’nt reply! Sheila tells me she will get out of nursing in April. She seems very placidly resigned & happy, but her hospital life is so routine & regular that she worries & broods sometimes. Her letters are so quiet & wistful & simple; no elaboration or exaggeration. Even the ending is not conventional. It either says something or else not. I mean she does’nt say ‘with love, Sheila’. If she wants to express love, well she just ends by saying: ‘I love you’! If she does’nt want to say so she does’nt, & so just puts her name! A most original damsel, who would put most blokes off because they would’nt understand her simplicity. Another thing is her wonderful trust in her father, whose decisions are always ‘wise & for the best’. She said when I mentioned Uttoxeter as a vague possibility, ‘if I were you I should leave it to your Pop, whose decisions, I expect, like my Pop’s, are prompted by something which in the end is always for the best’. You will only really understand her when & if she becomes partly your daughter as well. Having sung her praises for the n’th time in a far land (which I have to do when you also sing the praises of Pan, which I know she more than deserves), I will have my dinner & finish. All my love, F. P.S. Have just received from you the ‘Adelphi’ for 1st Quarter of 1946. I am always thrilled when I get it; it is so much of England & full of thought which is really deep. 14. Khorramshahr (February 1946) ‘after all there was something I loved here’ 85. Frank to his family, Khorramshahr,247 6 February 1946 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge, J., Int. Corps, c/o Town Major,248 Khorramshahr, Persia. or 283/266 F.S. Sec. PAI Force. Feb. 6, 46. My dear mum, dad, brother, & Margy, I think that in my last letters I have been expatiating so much on my brother’s affairs that I have not told you about one or two things which I have been telling the other people to whom I write. I have not had any letters since my last one to Erny. In Southern Persia we have had our last spell of rain before the heat of the summer will begin to grow again, as it is just beginning now: in other words today the sun is as warm as your midsummer once again. But for six days Khorramshahr has been a sea of mud, such as the word ‘mud’ as you think of it conveys nothing. The streets have been like the sloshiest part of Mr. Smithson’s crew-yard in mid winter & one has just waded feet deep along the roads. It is a particularly oozy, slimy mud which is like the slime of river banks, & one can well believe how this part of the world was once under the sea. The mud is also in the yards of huts & houses & the floors of hovels, and the squalidity of human existence is seen at its worst. The Town Major was remarking to me yesterday how glad he will be to pull down the Union Jack for good from the roof of his house. Despite a certain love which I at least feel even for this the last of God’s countries, we are very glad to uphold the idea of Persia for the Persians, & to say goodbye. Yesterday Aboud my cook told me that his poor, old father was starving, so I gave him 100 RIs (about 15/-) out of my own pocket. But his father has benefited nothing, because Aboud, with the usual attitude of a depraved Persian, has already This may not have been a move at all: Frank could easily have been living there while working in Abadan, 10 miles to the south. It may simply mean that he is now allowed to give a civilian address. 248 It is possible that both here and in the text of the letter, ‘Town Major’ is a slip of the pen (understandable for a serving soldier) for ‘Town Mayor’. (Cf. ‘The Mayor Bids Welcome to All’, in Frank’s poem ‘Post War Visions 1944’, in Appendix B, below.) 247 spent my money in an orgy of drunkenness. When he comes back I shall kick him somewhere where it hurts. The best friend I have ever found among the Persians is the interpreter whom we call ‘George’ who lives here with me, & is a very good friend. His real name is Javon Bacht, which means ‘Young Fortune’ or ‘Youthful Destiny’, which amuses me, for he is neither young nor very fortunate. He sees all the hopelessness of his country and together we discuss what could be done by a little honest industry, a thing of which these people are utterly incapable. Just now he was out in the back garden explaining to me how a palm tree should be pruned & grafted properly, all of which husbandry the people neglect. He was saying what he could do if ever this garden here belonged to him, & although I tell him that I hope to see him as Prime Minister some day he insists that in such a country it would be better to keep chickens & provide a few poor people with eggs, for there is really no government only bandits & robbers. The terrible thing to remember is that for many thinking people in such countries as this, England is regarded as the model of everything good. I tried to describe some things to George: how the children at home get fresh milk in the schools, how the schoolgirls helped with the pea-picking in the summer, how we have rationed food & many such things. Obviously to these people the thought of a country where such things could happen is like a brave, new world. So really despite everything, I shall think when I leave Persia that after all there was something I loved here: If only more people were like old George. The other night George & I were in the house of a fairly rich young Englishspeaking Iranian & I got London on his wireless. There was a Christian service on the wireless, & George & my other friend were listening attentively to the Christian Minister’s sermon. It was a thrill for me because what the bloke said seemed to be meant for us—me & these two Moslem fellows. He said something simple enough for George & my other friend to understand, that we were all one family, Christians & Moslems & Germans & Russians, & that God loved us all. George was nodding his head as if hearing some old, forgotten tune which had been lost in the centuries. Luckily the parson ended by saying ‘There is one God’ (a Mohammedan saying, but it should have gone with—‘& Mohamet is his prophet’, but NO)—‘There is one God, & we are not his slaves but his family’. This struck at the roots of their Moslem outlook, & they said they thought it was true. I also argued with George that Mahomet was not the last of the prophets. I told him that if he came to England I would introduce him to some living prophets today. He was surprised at this. There is so much junk I have to sell before I go that with the money I may after all manage to buy a Persian carpet, one rich & magnificent in colour, which will still be good when my children’s children are born. George is a good auctioneer for my surplus junk, & when I tell him I want a carpet he says: ‘Al hamdo l’ellah—God is great—something will come’. Whatever information I require he produces the appropriate information, & they go & tell me about Russian spies & all that sort of thing, & when I tell them that I’m not interested and that the Russians are our Allies they just laugh & say that they know perfectly well we are interested, & they think we are here for the sole purpose of countering Russian activities, which is not true at all, but to them the English & Russians seem like enemies, & so that’s that. My pains & troubles in life, Erny, are different from yours, so different that only when we are together can I really tell you of all the things. One lives out one’s days on a lower level of sensibility, only there is a constant terrible threat of slipping into complete insensitiveness. Then one remembers something which might have been, & the terrible wastage of life, the long months of dross & chaos come down like a ton of bricks on one’s own head. In such a world, one asks the impossible of God, to change all the dross suddenly into gold, ‘cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy holy spirit’.249 But it is like asking for the moon to expect such a world as this to become beautiful. All one can do is to hope to be better oneself, & acknowledge an utter helplessness, & to accept the present with the hope of a new life to come. All I want is to share life again with you all, & to try to catch up with some of the things you have learnt during these years. Love to all, F. 86. Frank to his family, Khorramshahr, 10 February 1946 Khorramshahr, Persia Feb. 10, 46. (283/266 F.S. Sec., IRAQ Forces.) Dear folks, Just an extra bit of news which should be the best you’ve heard for a long time. From the Collect for Purity, a prayer that is part of the service in the worship of Anglican and other Christian denominations. 249 But first of all let me make it quite clear that it is NOT definite, it may not come off, & many things might happen to prevent it. Nevertheless all being well I am hoping—yes, believe me, God—to see you, my very beloved ones, in about 12 weeks time! It came like this: a sergeant-major friend of mine went to Baghdad & talked to a member of the PAI Force Headquarters Staff, who told him that 4 weeks leave in England was in future going to be given after 18 months, & therefore those of us who came out in September 44 are due for it in April. Of course I cannot be quite certain until it is officially published, & you must only take it as a 50% chance. But in any case, since the whole business of leave to England is being speeded up, I am almost certain to get it in spring or summer this year. Of course I should then have to come out abroad again until my release. As I say, there are certain things, of which I can’t tell thee, which may prevent it, & so far it is far from certain. Yet the thought of coming home so soon, even for a short while, makes me delirious. I won’t say any more about it. We will just hope. But don’t go round & say to anyone at all that ‘Frank is coming home in April’. I am telling you that it is a possibility, and the only reason I tell you is that I can’t restrain myself from doing so. And remember too that if I do, it will be farewell again after a few weeks & back to an angry summer in the East. If I see an English spring this year it will be with thanks to God. I got two letters (which are now being forwarded to me from Basra where 283 F.S. Section has moved to) mum’s of 25 Jan. & Dad’s of 28 Jan.. Perhaps your dream of Sheila & I & Pan & Erny round to take the table together will not be long. But me still a soldier & only on leave. I don’t see why Erny should have to wait for the doctor’s verdict before he could do anything to clear the way for Pan. I don’t think even if there were any physical defect that it should alter things between them. Remember me to the Smithsons. It will be different at Park House without Doreen. Glad you got the dates. Have you received any food parcels yet? I am answering your letters as I reread them so that’s why I skip from one subject then back to it again. It will be truly wonderful if Pan is really another member of the family when I come on leave—I mean not married but living as one of us. Particularly thrilling for me because to find another bright star in our heaven is much more wonderful than exploring a far country or any art or science: just to find another spirit with us is one of the things in life which is really great. I won’t continue the discussion which I always have with you, dad, about drink & debauchery & such moral matters, because when I come home I’ll tell you some things & we’ll discuss everything in the world face to face & not on paper. Thank you for re-ordering the Spectator; do NOT send it on, but keep it at home, because if I come in April or May I can read the back numbers at home, but if you send it on & it arrives while I’m on my way home, it will get lost. Sheila is dreamy, dad, I agree, but you will find after all the experience of worldly matters which I have been forced to have, I am no longer dreamy about practical matters, so if fruit comes of my love for her, I think I shall be a practical enough husband. I am glad you like ‘The Forty Days’. Erny MUST read it when his exams are over, & you must lend it to Pan also. Following through your letter I have to go back to the Nulphus affair again! You say ‘But with Erny here is 1/ Uncertainty of health 2/ Uncertainty of Home 3/ Financial uncertainty’. All those three are foolish. His health is serious but not more serious than human relationships, & it is always ‘in sickness & in health’ between man & woman. 2./ Uncertainty of Home is tripe because our home is no uncertain one I’m sure. 3./ Should never demand any worry. Teaching is alright & a stable profession, and so is the ministry, & anyway financially we’ll all amalgamate! Think not what ye shall put on & what ye shall eat.250 Fundamentally I can’t understand all this business about ‘waiting’ for Erny, as if he were dependent upon economic considerations. No doubt there are plenty of married students at Cambridge whose wives are still teachers or nurses. I don’t think there’s anything very unpleasant about that: Anyway if even I were in a position to have to choose between Oxford & Sheila, I should choose the LATTER first! The only real UNCERTAINTY is nothing to do with outward circumstances. The uncertainty is in his own heart (or hers). In all things between us I pray that we may let practical considerations follow the needs of the spirit, & not the needs of the spirit be forced to fit in with pre-arranged 250 Matthew 6:25. practical considerations. In this life one simply has to change one’s plans plenty of times, but not to change the spirit from its course. Soon I hope to be with you & talk no more nonsense. Much love, F. 15. PAIForce Headquarters, Baghdad (March 1946) ‘a problem of dissolution’ 87. Frank to his family, Baghdad, 18 February 1946 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge, J.F., Int. Corps, G.S.I., H.Q., Paiforce. 18.2.46 (Baghdad.) My dear mum, dad, Erny, & Margy, Another temporary change in my fortunes has come about. I really do think that the above address will be correct & will not change any more till the end of March. All the other addresses are now obsolete, and the letters you have sent to them will be gone astray & held up thereby. Please use only the above one until further notice. I was suddenly whipped away from Khorramshahr in the space of about two hours & told that I was going to work on the staff of ‘General Staff Intelligence’ at Baghdad, headquarters for Paiforce. There is myself and another fellow, Jackson, & we are the two clerks at Intelligence Headquarters. I spent 2 days in Basra, then came by train to Baghdad, & arrived here yesterday. I bundled my stuff up in a hurry & said goodbye to Persia, went by truck to Basra, then 2 days afterwards went in a nice sleeping compartment to Baghdad, & arrived at 10 O’clock yesterday morning. The countryside of Iraq, for once, looked quite pretty—this being the only time of the year when you see the grainfields & when the weather is cool. The impression of aridity & deathliness which Iraq usually gives me was not there. It all looked quite fresh & blooming along the banks of the great, muddy Tigris. The weather in Baghdad is cool, and the place looks quite stately and not really so bad as everybody says it is in this city. The great bridge over the Tigris presents a view of the city which, except for the squalidity of the buildings & the ragged beggars, is almost as magnificent as the view from Waterloo Bridge in London. I am pleased to be spending a month or two in Baghdad because I had not really seen this city before. I have at last bought myself a good watch, & being here makes one start being extravagant, especially when there is a good, English book-shop in the main street. ‘Friendship House’ is still going strong, but I have’nt seen the Methodist minister yet! Near our office is a marvelous canteen called Sallys where we spend half the morning, run by Englishwomen of the W.V.S.,251 & one gets the impression of being back in civilisation after the crude inconvenient & more squalid South. Our office is in a big building on the main road, stately & very dignified. Temporarily we are living in an Army Camp, cold & just like all army camps, & one might almost be back in the old Depot in Rotherham. But in a few days we shall move into a little house near the office, & forget the camp altogether. Our chief function here will be to clean up the whole organisation, destroy thousands of secret documents & send all the staff away. A problem of dissolution. Yesterday afternoon & evening Jackson & I spent in the city, the first time I have explored Baghdad in daylight. We spent a lot of time admiring the work of the silversmiths. Baghdad is not as pretentious as Tehran & not so magnificent & sparkling as Alexandria, & not so civilised & cultured as any of the cities of Palestine or the Levant. But it isn’t so bad: busy & full of goods & haggling & everything you expect in an Eastern city. But it does not compare with Damascus or any of the other famous cities. There are some good mosques here however. I am still hoping to have leave in April but am not expecting to be home till the end of the month or beginning of May, & to return to Middle East in June. I think the only one of your letters I have’nt answered yet is mum’s of Feb 4. I am glad there is no organic disease with Erny. I suspect that his old heart’s been beating like that since he was born, & was always too big to be clothed in the normalities of human flesh! I am glad that my letters about E. & P. were’nt as much off the point as I thought they might have been. You say he must let her CHOOSE, but have you presented a clear choice? Have you actually made it easy for her to choose you & our home? Unless you ask her to marry you she has no choice at all anyway, so why make out she has? If you did that then it WOULD be a clear choice, which is what it ought’a be. Don’t fuss over my homecoming too much. I’ll just walk in & that’s all, & we shan’t be any different. But if I look thin don’t worry. Poor Mr. Stuart did’nt want to pay so much for a pen as the one I bought him, so he says he will send you the money in instalments 251 Women’s Voluntary Service. I laughed at your last sentence, mum ‘Margy gets no smaller—rather bigger’. I can’t picture her any bigger. Margy growing bigger & Erny’s heart going like mad— what next? Will write later, Love, F. P.S. I have not answered a letter which Marie Gray wrote me a long time ago. Tell her I’m sorry & I appreciated it & will reply soon. 88. Frank to his family, Baghdad, 1 March 1946 G S I HQ IRAQ COMMAND. Mar. 1. Dear dad & all, Have received your letter of 18 Feb. & also the Peter Howard book. The latter I have not read all yet, but am not impressed I’m afraid.252 Finished reading Son to Susanna, & can’t help thinking that Wesley did make a mess of things as far as his women were concerned!253 Why is it regarded as such a wonderful sacrifice to marry a woman who was a bugbear all his life? I think it was just a gross, human mistake, & that it would have been better for him & for everybody had he married Grace Murray. Also I find it difficult to believe that Charles Wesley was really such a pretentious little fool as she pictures him. But it was all very delightful to read & goodly, despite all the shocking quarrels & ghoulish mistakes. Glad to hear of Margy going to Bury. I hate you saying I’m a ‘clever lad’, for the simple obvious reason that I was never ever clever in anything, & how you could misunderstand me sufficiently to think so heaven only knows. In all things which demand cleverness I inevitably make a fool of myself. Nor do I want to be clever. I may try to write a sermon on that glorious locust text of yours, but I don’t see why yours need be a bad one, nor why I should be able to write a better. I can guess what you wanted to say well enough. 252 253 Probably Peter Howard, Ideas Have Legs (1945). G. Elsie Harrison, Son to Susannah: The Private Life of John Wesley (1944). Sheila’s reaction on hearing of my leave was so exuberant that I scarcely knew how to take her letter up lest it should burn my fingers. Her father wrote me another of his enormous epistles—I will show you some when I come home. He says he finds letter-writing the most healthy way of ‘expanding his ego’! He writes quite brilliantly & is really a clever man as well as a good one, yet I am sometimes a little afraid that there is a touch of arrogance in all his warm-hearted soul. He is so proud of his daughters & his son, & he feels an uniqueness about his family & the community which has gathered round them of which he is rightly proud & happy. Yet I think it will be good for him to know Erny (& Pan.) When I come home could you invite him to preach at Wesley: I think they would love him there, and since he is a great friend to me, I know he would appreciate & accept such an invitation. It would perhaps relieve your difficulties over the absence of your colleague. That is a serious suggestion, & I’d like you to do it. You know his address so write & ask him. Maybe the first or second week in May would be best. It would also please the Smithsons, since he’s a great pal of theirs. Plan him for morning and evening! Make him work for his living—he does’nt do any work except occasional preaching! As a matter of fact he keeps saying he wants to go back to Gainsborough to see his folk there, and this would give him an opportunity. Actually, the rarest person in their family, at the bottom is Mrs. Stuart, & I’m sorry mum never really knew her better. More later, Love to all, F Address: MR. H.G. STUART, 30, Hollies Rd., Alestree, DERBY. 89. Frank to his family, Baghdad, 6 March 1946 14655178 Sgt. Goodridge, J., Int. Corps, G S I Branch, HQ Iraq Command. Mar. 6, 46. My dear mum, dad, & brother, Now that I am working in an office, I like to just scribble little notes off & on instead of writing a few big letters. It fills in the odd moments when there is no work to do. I got mum’s letter of Feb. 26 yesterday. I think by this time I have caught up all the letters sent to my old addresses. I will write a note to Grandma though I missed her birthday. There should have been at least three of those food parcels: one every month towards the end of last year, & several date packages. I am afraid some them have not come. I was amused at your mock wedding, but it’s about time you had some real ones for a change. Marian S. must have looked buxom as a bridesmaid, her dimpled self. I was also amused about Donald & his wife walking by. As far as I remember Arnold Smithson always had those glum moments when he felt the farm was unmanageable, & his men were useless. He dearly loves his farm, & is divided against himself because at heart he KNOWS he runs it badly & it is a terribly sore point with him. I too would love to see that farm run well, because in itself it is a rich & lovely place. I shall enjoy going up there again. There is still nothing definite about my leave, though there is nothing to stop it so far either. The terrifying thing about it is the journey. The journey itself takes (one way) about as long as the leave, & all the blokes coming back describe the most horrible journey in the world—carrying all one’s kit all the time. You go to Haifa in the trucks—same as I did on leave to Beirut, then a third class carriage (like cattle trucks) to Port Said. At every place there is walking to Transit Camps, staying for days in tents, then the ship over the Mediterranean is a filthy old French hulk, & Toulon Transit camp is said to be the worst of all. Then the journey across France is 36 hours gruelling discomfort, & it is not until you reach Dieppe that you begin to see the daylight. Then after 4 weeks at home another 4 weeks travelling just the same all the way back. Some blokes have even refused it on hearing reports of what the journey is like! So you will think what a lot I shall have to go though in order to see your beauteous faces for a short space! Actually I would do it for one week at home, never mind 4. I am terribly busy in the office at the present & there is little time to spare. However, yesterday being my day off I went on a long trip to see the ruins of the ancient city of Samarra, on the Tigris 70 miles north of Baghdad. If it were not for our eagerness to see these places we would not endure being bumped there & back in a day in a great truck over desert roads which are all holes & rubble & no flat patches. Unfortunately in the morning, there was a dust-storm & we could’nt see a thing. But it cleared by the time we got to our destination. There is a boat bridge across the Tigris (very rickety) & then the track winds up a rocky escarpment to the granite little Eastern village (very Eastern & far away from anywhere) which is all that remains of the once proud city of Samarra (built in 8th Century.) You read strange books about wonderful golden temples being found in far-away desert places. The mosque of Samarra is like that: a wonderful coloured temple with a vast courtyard, the whole thing the size of Lincoln cathedral, with a vast dome of pure gold—all in a desert village with an old bazaar & a few old Arabs! It was the best mosque I have seen. A boat bridge across the Shatt-al-Arab near Basrah, built over ‘native craft’ and similar to the one across the Tigris Frank describes (from PAIForce, HMSO, 1948) The ‘countryside’ of Iraq is strange indeed to anyone accustomed to English countryside. Of course most of it is dunes & desert with rough grass in the hollows, then a mud-village with palm-groves, then desert again, then a broad valley with indiscriminate patches of green corn sprouting in the wilderness—no fields, and no farm-houses, only a few mud-dwellings or wattle-huts, & sometimes it is difficult to tell whether the land is planted with anything or whether it is not! There is no question of ‘exploring’ in the sense of walking round highways & byways, because it is just flatly desolate, & only in the lower Tigris or Euphrates valleys do you find large areas of consistent cultivation. For 20 miles along a rocky escarpment at Samarra are strewn the remains of an old city, with trenches dug by the British & the Turks during the last war. There is a Ziggurat, a tall solid tower like a church tower, all in spirals. There were the ruins of ancient palaces & all sorts. From the top of the Ziggurat you could see the mountains of Persia far away to the East. I am never thrilled with looking at views, but these were quite impressive. Now there is more work to do so I’ll write another note later. Love, F. 90. Frank to Ernest and Pansy and to his family, Baghdad, 9 March 1946 GSI HQ Iraq Command. Mar. 9, 46. My dear Erny & Pan (& all), I got that gushingly happy sort of letter of yours written on ‘Sat. afternoon’ whenever that was. Now, then, kids, listen to your younger brother, what he shall say. It’s all very well being desperately sad & self-reproachful, and it’s all very well being hysterically happy, or whatever else you are, but I can see that when this supposed happy gathering of May comes off we’ll have to start doing a bit of tough planning. It’s all very well having mock-marriages & singing hymns, & proclaiming that the years which the locust hath eaten shall be restored unto us,254 & the lambs are gambolling in the fields, but we’ve got to get our teeth into the idea of actually what big things we’re going to do as life broadens out into the uplands of stability & the vistas of love & all the rest of it! I challenge either of you to repeat that sentence by heart. Moreover, Pan, I would have you know that I have always valued my father’s tuft of hair, & that I shall stand by him against all enemies which may threaten the pillars of orthodoxy, either in religion or love. I am sad to hear of you going over into the camp of the enemy. And, as Dogberry, (or Verges) said, Tenthly and lastly, I may not be coming home in May at all, so that you may have to carry on another couple of months without my encouragement or my wisdom.255 Those of us who thought we were due to leave in April are at present in a cold sweat. Every day we wait for the letter of confirmation to come through & it has’nt come yet. Perhaps the whole thing is postponed. It is desperate not to know. Sheila is one of those miraculously complex, simple personalities, that one wonders however they came out of the egg—one pictures the blink of wonderment & the recoil of misgiving in her very eyes. Wistful is the only word. Her sister is dynamic—her letters to me from Edinburgh256 have that freshness which one can only compare to a cloud scudding before the wind, or the kisses of the mist on the mountain-tops. You shall read them erelong. Joel 2:25. Much Ado About Nothing, V.i.206-10. 256 Alison studied painting and drawing there from 1945-49. See note to letter 39. 254 255 If I don’t come in May it will be any month between April & August. Don’t be surprised if I don’t, because in the Army decisions keep changing & the machinery creaks while the men are left helplessly entangled. Look carefully after those letters & books of mine, Erny. There will be another parcel in a couple of months, which, if I am not at home to receive it, will be addressed to MYSELF, and that means that is doesn’t have to be opened till I come home to open it. That applies to any parcels addressed to myself: there may be books which I want to give to you in person, & there may be one or two letters & photographs & writings which at least I would not want you to see without me to interpret them!! I may have to go down once again to live in Basra before long. O dear! Backwards & forwards, lugging stuff around, a hellish summer coming on, & my leave uncertain. If I do come home in April, I may catch Margy before she goes to school. Sheila will still be nursing, & it may be difficult to persuade her matron to give her a holiday. So please don’t bank on this wonderful week-end with the four of us together. O how I wish I could come home for good—not because I want to avoid the hardship of the journey back & another supertropical summer, but because the hardship seems purposeless. O that we could begin together this spring or this summer, & really get started. However much you may be on the way, I am still in the position of having to return out here, perhaps for many months, physically weak, getting nothing done, however simple, and we cannot yet begin to realise any communal effort, not with me in it at any rate. I have already learnt all (on the worldly side) which such ‘experiences’ can ever teach, yet there is no escape. My leave, if & when it comes, will only be a temporary glimpse of future possibilities, & nothing more yet at all. Moreover I fear the idea of studying English at Oxford appeals to me less & less as the months roll by. If only I could learn forestry or agriculture; but it is too late. The idea of being cut off from farming terrifies me. Even in order to get strong I need to farm—yet it will be straight to Oxford, & that has’nt got one tenth the thrill for me that it had when I first got the scholarship. Nor has the idea of Mr. C.S. Lewis. There is a sort of irreconcilable polarity between a man like C.S.L. & Middleton Murry, and I prefer the latter. It’s ‘Lodge Farm’ or ‘Magdalen College’ sort of idea, & I think probably there’s more health in ‘Lodge Farm’ than in all the scholarly & erudite acuteness of the other. When you’ve been in the Army, I tell you honestly that College is’nt a very sweet-sounding word, with its gowns & proctors & 6th form boys lisping their romantic ideals to the skies. Instead of the gown, I want a little of that homespun which Marcellus went to look for in Galilee—perhaps also, like him, if I found the homespun I might find Jesus too.257 Does Pan like music? I mean, do you like music, Pan? Because if so I propose a visit to London one of these days & a big splash. Erny could come as a hanger-on. (How nasty, Frank!) If not music there are lots of other things, such as Sheila’s uncle Arnold, of the Royal Academy (but not a bad painter all the same!) & various aesthetic friends of mine who are very smashing people! This is getting a horrible letter. Anyway, I’m fed up with it all. Why don’t they tell me—YOU AINT GETTING NO LEAVE YET or else YOU ARE. Don’t make any plans about me coming. It’s no use. It’s probably a big swindle. I still don’t see why I should’nt get it, except that word should have come through by now. Anyway lots of love, F. P.S. Don’t think I ever get cynical. But there is an acid tang about life which sometimes corrodes the coccles of my heart. Which I suppose is cynicism, but with a grin. P.P.S. Agree about Hitler & Mein Kampf.258 Same applies to Lenin. Bolshevism is more cruel & crude than Nazism was. The only balanced book about Germany is ‘Reaching for the Stars’.259 This is the final letter we have from Frank’s time in the army. His official record of service shows he was transferred from PAIForce to home duties on 17 April 1946, and discharged from the army a month later, on 18 May. Like all soldiers released from service, he was automatically transferred to Army General Reserve.260 His Class ‘B’ release (‘special skills’) was widely used for teachers, scientists, scholars and students, but was restricted, and governed by individual commanding officers. It is probable Frank’s scholarship to Oxford got him released, possibly following an intervention from C. S. Lewis via the Magdalen College Tutorial Board (see letters 26, 64, 80, 82). Frank then spent time over the summer, as of old, in farm work, and (despite the doubts expressed in letter 90) preparing to go up to Magdalen in the Michaelmas term to start his degree. The reference is to Lloyd C. Douglas’s The Robe (1942) which tells the story of Marcellus, a Roman soldier responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. It was made into a biblical epic movie in 1953, dir. Henry Koster. 258 Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (abridged English version 1933, full version 1938). 259 Nora Waln, Reaching for the Stars (1939). 260 Frank would finally be released from reserve service on 30 June 1959. 257 EPILOGUE: POST-DEMOBILISATION AND UNIVERSITY, 1946 16. Alkmonton, Derbyshire and Magdalen College, Oxford (July and October 1946) ‘Mr. Lewis is charming & delightful’ 91. Frank to his family, Alkmonton, Derbyshire, [7 July 1946] Alkmonton. Sunday morning. My dear mum & dad, Erny & Pan, There is a lot to tell you so I must write methodically & tersely today. It is a hot morning: Fred’s day off so Wilf & I are milking today: am sitting in my room with the window wide open over the valley. The Stuarts have gone for a long week-end with Aunty Alice at Chandlers Ford in Hampshire where Pop is preaching, & today will be having a trip to the sea at Southsea. Owing to several late nights this week I am so tired this week-end that I went to sleep on my bed after breakfast this morning & shall sleep till milking after dinner, then tonight go with Fred & Joan & her parents to hear Fred preach at Skropton.261 I got your letter of Thursday, dad, and Margy’s, which will come back when Sheila has read it. I enclose another old one of Margy’s. I repeat to Erny we were sorry but we would have missed our bus had we not pinched his case; I hope S. will return it soon; such things I deliberately leave her to do so that she will become more methodical! I hope dad you got the postal draft I sent you to change. I must confess I shall be sorry if the wedding is not at Anston, & though I appreciate dad’s feelings I can’t help agreeing with Pan that a Wesley Gainsborough wedding would have a certain tasteless tang of varnish about it; whereas to me I would see you both as pilgrims setting your white sails forth as the Mayflower, amidst some more simply & less frothy environment.262 If you leave your decision about Uttoxeter till Aug. 1947 you may miss it altogether since they like to book early here. Mr. Stuart has almost decided to accept Leicester but it is still secret. Scropton, Derby. Nevertheless, Ernest Noel Goodridge and Pansy Tagg did indeed marry at Gainsborough, on Friday 16 August 1946, in a ceremony presided over by the bridegroom’s father. Frank served as his brother’s best man, and their sister Margaret was a bridesmaid. 261 262 _____________ Well, the three of us were very sorry to leave Gainsborough so soon on Wednesday but felt we must fulfil our purpose & it turned out a glorious & very happy day. By the way, Pan, one thing about you that does me good is that whereas when I say something affected you just don’t register, but when I say something sincere you register enormously. Thus I deduce that when I said I was sorry you had to rise from slumber I was being affected, & was very pleased that you both did! Alison was thrilled to see you all. She really could not get over feeling overjoyed because she felt you were not strangers. At Lincoln it was lazy & hot & we were childishly happy. All the antique shops proved to be mere quackery and junk, and Sheila changed her viewpoint & started off the real jewellery shops looking at new rings. Alas there were some lovely ones & she got eager but none would fit & it was also closing time. Then I suddenly saw ‘Wholesale Cooperative Society Jewellery Department’. As real labour supporters we went in chuckling, to find the best & nicest of all & the very one we wanted, & bought it. Being £1 short I left a deposit & it is being sent on. It is a wee one like Pan’s—platinum (I hope) with 3 tiny diamonds well cut. The three diamonds represent S. & Alison & I, whose other names are Oppy for Alison, since she is optimistic, Pessy for me (reason the opposite), and Whimsy for Sheila, which is the whimsical one in the middle. The ring is called CWS. Then we went & bought an ice-cream, sat on a seat in Lincoln High Street, then had a long dinner in the beautiful old High Bridge Café where they grind coffee, & got the 2.35 train back to Derby, arriving there at about 4.15. We had a compartment to ourselves & dozed off in perfect contentment. Arriving in Derby we found there was a bus to Longford at 6.30 and they had to come back to the farm with me to collect their bikes. We went home giggling & chuckling like kids determined to break through the Rev. H.G.S.’s263 malaise or discontent (brought about by the fact that Mrs. S. & the girls had preferred to entertain you two than to go to Hampshire with him.) We burst into the house with such a noise & such shrieks of laughter that he was swept away. Then ensued a very peculiar psychological mixture. Suspecting our mission, he glanced at her finger & seeing no ring assumed that we had not been buying one at all. Moreover, since Sheila has never yet announced our engagement, they had refused to recognise it until she did, & had decided to treat it as it were a great surprise, which we thought ludicrous. In the middle of tea Sheila said ‘Oh, daddy, we’ve been doing some shopping’. I chimed in by saying we had been shopping at the CWS. This put them 263 Mr Stuart, Alison and Sheila’s father. right off the scent, so Pa said, ‘well, what have you been buying’. ‘A ring’ said I. By this time the astonishment was real & not put on. The whole scene was one of a great gush of bewildered pleasure. ‘Well’, says Pa, ‘You never told us anything, Sheila’. ‘But, daddy’, says Sheila, ‘things just happen & I thought you knew’. So as if they had never thought it possible, they gushed & bubbled & eventually decided that it would be necessary to celebrate by inviting the Goodridges sometime to Allestree. Then S. & A. put on their white, slight, summer frocks &, vastly amused, we got off on the bus to the farm, the village people looking askance at the three of us. Sheila had worked herself into a sort of Maytime madness by this time. Walking up in the evening sun from Longford to Alkmonton they were both like a couple of girls from a story-book, putting honeysuckle in their hair & singing. ‘Isn’t it daft’, says Alison, ‘all this parental fuss, when all that matters is you love one another. Mr. & Mrs. Goodridge took us all for granted & that was so lovely’. At the farm there were 8 or 10 men engaged on a terrific effort to get the hay in before dark. I had to rush upstairs & go round & work without saying goodbye. What ensued was that Sheila & Alison, after gassing with various women in the farm kitchen, got on their bikes to find that Alison’s was punctured, but in despair went off unable to mend it. At Longford 4 village boys pursued them, mended Alison’s puncture, & followed them, molesting & persisting half-way to Derby. Meanwhile Mr. Stuart came to meet them in the car & they got home safely. Meanwhile I and the other men worked on (me being the subject of much scoffing & chat over my affairs) till 11.30. I was already dog-tired & toiling on the load was pouring with cold sweat. The glory of the day faded, Sheila & Alison were gone, Fred was singling me out in roars of bad-tempered abuse, & the tractor roared on into the night. In the field we went on in the darkness sweating & rocking as the loader poured vaster loads of hay over our heads, desperately tumbling it back against the gormers (spelling, Erny?)264 with only the light from the farm-kitchen piercing the night. If it were not for Fred and his nastiness I would have loved all those blokes & enjoyed the great efforts. But it was grand to come in to a midnight supper with grimy, sweaty faces, & to bed in our filth for a few hours sleep before milking in the morning. Little did Sheila & Alison know, therefore how the day was to end for me! Anyway I shall never forget July 3, 1946. Gormer or goamer, sb. the wooden framework erected at each end of a wagon to prevent hay, &c., from falling off (A Glossary of Words Used in the Neighbourhood of Sheffield (1888)). 264 Since then Fred has been as pleasant & kindly as he is sometimes nasty & hateful. We have enjoyed mowing & turning & tedding these last 3 days, though very tired. Sunday is glorious indeed. I long to hear something whether I can get soon to Oxford, & am worried about it very much. I am learning a lot, but the life of farming beats me and I must do something more suitable. Yet it is right for the moment & I must be satisfied. I am not altogether discontented & Sheila helps me on. Love to Margy & all, F. 92. Frank to his family, Oxford, 13 October 1946 MAGDALEN COLLEGE OXFORD. Sunday Oct. 13th. My dear mum & dad, Thank you, dad, for your letter, which was awaiting me in my rooms when I arrived. There is so much to tell you that I shall have to be very terse and not go into rhapsodies, but just tell you all the facts about what has been happening to me and leave you to read between the lines. I had a very happy time at Leicester, in many ways the best I have ever spent with the Stuarts. Sheila & I were able to thrash out together most of our problems, and to understand them, & we never felt more certain of one another. If you & her father still think our engagement was hasty, we can’t help it, but in fact it was for us the only right & necessary thing. I think also that her father is happier about it now. Her Aunt Marion was with us till Tuesday, a very stimulating & intelligent and, I think, understanding Aunt. Leicester is a lively & active & interesting city. Mr. Stuart’s church is small and not very beautiful, but with a very warm & generous community of people, and it has great possibilities. On Sheila’s birthday we had a family expedition by car to her birthplace, the village of Harrold near Bedford (not far from Thrapston, & only 5 miles from Rushden!)265 We had a few hours in Bedford. Harrold is a lovely village & we visited the manse where she was born & various old friend of theirs. Then in the evening we Thrapston and Rushden are both places in Northamptonshire where Frank and his family had lived. Frank was born at Thrapston; his brother Ernest at Rushden. 265 had a jolly birthday party at home, with Mr. & Mrs. Simons, their church secretary & his wife. * * * * * * * You said you might send me a parcel sometime, mum. If you do (but don’t bother especially) the following are the things which would be useful:1/ Any foodstuffs esp. jam, beveridges, saccharines, coffee, tea, tinned or powdered milk, cake, or anything useful for light afternoon teas. 2/ some of the pictures (3 or 4) which are in my bedroom on the walls (my room here has big, bare walls needing pictures.) 3/ Table cloths (my table is about 4 feet square), butter-dish, or cutlery. The things I need are just domestic items of that kind for my room: photographs (framed) of the family, or anything to relieve its bareness: particularly my picture of the girl with the blue background in my room at home. Please send my pipe & tobacco-pouch which I think I left in my room. This I really do need—the other things are not urgent at all. I enclose tickets of Freeman, Hardy, & Willis, & would be glad if you would collect 1 pr. wellingtons, plus 1 other single wellington, also a pair of boots, & 1 single shoe which I left there for repairs. I don’t need them here so leave them in my room at home. Above: the shoe repair tickets, found still tucked inside this letter Now as regards Oxford, there is already so much to tell, I can only give you little glimpses. I am settled happily at Magdalen, and already of course I love Oxford & this college in particular. I arrived at about 4.30 on Thursday afternoon. My rooms are in the college, very large (nearly twice as big as your front rooms!) and with a big window looking straight out on to the Magdalen Grove. The deer in the Grove wander right up to my window, & I look out on the trees & the rabbits playing, & feel like Alice in Wonderland. The room is beautifully furnished with sideboard, two oak tables, couch, two armchairs, a good desk by the window with reading lamp, plenty of bookshelves, electric fire & kettle-ring, & a lovely carpet. Both it and my bedroom are very light & airy, but also cosy. It is the bottom floor of staircase 5 of the big 18th Century Block behind the lawn at the back of the college, and although I am near the High Street, yet I am also in the heart of rural England & can walk out from my room along river-banks & groves & walks by water-mills and great chestnut trees. Already the cloisters, the Gothic buildings, the flower-gardens & lawns of Magdalen seem mine, as if I had known them for years. Except for a few silly rules such as wearing gowns etc., there is absolute freedom at Oxford—there is nothing you are forced to attend, & your whole life you arrange & distribute your time as you like. Our servant for this staircase is called Mobey—a very obsequious & typical butler such as you see in the films. But he is very efficient, & in he comes to wake one up with your shaving-water at 8.0 each morning & you rise up & say ‘Good morning, Mobey’, & he says ‘Have you slept well, sir’ etc. Mr. Lewis is charming & delightful.266 He is a very hard tutor in that he expects a lot from you, but he is admired in all Oxford, and people envy those of us who have him as our tutor. I shall know him better later, but I do admire him. I have another tutor for Early English, a Mr. Bennett, who is also very nice.267 The Wesley Memorial Church is the loveliest Methodist church I have ever attended. It is packed full to the doors every Sunday. The services are great and dignified. The new minister & his wife, Rev. and Mrs. Kissack, are the perfect people on the job, & have made a great impression on Methodist undergraduates. I went to As these letters testify, Frank had been thinking about C. S. Lewis long before he ever met him, reading and discussing his books, writing to him, and possibly listening to some of his popular wartime broadcasts; he would certainly have been aware of these, at any rate. See in particular letters 6, 11, 17, 25, 58, 64, and 90; also Appendix (A), Lewis’s testimonial, written when Frank was applying for a post as a schoolmaster in 1950. 267 J. A. W. (Jack) Bennett (1911-1981), a mediaevalist, encouraged Frank in his studies in this area. He would write in a 1941 testimonial, ‘Mr. Frank Goodridge was one of the best pupils I have ever had. He has a mature, sensitive, and philosophical mind, and the pen of a ready writer. In argument he is lucid, persuasive, and fair. He knows something of the world beyond the groves of Academe.’ 266 an informal coffee-drinking meeting of Methodists at his house, which was packed (to his joy & surprise) with 50 or more Methodist undergraduates. Among them I found SIXTEEN old K.S. boys, & we had a real ‘old school tie’ chat. Also I am joining the Wesley Society & shall go to Rev. Kissack’s house on Sunday nights. I suddenly met my dear old school friend Peter Lund the other day. His father is the Meth. minister on Guernsey island, & he (Peter) is married now. We spent a whole day wandering round the city describing all our experiences since school. He looked worn, after many times being shot down & in aerial combat, but he was the same Peter, courteous, sincere, fine-looking, & still a very great friend. The other friend whom I have made is a man called Forrester268 who lives on the same staircase with me, whose father is a professor of Divinity in the Scottish University of St. Andrews. He is a very good fellow in every way, & the kind of friend I need & appreciate. He & I spent a whole day trying to get gowns, but in vain, so at last we have decided to wait & have them especially made by a taylor. There was a solemn ceremony of initiation on Sunday by which we had to kneel before the president & fellows of the college, swear to obey the ‘statutes & ordinances’ thereof, & so we were ‘admitted’ to our demyships, shaking hands with all the tutors in turn, who ‘wished us joy’. The only societies I shall join are the famous Oxford Union—which I have to join because its library & other facilities are indispensable: The Wesley church & Wesley society: The Liberal Club for politics (better than the Conservative or the Socialist Clubs): and one other club called the Socratic Club, this being the most select club in Oxford, where the deepest matters of philosophy & religion are discussed, & the greatest philosophers & theologians speak. It’s president is Mr. Lewis, which is one of the reasons why I joined it. The first meeting was wonderful—at 11.0 p.m. when I left, a hot discussion was going on between Mr. Lewis & Mr. Foster,269 the most eminent Oxford philosopher, as to the meaning of ‘God is love’! Mr. Lewis was winning. The two boxes which I sent by goods have, to my relief, at last arrived today. So now my books are here I can begin work properly. I have to write Mr. Lewis an essay before Thursday. Dr John Forrester died in 2017, aged 93: see Appendix (A) (ii) for his remembrance of Frank at Oxford. 269 Michael Beresford Foster (1903-59) of Christ Church, Christian philosopher. Foster’s talk on ‘Belief and Religion in Philosophy’ is in the Socratic Digest, no. 4 (1947-48), 130-39, the volume Frank edited. 268 I can’t tell you everything: enough to say it is a wonderful life, and so full that there is not a moment to stop & brood about anything. Will write again on Sunday. Love, Frank. APPENDICES APPENDIX A (i) C. S. LEWIS’S TESTIMONIAL FOR FRANK GOODRIDGE Frank received the following testimonial from C. S. Lewis in 1950 when he was applying for a job as a schoolmaster: Magdalen College Oxford There have been very few pupils in my 26 years’ experience as a tutor for whom I can speak so confidently as I can for Mr. Frank Goodridge. As a scholar he has quality which his actual degree did not at all represent. The year in which he sat for his Final was one of strange surprises for many tutors about many pupils: but apart from that, his failure to do himself justice can be explained by two factors. (1.) He is really too conscientious a student, too determined to get to the bottom of every question, to make an ideal examinee: good at probing and not at all good at advertising: incapable of ‘bluff’. (2.) He gave rather more time than he could afford to his duties as secretary of a philosophical club. I saw a good deal of him in that capacity and it was his Minutes which first convinced me that he had attributes quite out of the ordinary. He could condense, and slightly popularise, the arguments of speakers (often very erudite) with less loss than any man I have ever known. This satisfies me that he will be a good teacher: he might very well turn out to be one of the great teachers. His personal character won my respect from the beginning and this respect steadily increased during the time he was with me. He is one of the most disinterested—I think I could say one of the most selfless—men I have ever met: and, in spite of his good humour and patience, which are unfailing, I should not like to be the boy who tried to ‘rag’ him. If I had a son of my own there is no one to whom I would entrust him so gladly as to Mr. Goodridge. C.S. Lewis Fellow & Tutor of Magdalen (This is included in C. S. Lewis, Collected Letters, Vol. III, 1950-1963, ed. Hooper (2006), pp. 1-2; I have sourced it here from Frank’s original typescript, and corrected Lewis’s mis-spelling of Frank’s surname.) (ii) DR JOHN FORRESTER’S REMEMBRANCE OF FRANK AT OXFORD. Opening our careers at Magdalen simultaneously, both of us ex-service Demies, but I already equipped with a Scottish honours degree acquired just before I was called up into the army, we probably spent little time on recalling our military experiences, but much on facing the exigencies of an Oxford severe winter, in league together. ... Frank and I suffered the winter of 1946 together in Magdalen’s New Buildings. ... He and I were too busy to spend much time together, and I was in the process of getting married and moving out of residence in College, but I have still memories of evenings cowering over his gas fire together, each studying our own particular textbooks and hoping to defy the surrounding intense winter’s cold in a frozen and underfuelled Britain. My own room’s fire was a single-bar electric, no match for Frank’s gas fire. APPENDIX B: FRANK’S POEMS AND VERSE FRAGMENTS RELATING TO MATERIAL IN THE LETTERS 1. ‘IRAN FRAGMENTS 1944-45’270 ‘When I was in Iran, I wrote quite a lot of poems in which a few good descriptions of landscapes are overlaid with much sentimental homesick stuff about my longing for England. The following descriptive bits I’ve kept in case any could be dovetailed into a poem’.271 Awakening, I opened the shutters to the fresh rain, falling gently over streets & stones, in Asia making the dirty avenues run black— ...the vast, stony plateau, where life clings & crawls... mountains and snows, clean spaces, the rugged outermost parts of the earth ... ____________ Here there is only beauty in distant patterns, mountains far-flung & ragged, delicate as gold, half-seen between white pearl of mist & snow. In barren, irrigated valleys, where thin trees shiver like frost on a sheep’s back ... . . . . Roads have pitfalls,272 Unpublished, from Frank’s poetry notebooks. Frank’s headnote. 272 ‘The roads are empty tracks, carelessly scrawled in twists & folds over the earth’s monstrous crust.’ (Frank’s note). 270 271 creeping across the monstrous crust of the earth in twists, carelessly—their beauty only in the grace with which they yield to the rugged rocks’ hold ... ____________ (Moslem feast-day) The harsh moan of a hundred throats, aimlessly trundling with torches into the dark ... Syrian Desert At noon the desert swings against the sun. Caught in the straight blaze of its eyes it writhes and dances where the white-hot edge of the molten horizon melts and slides ... The earth is a torn crust of salt & rock ... ____________ Zagros Mts. Through the broken pane I can see the runnels of ice like delicate spirals of springing sheeted steel climbing from tier to tier— brown, blue, then sheet-white snow— In the chaos of Bachtian, the heart of the Zagros two canyons meet & the rivers rush together foaming red & blue, veins and arteries of the earth’s torn crust, a bloodshed ... ____________ the watershed, the cold heat where canyons meet & rivers rush apart ____________ (?!) SULTANABAD (Qum) Voices rose & sank in a harsh syncopation like corncrakes or donkeys, & the glasses’ clink was like the dead ding-dong of camel-bells. —The painted faces & weary bodies of women their lives like the ripple of a snake in water. And the town that goes on existing, beggarly, without remorse, under the Zagros mountains & I have let pleasure & sorrow become as barren as these voices; huddled before the stove in the whitest downs that break over chaotic rocks & valleys— where poor people still have water & trees & grow the corn, & grind it with stones. The dull rattle of Eastern voices ... Post-War Visions, 1944273 THE MAYOR BIDS WELCOME TO ALL; The borough, in its entertainment is most thorough; Flourishing the Stars & Stripes or Union Jack, behind the Saxophone & Drum, The Eastern Sun, the Sickle & the Hammer, with smoke, and cheese, in halls where we may come to ‘make whoopee’ Resounding in the clatter, through the speaker sings Nancy, leading aircraftswoman, followed by a negro from Jamaica. ‘Quite an interesting “period-piece” which I’d completely forgotten & recently discovered, in 1969! I can’t remember where this took place.’ (Frank’s note). 273 ‘When the lights go on again’.— We shall get such a kitty of credits & income-tax returns, And a little white cottage standing over the hill, Where we shall sing Hill-Billies at sunset, And in the Blest House dream of the Holy City. ‘Ah, someday, darling’,— We, the ATS & WAFS will all go to Hollywood, And be taken on by managers & directors, back in civvy street, Adding the bottlenecks of noughts to many account books, Sealing the registered letters with lipstick. —’Sometimes I wonder, why I never spend the lonely nights Thinking, Can it be wrong to KISS?’ But outside in the square, beside a statue, a girl is shouting Through harsh microphones, while the crowd gapes. ‘When your business men have gone to invade The continent behind our armies, taking their secretaries & suitcases, We shall be facing a PEACE, which is perhaps A more dangerous kind of war: Then, when you are dancing to the tune of the Lambeth Walk, Basking on the beaches & the meadows, Then will ask what colonies— What colonies to build among the waste we have left behind And you will laugh, & show them corridors of figures, Alchemist in offices will fire their crucibles, To advertise the great lie with expert salesmanship. To deprive your children of a few rag-dolls’. So the voice shrilled through the spring Over the roof-tops, her head was held back Over her stocky shoulders. Jonathan F. G. 5/44 2. TWO ‘FARM’ POEMS RETURN TO PARK HOUSE274 I reached the end of Mill Field Lane by the rye-field.—There we came one morning in the mist, cartwheels grinding the clay, and broke the frozen crusts of lime with shovels. Then by the sandy furrows of Brickyard where the sun, last year, dried out the sodden seeds, and fat waggons rocked in ruts and brushed the gate-posts. The sandy soil powdered under my feet— around the corner of the wood where we chopped nettles, our raw wrists swollen with heat and bitten by flies—now white beneath khaki. I lit my cigarette and went across Cow Close where the bullocks lived all winter and came to the gate, bent backs bristling with rime, bellowing for mangolds, angry on gold-white mornings. And up in the yard, like a tiger out of the dark, brown arms striped across golden straw, burning bodies in the sweat and sun that shimmered over the muck. The straw was blown like arrows over the moat, the wind blew dust in shivering horses eyes, Battalions of spring scattered the dead sheeps’ bones, Loosed the tiles and clanged them over the cowshed. And young colts down in the hollow of Rough Field Rolled like clouds among summer cowslips. I stopped, straining to bring back the morning over the paddock, alone on the straw— the smell of tea in a flask, the gentle wind breathing through every hollow, and spring lambs moving about in the stillness. 274 Unpublished, sourced from Frank’s poetry notebooks. But the sour soil lay black, untouched and festering, where at dawn I followed the sheep with a lumber of wheels and thud of hooves in mist. 1941 POLLUTION275 Once upon a time there was a farm in Lincolnshire where I muck-carted a whole spring. The loads were heavy, hot and sweet from the yards, the cart small, the horse old; my fork had a tine missing, my balance was unstable down the hollow of Rough Field, but better by the woodside. This was the era when dad’s Army beat through the bluebells, and we had backs to the land, or bellies pressed against heather, in those interminable schemes with a compass, that roused a few grouse. The call that kingdom the Forties—and in that country young men, conscies and others less bold, read Henry Williamson, thought much of Middleton Murray’s276 from The Raw Side (1978). Williamson and Murry are both mentioned in the letters as writers Frank was interested by and actively reading; see notes to Letters 23-4, and the list of Works Cited or Consulted, below. 275 276 strange doings near Diss, had a high A. G. Street277 content in the blood, Little Gidding in their heads,278 and in their hearts they held by the faith of old Hugh Massingham,279 father-farmer and great high priest of dung. But at lunch, with a flask of cold tea, how those dung-heaps sang in the sun, colts leapt in the Close, and half-asleep, but listening again to old Jim’s twentieth conviction at the Lincoln Assizes (seen doing up his flies—with the old sow again!), my sundrenched body, floated loose in ancient kingdoms of love! Some old ecology made Park House, Jim, the carthorse, and bullocks bellowing for mangolds in the early mist A. G. Street (1892-1966), farmer, broadcaster and the author of a number of works including Farmer’s Glory (1932). He is not mentioned in the letters, but this was certainly a book that interested Frank, whose copy of it survives. 278 T. S. Eliot’s poem is also unmentioned in the letters, but it and its fellow Four Quartets, published between 1936 and 1942, were deeply influential on Frank’s generation. He would lecture on Eliot, and there is a parody of Eliot’s early poetry in his collection, The Raw Side. 279 H. J. Massingham (1888-1962), ruralist, farmer and the author of a notable series of books on rural life, of which Frank would most probably have read World Without End (1932). 277 the same as I dreamed in childhood—hoped for—knew in fact would come, once the War was over. This was a long time ago I remember—‘ages long ago’:280 intensities that fled away into the ditches of Belsen, scorches of Hiroshima, families, and the sagging fifties. Then came a subtopian ‘Outrage’, and many more, till threats were lost in loose fashions of protest. Now come the new savants, Reith lecturers, statistical prophets of a bright age, to tell us the world is choked with pollution—air and water, streams, rivers and seas, even trees and bluebells, matter, and the whole world is dying of environmental starvation—lack of dung? Thank you Darling—Dr. Frank Fraser,281 I John Keats, ‘The Eve of St Agnes’, l. 370. Dr Frank Fraser Darling (1903-79), environmentalist, ornithologist and author, whose 1969 Reith lectures were influential in the growing environmental and ‘Gaia’ movements. Frank is playing on his name to lightly mock a fashionable figure of the 1960s. 280 281 mean; it warms my heart to hear there’s a new ‘crisis of survival’, and to feel the sun, soil sky and pighouse in the throes of what must surely stir in us feelings of revival. Table of Illustrations Dedication page Frank and Ernest Goodridge as young boys. Preface The final entry in the Somme diary of Frank’s Uncle Ernest, 4 October 1916. Frontispiece Frank in junior school; Frank in 1943; Frank with his family. Prologue part 1 Frank’s Farmer Junior English Essay Prize award. Frank, drawn by his brother Ernest, 21 December 1940. Prologue part 2 Poetry book purchased by Frank in London, August 1941. Telegram of Frank’s £100 Oxford Scholarship, 17 December 1942. Letter 2 Margaret Goodridge on a horse at Stoke Fields farm, Newark. Letter 6 Frank on leave, with his sister Margaret, September 1943. Letter 15 Ernest Goodridge at Stoke Fields farm with a fellow farm worker, his sister Margaret, and farmer Brownlow Horner. Letter 21 Smedley’s Hydro, Matlock Bank, from an old postcard. Letter 22 War: Mediterranean Journey, ABCA pamphlet, 8 August 1943. Letter 29 Cover of Christmas letter 29, with PAIForce formation sign. Letter 34 Some of the books Frank was reading during his time in the army. Letter 40 Frank’s pencil drawing of his friend Kit Stirling. Letter 42 Another of Frank’s drawings of army friends. Letter 50 Poetry book Frank purchased in Tehran in 1945. Letter 51 Newspaper notice for Frank’s 21st birthday on 27 April 1945. Letter 59 Frank’s drawing of ‘bellum’ boats. Letter 67 Church of Scotland letterhead, with censor’s blue pencil mark. Letter 68 Frank Goodridge in Beirut, August 1945. Letter 69 Book on Palestine Frank purchased in Tel-Aviv, August 1945. Letter 72 The oil refinery at Abadan (PAIForce, HMSO, 1948). Letter 76 Frank’s ‘rough map of the locality’. Letter 89 Frank’s ‘Ziggurat’ drawings. A boat bridge across the Shatt-al-Arab (PAIForce, HMSO, 1948). Letter 92 Shoe repair tickets, found inside the original letter. Works Cited or Consulted (1) BOOKS MENTIONED IN FRANK’S LETTERS note: several titles are surmised when only the author is mentioned. The Authorised Version of the Bible (the ‘King James Version’). Bell, Adrian, The Cherry Tree (London: Penguin, 1932). Bell, Gertrude, The Letters of Gertrude Bell, ed. Lady Bell, two volumes (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1939). Beveridge, William, Social Insurance and Allied Services (London: HMSO, 1942). Blunt, Wilfred Scawen, The Future of Islam (first published 1882). Browne, Sir Thomas, Religio Medici (first published 1643). Bunyan, John, The Pilgrim’s Progress (first published 1678). Catlin, George, Vera Brittain and Sheila Hodges (eds), Above All Nations: An Anthology (London: Victor Gollancz, 1945). Deane, Anthony, How to Understand the Gospels (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1936). Donne, John, Poems, ed. Hugh L’Anson Fauset (London: Dent, 1931). Doughty, Charles M., Travels in Arabia Deserta, ed. Edward Garnett (London, 1923). Douglas, Lloyd C., The Robe (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1942). Elwell-Sutton, L. P., Modern Iran, 2nd edition (London: Routledge, 1942). Epstein, Israel, The People’s War (London: Victor Gollancz, 1939). Fisher, H. A. L., The History of Europe (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1935). [Foot, Michael], Brendan and Beverley: An Extravaganza, by ‘Cassius’ (London: Victor Gollancz, 1944). Harrison, G. Elsie, Son to Susannah: The Private Life of John Wesley (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1944). Hitler, Adolf, Mein Kampf (abridged English version 1933, full version 1938). Holme, Constance, The Lonely Plough (London: Mills & Boon, 1914). Howard, Peter, Ideas Have Legs (London: F. Muller, 1945). Jefferies, Richard, The Story of My Heart (London: Duckworth, 1883). Jewitt, Arthur, The History of Lincolnshire (Lincoln: A. Stark, 1810). Landau, Rom, God is My Adventure: A Book on Modern Mystics, Masters and Teachers (1935; new edition, London, 1943). Lewis, C. S., The Pilgrim’s Regress (London: Dent, 1933). ― Rehabilitations and Other Essays (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1939). ― Christian Behaviour (London: Geoffey Bles / The Centenary Press, 1943). ― The Abolition of Man (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1943). ― Beyond Personality (London: Geoffey Bles / The Centenary Press, 1944). Lowdermilk, Walter Clay, Palestine, Land of Promise, with a Foreword by Sir John Russell (London: Victor Gollancz, 1945). Massingham, H. J., World Without End (London Cobden-Sanderson, 1932). Murry, John Middleton, The Betrayal of Christ by the Churches (London: Andrew Dakers, 1940). ― Adam and Eve: An Essay Towards a New and Better Society (London: Andrew Dakers, 1944). Norden, Hermann, Under Persian Skies: A Record of Travel by the Old Caravan Routes of Western Persia (London: H. F. & G. Witherby, 1928). Pares, Bernard, A History of Russia (London: Jonathan Cape, 1926). Plowman, Max, The Right to Live: Selected Essays, with an Introduction by John Middleton Murry (London: A. Dakers, 1942). Sackville West, Vita, Passenger to Teheran (London: Hogarth Press, 1926). Sayers, Dorothy L., The Mind of the Maker (London: Methuen, 1941). ― The Man Born to be King: A Play Cycle on the Life of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Written for Broadcasting (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B, Eerdmans, 1943). Scott, Sir Walter, A Legend of Montrose (Edinburgh and London, 1819). Shelvankar, K. S., The Problem of India (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1943). Shinwell, Emanuel, When the Men Come Home (London: Victor Gollancz, 1944). Sienkiewicz, Henryk, Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero (1896); numerous translations from Polish into English from 1906 onwards. Steiner, Rudolf, The Philosophy of Freedom (1894), trans. by Hermann Poppelbaum as The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity (New York: Anthrosophic Press, 1939). Waddington, C. H., The Scientific Attitude (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1941). Waln, Nora, Reaching for the Stars (London: Angus & Robinson, 1939). Werfel, Franz, The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, trans. Geoffrey Dunlop (Boston, MA: David R. Godine, 1934), an abridgement; a fuller translation was made in 2012. Williamson, Henry, Tarka the Otter (New York: G.M. Putman’s Sons, 1927). ― As the Sun Shines (London: Faber & Faber, 1941). ― The Story of a Norfolk Farm (London: Faber & Faber, 1941). ― The Sun in the Sands (London: Faber & Faber, 1945). Wilson, Edmund, To the Finland Station: A Study in the Writing and Acting of History (London: Secker and Warburg, 1940). (2) OTHER WORKS CONSULTED OR CITED BY THE EDITOR Barker, Nicholas and James McLaverty, ‘David Fairweather Foxon (1923-2001)’ Proceedings of the British Academy, 161 (2009), pp. 159–175. Bayley, John, Iris: A Memoir of Iris Murdoch (London: Gerald Duckworth, 1998). Berkman, John, ‘Justice and Murder: The Backstory to Anscombe’s “Modern Moral Philosophy”’, in Roger Teichmann (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Elizabeth Anscombe (Oxford, 2022), pp. 225-70. Bijl, Nick van der, Sharing the Secret: The History of the Intelligence Corps, 1940-2010 (Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2014). Blythe, Ronald (ed.), Components of the Scene: An Anthology of the Prose and Poetry of the Second World War (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966). Carpenter, Humphrey, The Inklings: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams and their Friends (London: HarperCollins, 2006). Citron, Gabriel, ‘Honesty, Humility, Courage & Strength: Later Wittgenstein on the Difficulties of Philosophy and the Philosophical Virtues’, Philosophers’ Imprint, 19, no. 25 (July 2019), pp. 1-24. Conradi, Peter, Iris Murdoch, a Life (London: HarperCollins, 2001). — A Very English Hero: The Making of Frank Thompson (London: Bloomsbury, 2012). Copeland, B. Jack (ed.), Colossus: The Secrets of Bletchley Park’s Codebreaking Computer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). Daniel, Peter, ‘Afternoons with Wittgenstein’, Edinburgh Review, 89 (Spring 1993), pp. 52-5. ― ‘The Mutiny on the Javelin’, The Mariner’s Mirror, 83, no. 4 (1999), pp. 446-55. ― Yorick Smythies and Frank Goodridge (unpublished note, 1998). De Haan, Rachel L., J. Mark Goodridge, Joseph S. Goodridge and Kenneth Ingersent, ‘Obituary: Ernest Noel Goodridge’, Methodist Recorder, 28 March 2002, p. 21. Eliot, T. S., Four Quartets (London: Faber, 1936-42). Ferdinand, Christine, An Accidental Masterpiece: Magdalen College’s New Building and the People Who Built It (Oxford: Magdalen College, 2010). ― Magdalen College, Oxford: A Brief History and Guide (London: Scala Arts & Heritage Publishers, 2016). Foxon, David F., English Verse 1701–1750: A Catalogue (Cambridge: CUP, 1975). Fussell, Paul, The Great War and Modern Memory (Oxford: OUP, 1975). A Glossary of Words Used in the Neighbourhood of Sheffield (London, 1888). Goodridge, Ernest, The Same Stars Shine: The Great War Diary and Letters of Corporal Ernest Goodridge of Bentley, Doncaster, with Contemporary Records and Illustrations, edited by Ernest N. Goodridge and John A. Goodridge, with a Foreword by Ronald Blythe (Loughborough: Teamprint, 1999), revised and extended centenary edition (2016) online at academia.edu. Goodridge, Ernest Noel, ‘Letter: Edward P. Thompson’, Methodist Recorder, 9 September 1993, p. 9. ― ‘A Shetland Ministry’, Shetland Life (published in six instalments, January to June 1996). ― ‘Hiroshima-Nagasaki Fifty Years After: An Historical and Theological Assessment’, Reconciliation Quarterly (Spring 1995). ― ‘Theological Integrity’, Peacemaker (Sept. 1997), p. 4. ― (with Neville B. Cryer), Experiment in Unity (London A. R. Mowbray, 1968). Goodridge, Frank, Minutes of the Socratic Club (1947-48), Bodleian Library, MSS Eng. c. 7882-7884. ― William Langland, Piers the Plowman, translated into modern English with an Introduction by J. F. Goodridge (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1959) ― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights (London: Edward Arnold, 1964), Studies in the Literature series. ― The Raw Side (Liskeard: Harry Chambers/Peterloo Press, 1978). ― [Goodridge, J. F., original editor], Socratic Digest, ed. Joel D. Heck (Austin Texas: Concordia University Press, 2012). ― ‘Frank Goodridge’s Memories of Wittgenstein’, online at: https://johngoodridgesite.wordpress.com/2018/05/26/frank-goodridges-memoriesof-wittgenstein (2018). Goodridge, John, ‘E. P. Thompson (1924-1993), historian and political activist’, in The Dictionary of Cultural Theorists, ed. Chris Rojek and Ellis Cashmore (London: Edward Arnold, 1999), pp. 450-2. Goodridge, Jonathan Brooks, Why Am I in Paradise? The ‘Great War’ Diaries of J. B. Goodridge, ed. Ernest N. Goodridge (Loughborough: Teamprint, 1994). Harding, Jeremy ‘A Kind of Greek’, London Review of Books, 7 March 2013, pp. 11-14. Hill, Marion, Bletchley Park People: Churchill’s Geese that Never Cackled (Stroud: Sutton, 2004). Holmes, Alison, Letter to John Goodridge, 2012. ‘John Sawkins’ (French Wikipedia entry). Lewis, C. S., Collected Letters, Vol. II 1931-1949, ed. Walter Hooper (New York: HarperCollins, 2004). — Collected Letters, Vol. III 1950-1963, ed. Walter Hooper (New York: HarperCollins, 2006). Longmate, Norman, How We Lived Then: A History of Everyday Life during the Second World War (London: Hutchinson, 1971). Lumsden, Michel, ‘Peter George Daniel’ (unpublished tributary note prepared for Peter Daniel’s funeral, 3 July 2007). McKay, Sinclair, Bletchley Park: The Secret Archives (London: Aurum Press, 2016). Meyers, Jeffrey, Remembering Iris Murdoch: Letters and Interviews (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). Murdoch, Iris, Journals and Papers, held in the Iris Murdoch Archive, Kingston University, London (transcript extracts supplied by John Berkman and Gabriel Citron). O’Sullivan, Adrian, Espionage and Counterintelligence in Occupied Persia (Iran) (London: Palgrave, 2015). PAIForce: The Official Story of the Persia and Iraq Command, 1941-1946 (London: His Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1948). Roche, Helen, The Third Reich’s Elite Schools: A History of the Napolis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021). Ross, Alex, ‘The Haunted California Idyll of German Writers in Exile’, New Yorker, 9 March 2020. Sawkins, John, Jangara: A Novel of the Sudan (London: Longmans, 1963). — 100 Poems of a Decade 1970-1980 (Bochum, 1991). — The Long Apprenticeship: Alienation in the Early Work of Alan Sillitoe (Bern: Peter Lang, 2001). — The Death Mask of Mary Queen of Scots: Poems, 1970-2000 (Bochum: Bochum University, 2003). — A Son of the Manse: Memoirs (Frankfurt: Weimarer Schiller-Presse, 2007). Skrine, Sir Claremont, World War in Iran (London: Constable, 1962). Stockton, Jim and Benjamin J. B. Lipscomb, ‘The Anscombe-Lewis Debate: New Archival Sources Considered’, Journal of Inklings Studies, 11, no. 1 (April 2021), pp. 35-57. Street, A. G., Farmer’s Glory (London: Faber & Faber, 1932). Thompson, E. P., Beyond the Frontier: The Politics of a Failed Mission, Bulgaria, 1944 (London: Merlin, 1996). Thompson, Frank, Selected Poems, ed. Dorothy and Kate Thompson (Nottingham: Trent Editions, 2003). (3) FILMS MENTIONED IN THE LETTERS Hurley, Frank (dir.), ‘The Road to Russia: The Story of PAIForce’ (Ministry of Information, 1944), via YouTube. King, Henry (dir.), ‘The Song of Bernadette’ (Twentieth Century Fox, 1943). Stahl, John M. (dir.), ‘The Keys of the Kingdom’ (Twentieth Century Fox, 1944). About the Editor John Goodridge, FEA, Emeritus Professor of English, Nottingham Trent University, is a writer, editor and academic with research interests in poetry, working-class writing, Romanticism and science fiction. He is the author of Rural Life in EighteenthCentury English Poetry (Cambridge, 1994) and John Clare and Community (Cambridge, 2013), and co-author of John Clare the Trespasser (Nottingham, 2016). Formerly Editorial Director of Trent Editions, he has edited a number of volumes of eighteenth-century, Romantic and Victorian poetry and related critical writings, and co-edited with his research partner Bridget Keegan, A Cambridge History of WorkingClass Writing (New York, 2017). Among other essays Goodridge and Keegan have recently co-authored a chapter on ‘Land, Labour, Literature’ for the Routledge Companion to Eighteenth Century Literatures in English (2024). Professor Goodridge recently edited Poems of a Nottingham Lace-Runner, by Mary Bailey (Nottingham: Five Leaves, 2022), and is currently editing Essays on British Working-Class and Radical Writing from 1700, a collection inspired by the writings of the late H. Gustav Klaus, for the University of London Press. He writes and edits the online publications ‘A Catalogue of Labouring-class Poetry’ and ‘John Clare Resources’, and posts material to academia.edu, Humanities Commons, and to his WordPress and SoundCloud pages. He is the President of the John Clare Society.