Benedict Cumberbatch & Louise Brealey read letters from wartime lovers

december 1944 dearest so very worried about what is happening in greece on the news tonight it spoke of it spreading and it it seems to become a battle my worst suspicions of what the british army went to greece for are fulfilled i don't know how this is affecting you and whether the ordinary people are involved of course you won't be able to tell me much i can only just hope for your safety darling i have no complaints about your letters i am too happy that it is my body that you want that occupies your thoughts if you didn't write and tell me these things i should suspect you of being interested in somebody else's body you keep concentrating on mine my breasts my vital vibrant spot [Applause] my hands and my desires well i am glad you have four blankets to keep you warm if i was there you wouldn't want any you'd be hot enough here am i a blooming iceberg of a maiden waiting to be roused into a fire not just melted but changed into a fire and there are you miles and miles away needing an extra blanket during this last month i've reached rock bottom i no longer need a nurse christopher i need the whole vital man in you your strength your energy when when will you make me a whole woman stunted growth that's what i'm suffering from my body stunted my affections are stunted even my mind suffers from this incompleteness i want to be i want to be your mistress to be used to the uttermost i want to fuss you look after you i want to be your companion in arms away with depressions fed upness waiting i'm so sick of being a cold haughty virgin talk about untapped resources it isn't easy to express these things in words but you have done it you have moved me right down down to the foundations you have accomplished what i shouldn't have thought was possible you have opened a vision of a new world a new experience for me i cannot help but be so very very grateful to you with that in front of me i can overcome my black moods and rise up again and know that this life is worth the living pancakes yes we had your lemons with them that was why i made them i rather think your lemons help to get rid of my cold maybe your letters as well all those things help you know the lemons on the practical side and the letters on the mental side had to giggle about my bravery in bombed london i live here work here and there isn't anything else to do but live here and work here and like most things up to a point you get used to it it's one's low resources that one has to be brave about all the usual aches and pains get you down easily extra effort tires you out but we're all in the same boat so it isn't as bad as it sounds besides the battlefront sound so much worse i concentrate on that when i feel pathetic i'm just listening to the nine o'clock news and it's most disheartening it says it's spreading not slacking oh dear christopher i really can't think of i can't think of anything else i do really want to be cheerful but it's so difficult christmas and you out there i love you and my heart-taking it's it's so lonely and desolate without you my mind keeps going into such flights of fancy on how to get to you from stowing away on a ship to applying to the war office it's silly but it it does get so bad sometimes i won't see the circle john gielgud's production by somerset morm i didn't think much of it to me gielgud seemed such a milk and water specimen no fire just a beautiful voice i think i've got a bit choosy over the theater i've seen some really fine plays during the war and my standards got a bit high i've been horribly chatty in this letter that's the result of worrying i've kind of got you on my mind in a different way the situation in greece is getting into my hair despite all my efforts to remain calm keeping calm is my motto but i do wish i knew how things were with you i love you bessie 31st of january 1945 my dearest one i have just heard the news that all the army men taken power to return to their homes because of the shipping situation we may not commence to go before the end of february but can probably count on being in england sometime in march maybe sooner it has made me very warm inside it's terrific it's wonderful shattering i don't know what to say and i cannot think the delay is nothing the decision is everything now i am confirming in my head the little decisions i have made when contemplating just the possibility i must spend the first days at home i must see deb and her mother i must consider giving a party somewhere above all i must be with you i must warm you surround you love you and be kind to you tell me anything that's in your mind write tons and tons and tons and and plan our time i would prefer not to get married but want you to agree on the point in the battle i was afraid for you for my mother for myself wait we must my love my darling let us meet let us be let us know but do not let us now make any mistakes i am anxious very anxious that you should not misunderstand what i have said say what you think but please agree and remember i was afraid and i am still afraid how good for us to see each other before i am completely bald but if you find it wisps of hair on the top of my head not much good me trying to write about recent experiences now that i know i shall be able to tell you everything myself within such a short time what i have my eye on now is the first letter from you saying that you know i am all right and then next saying you know i am coming to you must try and keep out of hospital with some of these post pow complaints plan a week somewhere not boscom or bournemouth and think of being together the glory of you when i was captive i used to try and contact you and think hard bessie my dearest i'm all right do not worry i never thought that i would get through somehow but now it's over and you know that i'm all right and going to be with you soon to join and enjoy do not get very excited outwardly i am conscious of the inner tumor the clamor but i am not too much outwardly joyful moderation is my advice watch the buses as you cross the streets we're free of duties and yesterday i went to our friends in athens taking some of your coffee and coco which they were very pleased to have thank you for sending it we were embraced very excitedly kissing and so on continental fashion i hope that you will not start buying any clothes if you have any coupons left because you think you must look nice for me i shall be sorry if you do just carry on as near as possible to normal my return at the present time allows us to make public our mutual attachment i shall tell my family that i hope to spend a week away with you somewhere during my leave my counsel to you is to tell as few people as possible to someone like miss ferguson you can politely reply to observations that you thought it was your business rather than hers try to avoid preening yourself and saying much this is my advice not anything but that i hope you understand i do not ever want it to be anything but our affair do not permit any intrusion i do not know how long leave i shall get i could get as little as 14 days and i may get as much as a month i'm wondering how i shall tell you that i am in england probably it would still be quicker to send a telegram than a letter and i hope to send you one announcing that i'm on the same island i will send another when i'm actually soon to get on the london round train and you can ring leegreen0509 when you think i have arrived there you must bear in mind that i shall be with my brother until we get home also that having been away from home for so long my parents will want to see a lot of me i hope that everything will work itself out without any unhappiness to anyone i shall be in great demand from two or three points and it will be difficult to manage without offence strange thing but i cannot seem to get going and write very freely all i'm thinking about is i am going home i'm going to see her it's a fact a real thing an impending event like trove tuesday christmas day and all the lord mayor's banquet you have to be abroad you have to be really truly hermetically sealed off from your intimates from your home to realize what a gift this going home is the few letters of yours that i had on me i burnt the day previous to our surrender so no one but myself has read your words in the first 10 days of our captivity i did not think any soft thoughts about you all i did was concentrate on trying to tell you i was all right but when we had a few supplies dropped by aircraft a great risk to themselves in the misty snowbound greek mountain villages and we started hoping we might get sent home upon our release i was always wondering about you about us it is a pity that the winter weather will not be kind to us out of doors but be nice sitting next to you in the pictures no matter what may be on the screen it will be grand to know that we have each other's support and sympathy wouldn't it be wonderful to be together really together in the flesh not just to know that a letter is all we can send i love you chris [Applause] you

Channel: Letters Live

Views: 253,893

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Id: eeQME5WzTT4

Length: 12min 24sec (744 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 30 2021