If you’re new to this blog, and you’d like to find out what this is all about, it’ll probably help you to scroll down to the first post about the Mystery Challenge,in which I’m asking readers to help me find out more about the love letters from 1920’s China.)

Today I’ll be posting the last of Bessie’s letters to Mr Bruce – It would be nice to think that he had followed Bessie’s advice, and had married her friend Margaret, but in my next post I’ll explain why I’m pretty sure this didn’t happen.
I’ve learned quite a lot about Canton and the Shameen district from various websites. The view of Canton comes from this site, and the map of Shameen, from here.

And I’ve ‘borrowed’ the 1920s postcards below from a wonderful postcard site – there are lots more there, if you’d like to see more. The second one below would have been somewhere near to where Bessie had stood and waited, hoping to catch sight of Mr Bruce.

And the steam ship in this photo could have been the same as the one where Bessie’s husband, Jimmy, had discovered that ‘something was going on’ between her and Mr Bruce

Here is the transcript of Bessie’s final letter. I found it very moving, and I’m sure that many people would be able to identify with Bessie, standing outside the building in Shameen, hoping to see the man she loved, one last time.

Thursday
Bruce dear, it’s quite true that a woman can kill her conscience much deader than a man can kill his. Otherwise I shouldn’t be writing to you today. If one has a dead heart, a dead conscience more or less doesn’t matter.

I’m at the Canton Hospital with the kids. They have just had their tonsils and adenoids removed. Poor little wretches. Jimmy is crying for water which he can’t have. You can’t imagine anyone crying for water can you?

I have been in Shameen twice lately. Monday I was in the playground outside your window for a long time – it was awful. And yesterday I saw Bing to speak to – did he tell you?
I am a dutiful wife now. Forever, I think, except for such a slight deflection from the path as this, and I’ll admit there is a certain amount of self-satisfied pleasure in duty well done. And not only that – trite as the sentiment may seem – it is pleasurable to see another person happy.

I would like to tell you all the details of that Thursday evening and the next morning, but what’s the use. Things could have resulted so differently but they didn’t so there is an end to it. Did Margaret tell you that he mutilated my “family album”, the one we straightened up, remember? Removed forcibly every photograph that contained your physiognomy.

But he overlooked that one of David and you on the top of the boat (Kongmoon), so I at least have one of your ears and a little bit of your gurgly old pipe.Isn’t Margaret a good sport and a dear? I don’t know what on earth I’d do without her.

I do wish that you would convince her that you never liked me at all and that you really set out to marry and save her from her present fate. I mean I wish you could do it. Really I do, dear. Because you’ve got to marry somebody, sometime, and it might as well be a somebody who would furnish you with enough excitement to keep you from being bored to tears.

I am so glad you went to see Margaret while we were in Hong Kong. Because she told me lots that you said, and it helped. And she keeps my love letter for me so that I can read it over now and again. I love it. There’s nobody in the world but you could write such a dear one. But I suppose I must let it go too after a bit – when I’ve learned it all by heart perhaps. Of course I’ll write to you when I get home, nothing could stop me if I thought you wanted me to but it is a desolate thought that I’ll never have another word from you. You spoke of how long it would take us to get over this. I hope you won’t take long – and I hope I never get over it. It’s very unmaidenly, or at least unmatronly, for me to admit all this, I’m sure. When you don’t realise what you’ve missed in life until it’s too late to have it, what matters it how brazen a hussy one becomes.

The six weeks left to me in China are creeping by. I didn’t know days could be so long. Do you believe in the much hackneyed mutual telepathy? Two or three days ago at the tiffin table little Jimmy asked when you were coming again and that night he insisted on including you in his prayers. Well I include you in mine, such as they are. The best love I have – the only one with a thrill in it – is yours. Please keep it until you get a better; that better one is waiting for you somewhere. That sounds like “Mother to her wayward boy”. It isn’t – it’s just because I don’t know what to say or how to say it so I rave on just to be in some sort of communication with you. But I can’t go on forever because my babies are requiring more and more attention.

This is my last letter to you for the present and it’s my good-bye too, and I’m heartsick Bruce dear. I never knew I would care so much. My dear. My dear, why did you come so late?

With the help of my friend, I’m still finding out more about Mr Bruce and his relations, but I’ll get back to this research later.
(If you’re new to this blog, and you’d like to find out what this is all about, it’ll probably help you to scroll down to the first post about the Mystery Challenge,in which I’m asking readers to help me find out more about the love letters from 1920’s China.)

In a previous post I mentioned that Bessie had written two more letters to Douglas Bruce after she had told herself that she would not contact him again, so here is the first page of the handwritten version. It does seem that their ‘affair’ had not gone further than the kisses she refers to. The full transcript shows that her marriage to Jimmy had not been entirely happy even before she had met Mr Bruce.

One of the details that I’ve tried to research, is the ‘monastery tower’ she had visited with him – and declared her feelings for him. I came across a site which shows a beautiful porcelain dish with significant landmarks of the old city of Canton.

Bessie’s tower might possibly have been the Zhenhai Tower, which, according to this site, “is a bit of a hassle for a westerner if you don’t do this within a tour that stops right outside”

Here is my transcript of the complete letter.

“Bruce dear,
There isn’t much point in my writing you, but I think I shall feel better if I do. I can’t tell you how sorry I am to have brought you into this mess. Now that Jimmy and I have had it out and he is convinced that I am not absolutely rotten (of course I had to lie to convince him – I said you had kissed me only once – so

I’ve got the seven or eight other times to remember, all to myself) he is doing all he can to make up for his past behaviour and I should be happy – but my dear, dear I’m not. Every time he kisses me I can scarcely keep back my cries to you. I’m not going to see you anymore and I can’t bear to think of it. There is a great hole in my heart – you have the piece that was dug out whether you want it or not.

Of course I had no idea that I cared this much and it surprises me all the time that I do, and I don’t want you to think that I want or expect you to do anything about it. I’ve chosen this way and I’m sure I’m right in doing so. I’ve made you out as a noble person as I could, because you have been so darned decent through it all. Of course it wouldn’t make any difference to you what he thought about you but I wanted him to know that it was fully as much my fault as yours, and I did my best to make him believe it.

Margaret gave me your note yesterday but of course you had Jimmy’s letter by the time I got yours so there was no need for me to do anything about it.

Poor Jimmy.I am much sorrier for him than for myself and you of course will forget all about it soon I hope. If I could just get you out of my mind everything would be all right but I’m not in the least ashamed to say that what I said in the monastery tower I meant.

Good-bye, dear person.
B

There was no use telling Jimmy that I care for you when I had chosen to stay with him, was there? It would only be worse for all three of us, and I did so hope I could keep him from writing that letter to you if I could persuade him that for the last few times we had seen each other there had been nothing between us. Besides, I’m a coward, so don’t like me if you don’t want to.

As you will see if you peer closely at the first handwritten page above, you’ll see that this transcript was written as an afterthought at the top of the first page. Although I know that the man in the picture above is indeed Douglas Bruce, I can’t guarantee that the woman leaning towards him is Bessie.

A BRIEF DIGRESSION from My Mystery Challenge!

Yes, I do have other things to think about - among these, a brief visit to London to catch up with my writing friends, Crysse Morrison - who took this photo (take a look at her blog to find out more).
and Roger Jinkinson (You can read about his own books and his passion for the research into the fascinating real-life story that led to his latest book, American Ikaros) Before meeting up with Crysse on the South Bank, I had time to browse through Poetry books and magazines at the wonderful Saison Poetry Library on Level 5 of the Festival Hall. The reference section seems to have a copy of every poetry book published in Britain since 1912. Without really expecting it, I was amazed to find that my own very slim volume, Single Travellers (Flarestack 2004) was squeezed in on the ‘C’ shelf.

Last week (Wednesday February 17, 2011) I was delighted to receive this praise from writer, Sally Jenkins for my professional publication of Paper Lanterns – and some nice comments about the contents, too! -

I’m getting more information about Mr Bruce from my friend Mary (see the post below) but today I want to show you the 3rd of Bessie’s love letters to him.

If you’re new to this blog,and you’d like to find out what this is all about, it’ll probably help you to scroll down to the first post about the Mystery Challenge,in which I’m asking readers to help me find out more about the love letters from 1920’s China:

If you compare this handwriting to the previous two letters, you’ll see that it was written by a different woman, her friend, Margaret Hartle. I found this very moving when I read it first (once I’d realised that Margaret was writing to explain to Mr Bruce why he had not heard from Bessie, and that Margaret had included a transcript of a Bessie’s own message to him.

To make this clearer, in my transcript, I’ve used italics for Margaret’s own words, and bold print for Bessie’s.

Dear Mr Bruce,
I sent you a chit Monday afternoon asking you to come over because I have a message from Bessie. Since you didn’t respond, I gather you didn’t receive it. They all had the flu and Big Jimmy developed double pneumonia & pleurisy. He was critically ill. Bessie was ill at the same time. You can imagine what she went through. She says

“It has taken me a long time to get over the flu, but I tell you that the flu was the least of it.
And now I must go back and tell you why you haven’t heard from me before this. I wrote you a letter on the boat telling you how Jimmy suspected that I had something in that box that I didn’t want him to see and full of things about Bruce. Jimmy opened the letter and read it and there was a scene. He was going to leave me at Shanghai & go back to Canton & commit murder, I reckon.

I was paralysed and I think the scene was enough to make me realise that after all, my children come first and I can’t do anything that will make their lives the least bit more difficult than any life must of necessity be. Well I am thinking of no one but them & Jimmy now, & this is easier here than it was in Canton. Jimmy wants me to send Bruce’s picture back, and to ask him for mine.
You can tell Bruce that I will never forget that I know every word of his letter (which I am burning) by heart, and that I really don’t need his picture anyway. It is no plainer than the one I carry in my heart. He must know that I am happy, far happier than I was in Canton and than I have any right to be,

but I know perfectly well that it is not the same kind of happiness that I might have had if he had come in to my life before it was too late.

If you ever have a chance you may tell him this, but I am not going to write to him myself. I told Jimmy that I loved Bruce, but that I love him (Jimmy) more than anything in the world. Perhaps it’s true, perhaps not. I can’t really say. I had so little chance to find out how much I really did love Bruce. But I think I know. Please always give me what news of him you can in a casual way.”

She wrote me another letter which obviously was censored. So I enclose
your picture, and if you will send me the one of her you have I will send it on.

How are you? You looked very pale in Canton. Send me any news of yourself you would like passed on.
I am very happy and well. Wuchow is a pleasant spot although not a metropolis!
Sincerely,
Margaret Hartle
Wuchow
September 23 1920

I would love to find out more about Bessie, though without a surname for her, I think that’s very unlikely, but somebody might be able to shed some light on Margaret Hartle, Bessie’s loyal friend.
Please send this link to anyone who might be interested in reading this, even if you think they won’t be able to help in my Mystery Challenge - 6 Degrees of Separation. (A FREE Copy of Paper Lanterns to anyone who can find fresh information)

BEFORE YOU READ ABOUT Looping the Loop with Free Harmony, Click here for my BOOK COVER DESIGN CHALLENGE

and give yourself the chance of winning a FREE copy of Paper Lanterns(CLOSING DATE: 31st December)

I’ve just experienced the weird (but rather nice) sensation of hearing my voice coming at me from my computer screen, and suddenly I’m back in the headquarters of Radio Wildfire, being interviewed by the presenter, Dave Reeves. I’m reading an extract from The Dangerous Sports Euthanasia Society, the part where Agnes Borrowdale, (‘75 years old, a week on Tuesday’) prevents Felix from throwing himself under a high speed train on New Street Station.

I shared the ‘live’ part of the broadcast, on Monday 7th December, with Adrian Johnson, the current Birmingham Poet Laureate, but although I had the pleasure of hearing him recite his poems, I wasn’t able to listen to myself and hear how I’d have sounded to the fans of Radio Wildfire, so it was a relief to find that I didn’t make a complete prat of myself (in spite of some hesitation and stumbling over a few words.)

I’m quite used to talking about my first novel, but this was the first time I’d been interviewed about Paper Lanterns so it took a bit longer to collect my thoughts. I have to say that I was enthralled just now when I was listening to two of the real-life love letters from China in the 1920s that inspired one of the main story threads in the novel. (I’ll post more information about these letters soon.)

Meanwhile, if you want to hear more of this broadcast, it’s now available here on the Loop.

The Loop is a non stop (24/7)transmission between the live monthly broadcasts, and it’s just been updated today, 23rd December. Once you’ve got the hang of how this works, it’s very easy to follow, especially as Dave has listed what you can expect to hear on each of the 12 tracks. If you miss anything, all you need to do is wait till it comes round again – (a bit like those baggage carousels at airports when you fail to recognise your own suitcase before it’s swallowed up by those dangling bits of rubber - but waiting on Radio Wildfire is a good deal more entertaining than watching the sluggish progress of other people’s luggage!)

So here’s the programme, and it’s part of the fun to identify which track you’ve landed on. It’s all good stuff, but make sure you listen out for tracks 6 and 9!

Tracks 1-3
Adrian Johnson Birmingham Poet Laureate reads…
All the Jam
Happy Birthday Brummie Floozy
Birmingham’s What?

Tracks 4-6
Office Party Roz Goddard (live)
Thank you letter Xmas 1969 (2008) Brendan Hawthorne with Nigel Self
Christine Coleman reads from The Dangerous Sports Euthanasia Society

Tracks 7-9
Twelve Days of Christmas, a story by Susan Hulse
A Poor Man’s Excuse Dave Reeves (live)
Christine Coleman talks about her forthcoming novel, Paper Lanterns

Tracks 10-12
Adrian Johnson talking about the National Storytelling Laureate and reading the poem Deep Mercia
Christmas Do Geoff Stevens
Let Your Little Light Shine (Trad spiritual) Free Harmony*

(* I liked this so much that I ordered the CD of Free Harmony from Chris Hoskin’s website (a bargain at £8.00)