Phuc Dat Bich

This reminds me of the letter written during WW2 by the British Ambassador to Moscow to Lord Pembroke in 1943. It was released under the Freedom of Information Act.

H.M. EMBASSY
MOSCOW

Lord Pembroke
The Foreign Office
London
6th April 1943

My Dear Reggie,

In these dark days man tends to look for little shafts of light that spill from Heaven. My days are probably darker than yours, and I need, my God I do, all the light I can get. But I am a decent fellow, and I do not want to be mean and selfish about what little brightness is shed upon me from time to time. So I propose to share with a tiny flash that has illuminated my sombre life and tell you that God has given me a new Turkish colleague whose card tells me that he is called Mustapha ****.

We all feel like that, Reggie, now and then, especially when spring is upon us, but few of us would dare to put it on our cards. It takes a Turk to do that.

Sir Archibald Clerk Kerr,
H.M. Ambassador.