For years, a WWII soldier named Gilbert exchanged passionate love letters with his mysterious recipient “G.” More than half a century later, the world learned that G stood for Gordon, another man. Now these wartime gay lovers are finally getting a film to commemorate their secret love on the battlefield.
According to BBC News, British soldiers Gilbert Bradley and Gordon Bowsher sent one another hundreds of letters. Gilbert was stationed at Park Hall Camp in Oswestry as an anti-aircraft gunner, whereas Gordon was stationed all over the country as an infantryman. The two met in 1938 at a house party in Devon and soon fell in love.
A letter dated two years after their meeting read, “My own darling boy, There is nothing more than I desire in life but to have you with me constantly…I can see or I imagine I can see, what your mother and father’s reaction would be… the rest of the world have no conception of what our love is – they do not know that it is love…”
In a later letter, Gordon urges Gilbert to “do one thing for me in deadly seriousness. I want all my letters destroyed. Please darling do this for me. Til then and forever I worship you.”
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Gilbert did not comply. Although the couple eventually began seeing other people and fell out of contact around the end of the war, their letters were discovered in Gilbert’s belongings after he died in 2008. Ten years later, the letters were put on display as an important piece of LGBTQ+ history at Oswestry Museum in Shropshire, not far from where Gilbert was stationed.
Now, Gilbert and Gordon’s love story is poised to become a feature length film after American director Andy Vallentine viewed the letters for himself. The story was previously made into a 2022 short film, “The Letter Men,” but Vallentine now has higher ambitions.
Although Gilbert and Gordon’s wartime love story is the stuff of epic romance movie-making now, at the time it was incredibly dangerous. While British civilians could be put in jail for homosexual behavior, British soldiers caught having gay sex could face the firing squad. The risk made Gilbert and Gordon more cautious, but it certainly didn’t stop them.
“For me, what is the most unique aspect, is just the amount of letters that Gilbert kept,” Vallentine told the BBC. “Gay people have been around always, we have always been here… mostly we’ve been in the closet, most gay people would burn letters or destroy them out of fear of discovery.
“It’s just such an important historical moment in the broad gay community that we have this insight into what a relationship looked like for these men at that time.”
Vallentine is currently in the process of pitching for the feature, but he already has ideas for casting. “Jonathan Bailey comes to mind,” he said, “but I don’t mind, I’m open.”
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