Easter Sunday
Dear Mother,
I have just landed another mail including a letter from you & May, also one from Nellie Columb. It is rather interesting to see the lists of those called up. It is to be hoped they don’t have to go past the first division. The photos of Dome Creek arrived alright although the envelope they were in was burst & had been soaking wet at some stage of the journey. The photos of Ruth & Eric have also arrived, they are all very good. What a difference there is in Ruth since I left. I am sorry to hear that neither Bagries nor Hargests
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had received my letter when you wrote on Feb 13th. There will not be much chance of them arriving now. It seems too far back now to start writing about it now or I would write to them again, & anyway I can give them no information beyond what they already have. D. Collins has joined up but is not with our Bgde. Sandy Murry, who used to work on the dredges, told me he had seen him. I will probably run across him now & then. I think he is in the same Coy. as Dick Hume. Sandy Langford is back again & is now attached
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to Auckland. He was round to see me a couple of nights ago but I was out at the time. Andy McCarthy’s Jack is also out here & was talking to M. Maher the other day. I think Ned is still in England. Min Looney is at present in England for a fortnights leave & I think she has just about earned it. They have been stationed down the Somme district for about 8 months & have had a pretty rough time. When she was reported seriously ill it was a severe cold that was the trouble. I had a p.c. from her & she said she had lost her voice & had been stone deaf for a week but was still at work. A few days ago I had the luck to get into town & while there saw the old Belgian refugees making lace by hand. They work
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on a sort of cushion & have scores of threads on little spools & it is the fun of the world to watch them fingering these spools & twisting them around & tossing them from side to side. The speed of their hands is amazing, the playing of a good lively piece on the piano isn’t in it. I am not much of a judge of these things but the French shop keepers say it is very “feen”, tres bon. Any how I bought a sample of the lace with insertion to match & am posting it to May. Madamoiselle told me there was enough for a set of collar & cuffs. I also bought a couple of photos of the old girls
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at work but am not sure that I’ll be able to get them past the censor. I don’t think there is any more to write about. The weather is very changeable but today is a lovely spring day & as we are out of the trenches & are having a day off I am doing bit of writing. I will enclose a leaf out of a little magazine (edited by Clutha McKenzie) giving a very good description of one of the baths. It doesn’t make enough of the draughts encountered & feelings felt between the departure of the last of our clothing & the arrival of the man with the hose but apart from that it is good. Fortunately we are away from that sector now & have better arrangements here, and after all our
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weekly washes used to be anything up to 6 weeks apart so that we don’t have to go through it many times in a winter. Must stop now & write a few lines to Nellie C.
Love to all
Len
P.S. Have just had a big meeting of W’siderites – M. & C. Collins, W. Hume, M. Maher & Chris Millar & myself. Dick Hume is on duty or he would have been here too. All are quite well.
