France
Sunday. 18-8-18
Dear May,
When I was in Blighty I was going to write you such an enormous letter all about everything but you know what happened. Letter writing & holiday making don’t go well together. I have sent you a few scrappy letters & some p.c’s & there seems nothing left now to tell you about. I think I told you that I spent a day at Ashley Heath, but didn’t know I’d spent it
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with relations but since I left Elsie has discovered that the people we visited were her uncle’s cousins. Ashley is perhaps 10 miles from Porthill & is high country with woods & heather alround & is a favourite place with wealthy people for building bungaloes for summer residences. The Reids have plenty of tin & spend all the summer out there. They are very homly people, much after the style of Mr & Mrs Bagrie & we spent a real good day there. They are very friendly with
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Miss Basford & it was she who took us to see them. I don’t know if I told you that Miss Basford is a cobber of the girls, & also of Arthur’s. You’ll see her on some of the snaps. She has travelled a good deal & is good company. In the tennis photos you will see another of our friends, Jessie Allen. I think she works with the girls. Of course you’ll see from the photos that there is a war on. I nearly
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always had 3 or 4 girls to keep in order. Out at Rudyard Lake there is supposed to be 13 girls to every man & as I only had 3 that day they reckoned I was 10 short of my proper ration. As you will see by the photos it is a bon place to spend a day. There are dozens of boats on the lake, nearly all filled with girls, & most of them could give me points in rowing. Miss B & Connie wouldn’t come in the boat but whether it was fear of dangerous currents or out of consideration for me, I am not sure.
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If the war lasts long enough I’ll spend another day there sometime. I haven’t heard how our snaps turned out yet but I hope some of them are fit to send. I could only get one spool devd while I was there, & most of them were passable. There are dozens of places around where we can go for a day out & being so close to the railway brings quite a lot of places within range. With the daylight saving being in force we had an extra hour in the evenings so that we always
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had time to carry out some sort of programme after tea. I sent you a p.c. of Hauley Park where we used to go for tennis. They are grass courts & well kept & are a sort of on the outskirts of the Park so that they are fairly quiet & secluded. There are about 8 courts & they are seldom all full & practically no spectators. There are no membership fees but you pay so much an hour for the court & can take it for the evening. I
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thought it was a very good idea. I think it was the first tennis I’d played since I left N.Z. but if our tennis wasn’t very brilliant well we made up for it in other ways. I wish you could have seen the Birmingham gardens on Bank Holiday. The place was absolutely packed with people. They have lovely conservatories, ferneries, roseries etc but they were so hot & stuffy & so crowded that once inside we had to go with the crowd till we got to the door. In the gardens it was just the same, the walks
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were crowded & where there was an acre or two of lawn it was packed with women & kids so that it was a job to wriggle our way from one side to the other. After tea we had a short stroll round the main streets of the town & found a sight more elbow room there. Of course we had no time to do the town properly, & any how it was a bad day for that but we saw the outside of most of the big public buildings, saw the arcades & most of the business part of the town. There are a few factories there I’d like to explore but it takes a lot of time.
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Was rather surprised to find the prices so reasonable over there. They go crook about the enormous increase in boots clothing etc but their prices now are just about the same as the old N.Z. prices. Food of all sorts is dear but chocolates I think are cheaper than they used to be in N.Z, but you’ve got to be in the know to get them. I got a pair of ordinary white tennis shoes for 2/6 1/2 & the girl in the shop explained that the high price was due to the scarcity of rubber. Meat, sugar,
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butter & in fact everything for the table is dreadfully dear. Fruit is expensive too. The English fruit crop is a failure but there is plenty of imported. Oranges are 4d or 5d each grapes 4/6 to 5/- lb, plums over 2/- a lb & mushrooms about 2/4. Vegetables are not quite so bad because so many have their own allotments & it has been a good year for them. Right throughout England every village has its little patches of allotments & it is surprising what an interest people take in them. I don’t think the people
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will ever give them up. In fact it is hard to understand why they didn’t go in for them years ago. I told you before that Mrs Charley (Dorrie’s mother) had given me a sort of jam dish to send to mother. Well I left it with Elsie to pack up & she says she has sent it on, & has written to you so you should receive it before this. I don’t know if they told you that Grandfather’s brother James died some little time ago. I didn’t know about it until I
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was over this time. Old Uncle Arthur is looking as well as ever. They have pretty well all the garden in vegetables this year, & the glass house full of tomatoes, hope to tell you more of the latter later. They were just ready to turn colour when I left. I don’t think there is any local news – things have been pretty tame since I wrote last. The talk of leave to N.Z. for the mainbody has revived but don’t know if there is much in it. You’ll probably know as much about it as we do. Those who have been back to N.Z. all go crook about the way they are treated, both by the authorities & the public. But I think I’d be game to chance it.
Love to all from
Len
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P.S. Have just been thinking that the present arrangements concerning the banking of my allotment money might be improved on. The way it is at present you can pay it in but can’t get it out again so that if I sent for a few quid at any time it might cause inconvenience so I think you had better ask Mother to start a fresh A/c at the post office, in her own name or at any rate in such a way that she
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can draw from it if necessary. I am not sure of the rules but I don’t think you can run two books in my name. Anyhow I’ll leave it to you to fix up, I think it will prove more satisfactory than the present system. Of course it might never be needed but it is just as well to be able to lay your hands on it if necessity arise, for one never knows does one?
Cheerio
Love from
Len
