He told his mother that he had spent the evening before writing a long letter to his Auntie Ede [his father’s sister], and had also organised some hot water so he could give himself a ‘good hot wash-down all over…and a change of clothes’. He explained that, while he would usually go to the baths in the local town, ‘our battalion is now in the town where the baths are and I did not want to run against my Colonel’. He hoped that he would not be relieved before his battalion went back into the line the following day, which would mean at least an extra six days in the mine.He hoped that he would still be there at Christmas, confident that he, Gibson and one of the RE officers could have a ‘jolly time together’.
His servant Morris had gone in to the village to buy some things, pick up letters and parcels, and take his clothes to ‘an old French woman who does washing’. With three changes of pants, vests and shirts he was able to keep clean. Whenever he began to ‘itch’ he would change everything, thus keeping free of lice (although he also applied a good dose of Boots powder before putting his new clothes back on).
Fragment of letter to Mother, 5 December 1916. By permission of the Surrey History Centre (Ref: 2332/1/1/2/120)
His thoughts were still on Xmas and he encouraged his mother not to spend too much on him:
‘There are one or two little things I should love if I knew they came from home – a small Xmas pudding, some dessert of some kind and such like things connected with Xmas and then there is one little thing I should like as a present dear, that is a tie pin…And then if you could make me a nice pair of long socks I think your work will be cut out to supply all my needs.’
In the meantime, he thanked her for the supply of parcels, containing all the ‘dear old things – ginger cakes and chocolate etc etc’ but cautioned her that, if sending weekly parcels was proving too much of a strain, she should send them only fortnightly: ‘There is something about your parcels that there is in no other men’s parcels – theirs look very poor besides yours, dear, you are an absolute expert at it.’
Censoring the men’s letters had taken him longer than expected, and it was now almost time to go on duty, but before closing the letter up he had time to note that ‘we had some tear shells over near us this morning – I had been out and coming back I got a whiff of it, which made my eyes water, but am alright now.’
[Next letter: 6 December]