Nov 1 1917

Dear Daughter Margaret:-

Your letter & Gracie’s arrived last night & see how soon I am writing you in return. I am on a job- in the Queen Mary tea rooms of this camp & have 7 men to take care of & its some job looking after them for they have a habit of disappearing & I have to hunt them up but as that is all I have to do it doesn’t take up all my time & so I can write to my little girls. I’m glad you are getting on so well at school but I don’t think your writing is improving dearie. I remember a letter you wrote oh so long ago now & it was just wonderful how well it was written. you can compose a letter better, but don’t take enough pains over your writing & at your age Margaret, you should. now perhaps you will criticize Daddy but he has a good many more letters to write than you have & not always the best place to do it either. Tell Miss MacIntyre I’m so glad she takes such an interest in you & I hope you will repay her darling by being as earnest as you can in trying to learn what she is willing to teach you. you must be a very big girl now. you will have to tell me how much you weigh & how old. I sent you home a little present for your birthday which I had the jeweler get specifically for you. I do hope you get it before you have this letter you will be a year older. does that make you eleven. I’m so sorry you haven’t more time to write to me Margaret, but I’m sure you are pretty busy. I often wonder what at. Daddy went out yesterday afternoon to a big hospital near here called the Manor War Hosp to see a Canadian boy who has a sister at Haywards Heath she asked a friend & I to call (my friends name is Hatch, you will see his picture in some of the photos I sent home.) it is a very big hospital & we walked down such long long corridors to this ward where [?] in & there we found he was out but we had done what we had promised & left a note telling him who we were & why we had called. Then we came back to Epsom & had our tea at a soldiers restroom our tea consisted of a pot of tea a sausage apiece & 4 slices of bread & butter & 2 cakes & it cost us 1s.Yd our tea was very weak & not very sweet, as we only get a very small portion of sugar for each cup & tea is very scarce those are two things there is a great lack of here & I being such a tea drinker do miss my good cup of tea. but we have to put up with these little trails & be glad we can get anything to eat at all. we get plenty to eat in the camp & good beds to sleep in perhaps you ask why we didn’t go home to tea to the camp well the camp is 2 miles from the town of Epsom & we wanted to call on a lady a grand-grand daughter of Charles Dickens the great English author. perhaps you don’t know his writings yet Pet, but I hope someday you will & you will be glad to know then that your Daddy met one of his descendants. we are going to tea there we hope Sunday afternoon. they, another lady & her, live in a very old fashioned home in Epsom. a home you would just pick for a Dickens to live in & they have all kind of old fashioned lamps lanterns Tables etc in the home. now darling Margaret, I’ll close & write a few lines to Gracie. hoping you will someday be a clever writer yourself of whom other girls fathers will be glad to know their children. now darling XXXXXX goodbye with love & kisses from your own Daddy