No. 1 Co., C.M.G.D.
Seaford, Sussex,
Eng.
Jan 11th, 1918

My Dear Mother:-

It is a week since I wrote to you last so while I am doing nothing I will write you a few lines. Thing are going nicely and our work is progressing. We start our classes on the Machine Gun next week. This week we have had a course in musketry and this forenoon we fired at the ranges. I was up somewhere near the top with 36 out of 45, many missed the target entirely. The weather has been wet and muddy and for two days it was decidedly cold. The winds here are like those in Ontario, they seem to go right through a person and the mud has been sticky. This afternoon we had to leave the square and go out on a hill where there was some grass so that we could move.

Had a letter from Nellie and also one from Barbara Nichol. Letters are certainly welcome and I will be glad to see some of those parcels. Have had no money for over a week but I think we will be paid on Monday. A person needs money here at all times in order to get meals etc. at the Canteen. Don't forget the $50 to reach me by the first of April if possible.

Today is clean-up day and since Parade I have cleaned up my equipment and as soon as I finish this I have some brass work to polish, my bed boards to wash and the a few things to wash up. Here it is hard to get washing done regularly so most of us do our own laundry work. It all helps to put in time. This week the Machine Gunners have been doing Patrol duty in Seaford. I have been on two evenings from 6.00 to 10.30 and it was a tedious occupation. English towns are pretty quiet after dark and even in London you would see practically no one out after midnight.

Nellie said in her letter that Jack Charles was in hospital at Seaford. I am going down tomorrow afternoon and see if I can find him. She also has some friends in a hospital Eastbourne, a small place only seven miles from here. On a route march the other day we were within three miles of the place.

It is strange how one gets used to camp life. Here we have no desire to leave the lines at all. As soon as parade is over, we have supper, then do a little reading or writing and play a few games of "500" and by then it is 9.00 o'clock and time for bed and after a strenuous day's work one is able to sleep without and difficulty.
[This letter incomplete]