Chisledon Camp, Wilts England

April 23/17

Dear Folks,

Spring has come at last and we are having some lovely warm, bright days. The trees and hedges, however, are just beginning to bud, all the foilage is very late in coming out this year. But the air is sweet and fresh, the grass is getting green and the larks are whistling merrily overhead. Altogether it is tood to be alive even in the army. I have little news for you this week except that a draft of one hundred men is to go across shortly. The Cyclid Corps Battalion in France suffered rather ehavy casualties in the Vimy Ridge fighting and needs reinforcements. As the draft will take practically all the origionals from the 4th Div, I think I’ll be able to get on it all right, though at present our room is in quarenting. One of the fellows got measles some way or other and so we are having a few days rest. We are allowed to go out into a field back of the huts and kick a football around but have to keep to ourselves. we get up when we like in the mornings our meals are brought to us by a fatigue party and we play cards, read, write, or sleep most of the day. Then we all break quarantine directly and go for walks when we feel like an airing. It is certainly a pleasant change from parade.

Yesterday afternoon Dorland and I went for a long walk to Wroughton and back. Wroughton is a large straggling village about three miles south of Swindon. We walked a mile or so past the village and then, on the way back stopped for tea. We had tea in a house that had evidently been some kind of old dame’s school. Around the room bibles and hymnbooks and books of elementary instruction were piled or scattered higgledy piggledy. Our meal was served by two old ladies dressed exactly alike in old fashioned black silk dresses with little white lace collars. The most curious appertenance of the household was an immaculately dressed old gentlemen who stood quite still by the fireplace during the whole time. He had the appearance of being just as much an essential part of the room as the mantelpiece or the table and indeed gave you the impression of being an antique piece of furniture. Once when questioned he offered information about the duration and severity of the winters in the prehistoric times of his young manhood, and then lapsed back into silence and immobility. He had a queer, rustic dialect, but his oddity of speech consisted rather of queer phrases and grammatical perversians than in his prounounciation. I have frequently noticed that the Wiltshire people of average education have an accent not unlike the Canadian. The prounouce their r’s quite distinctively and except that they round their o’s a little more and never speak through their nose, you could hardly tell that you were talking to an English man.

Recently we have been receiving a lot of men back from the front. There are two in our room and they are both very interesting characters. Paddy Fries is a Bohemian (literally) who got out to Canada someway when he was about three years old. In spite of the fact that English is the only tongue he has ever known,  he has a most outlandish accent. He has a most amusing way of transposing his r’s and v’s like Dawn Weller, also his words especially I and a. Then he uses the definite article with the ph[?] and with proper names. For example he says “I hear a Serjeant Wale has advised us to clean our rifles.” When he gets excited heyells and splutters in a side splitting fashion, but our fellows are very considerate and don’t make fun of him. He is really a very nice fellow; clean, hard-working and good natured. The other man is old Hugh Macgregor a Scotchman who comes from ‘Kirkintulloch.’ In spite of the fact thathe has been in Canada for many years and has a family there, he speaks the broadest Scotch I ever heard. Mac is an old soldier who was in British regulars and served in the South African war. He is not a model of virtue in many respects and he is certainly not a beautiful object but he is most decidedly a man to be trusted and liked. He is honest, intelligent, helpful and most kindly and sympathetic. With[?] he has seen a good deal of the world and has a fund of sound common sense. When he gets drunk he gets gamalsus and tells us what a fine man his father was, what a strong man he is himself, what a smart boy he has and always ends with “Ah know what ah know.” But he never gets uproarious, never blows about his military prowess or in deed tells of any of his experiances in France, and frequently reprimands the younger fry for getting drunk. Although he has had no education in culture or any kind he is a man whom I would far rather have as a companion than many of the smarl aleck brainless narrow minded Canadian youngsters who have had more advantages. One thing I have noticed about Canadians –especially young ones- is that they are very intolerant. Englishmen are far more tolerant or peculiarities in manner, dress, or habit than Canadians who have no mercy on any who deviate from their conventional, mediocre type. Notice how Canadian boys at school make fun of an English boy, sneer at his English ways and mimic his peculiarities. An Englishman is far too polite to treat a stranger like that.

Have had no letters from home for ever so long. We have all been looking for a Canadian mail the last few days but are still awaiting it. Much love, dear people; keep cheerful. If the war doesn’t end this year the race will be a fair way towards exterminating its miserable self. But I think President Wilson will do all he can to stop the war.

George.