3rd Battalion,
Canadian Corp.
Feb.1/16.

Dearest Mother,-

I seem to have gotten hopelessly behind somehow in my letters home for there is a letter here from each one of the family still unanswered. You are so good about writing, all of you, that it is sometimes difficult if not impossible to keep up unless I just scribble a short note to each. It seems better to write one long sort of family letter which will interest you all although I sometimes think they must often read more like a chronicle than real personal chatty letters. But really after you have been out here for three or four months, life becomes more or less a mere succession of events and although we do manage to regard most things with a certain amount of humour, I am afraid it is rather subjective and often strained and would appear in the recounting as somewhat banal. So you won't mind if I just spin off the rigmarole of daily ups and downs and in and outs and around abouts.

First of all, always a great event in our lives, a parcel from home arrived today, the one you posted on January the seventh with whole oodles of peppermints, soap and such-like. It was duly opened and submitted for the approval of the assembled mess of "A" Co’y, and found quite satisfactory. Another thing, wonder of wonders, a box of apples arrived while I was in England at long last and was very much appreciated. I don't know why they have taken so long but the main thing is that they have arrived I suppose. It is rather hard to keep track, but I'm pretty sure that one parcel at least which you sent about Xmas has not come along so far, -one with some things of Mary Lynd's in it, wasn't there, supposed to arrive about New Years. I haven't seen anything of it as yet, but it may drift in one of these days. It's very annoying to have these things go astray, not so much for themselves,-though they are always delightfully welcome,-as for the amount of loving thought which all you dear ones have wrapped up in the tough brown paper. By the way, tell Mally that her ’’shower" parcel arrived O.K. shortly before I left for leave and that I distributed the little parcels as best I could. There don't seem to be many of the lads who don't get some remembrances at least from home. The "lonely soldier" is I think, conspicuous by his absence in His Majesty's Canadian Forces. You ought to see the huge bags of mail that are loaded onto a staggering fatigue party sometimes to bring up to trenches. For a week or so the mails were so huge that they couldn't bring them up at all.

Well I suppose you want to know all about my week in England. Really it was very quiet and of course I didn't do half the things that I intended to. The time goes by so quickly and I didn't feel particularly energetic somehow. Arrived in London on Sunday night and by all the little begoggled speed fiends I had to wait for a whole ten minutes to get a taxi at Charing Cross Station. Went to the R.A.C. , had a bath and turned in. Next morning I did a lot of shopping replacing some of my worn out kit and had lunch with Bert James and a friend of his (son of the Reverend of Toronto in the Eaton Battery). I was to meet Jack Herman but he didn't arrive. He was in London seeing his brother off to the north for a change. You remember the accident; he shot himself through the stomach with a revolver and had rather a desperate time of it for awhile but is on the road to recovery. At night I went to the theatre and had supper with one of the "Stars" from behind the footlights in London's favorite at present, that lovely operetta "Betty". She was a very quiet nice girl, so don't be alarmed, and most stunningly handsome in a gentle sort of way. We went to the Savoy but what a changed Savoy! There was still quite a crowd, pretty much the same crowd as ever and in some ways just as brilliant but so quiet compared to the place even as I knew it five months ago. Most are in khaki and those in evening dress bear the stamp of the army all over them,-officers home on leave who probably live in London. The streets are much quieter and darker than ever. But withal there is nothing heavy, nothing sombre; everyone is in the best of spirits and quietly cheerful. In the streets one sees small knots of men marching along in civies and a few minutes later they appear going in the opposite direction all dolled up in khaki with a little bag under their arms filled with the remnants of their civilian shame: they are calling up the groups and a fine type of men they seem to be, not enthusiastic letters of blood like the 1st Canadians and the 1st English volunteers but cheerful and determined looking stuff for all that. The Londoner is a wonderful fighting man and the London territorials have done marvellous things at Loos and elsewhere. You can hear their priceless Cockney always in jist, sometimes a bitter one, sometimes ironic, but always fiercely humorous.

Tuesday morning I ran down to Chelmsford and spent a day with Olive McDermot that was. Her husband is a splendid chap and has the Munitions situation actually at his finger tips. We spent the evening disposing of the German army and strafing the old duffers at Whitehall. Oh, some of the holes of official red tape which I got first hand. I can’t tell you in a letter but I should say that Lloyd George and his Ministry of Munitions just arrived in time to avert a terrible tragedy and that even yet there is considerable housecleaning to be done. I should say that at the beginning of the war there must have been whole departments of the technical side of war as she is fought of which we hadn't a suspicion of an idea and which have been created, studied and developed since the affair began. No wonder we are only just beginning! Our tradition and theory and experience of warfare was that it was a matter of men and morale; the highly trained human material; the Germans knew that modern war was a matter of highly developed machinery and organization. We go at a battle as a snorting affair and ”may the best man win" sort of style; the Bosches go at it like a scientific proposition with the result that the best man to date has not been doing much winning.

Wednesday back to London and Folkestone and Thursday a little party with George who arrived the night before and Jack Crawford. Jack is likely to come out to us soon I believe. Friday back to the front and tomorrow up into the line again. The men look much the better for their three weeks rest end lots of marching and exercise.

I don't think I mentioned in Kae's letter that I called on the Merritt's. They have a house in Folkestone and the Major was home on leave also when I dropped in to tea. Nanette Millar is nursing here and was there also. Arnold Davison, who has had the measles and three weeks leave had been shopping with them but had just gone back a couple of days before I arrived. I have never been able to see him since he left us last summer as his battalion is in trenches at the same time as ours so I was rather sorry to miss him. Marion says that Merton Seymour is in the flying Corp and may be over at any time now. Poor old flying Corp, they have been having quite a hot time lately but we are still lords of the air I think.

Well, dearest mother mine, I must stop this long ramble and turn in. This bally palace of ours is pretty darn thin in spots and the knots have been knocked out here and there,- one of those wonderful huts they build for us. The weather is bitterly cold and there arrives a time when the blankets are irresistible. I loved the pretty verse by the Reverend "Bob". By the way, send me something to read once in a while, something literary, mind you, but in a cheap binding, so that I won’t mind leaving it behind when I am done with it. Best love to all, dearest. I was quite blue in England because,-well I would have liked to see you all again before the "great shove". It seems a long time since June 4th,1915.

Yours lovingly,
ERROL.