Late Arrival! Letter to Kate 9th January 1918

Jan 9th/1917

32507/9th York & Lancs Batt
C. Company
12 Platoon L.G.S.
B.E.F. Italy

Dear Kate
I have just received your parcel alright everything was in good order. I am glad you are going on alright and like your job. How did you go on at Christmas. Ethel tells me you managed to get home for a week. How did you find Connie and Willie where they alright, well how did you find them all. I hope you enjoyed yourself. I am going to write home. It is very cold out here at night but we have some nice days. I am sorry to hear about Uncle Shelton and about Jack Bonser getting wounded. I hope he gets on alright. Write as often as you can. I think we shall get our letters alright now. I shall be glad to see you all again.

With love
from Harry


The letter was mis-filed as the date was obviously wrong. I have realised today that Harry must have just forgotten that the year had moved on to 1918.

I did exactly the same when posting the letter of 14th January! (I can edit my version, however.) BL

Click on the letter to enlarge

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a fantastic idea - to blog all these letters. Well done. You must have lots of historians visiting this site. I am going to show my huband. He'll be fascinated.

Anonymous said...

I've noticed that Harry tends to write detailed letters only to his brother. Jack may not get everything that's happening to Harry at the front, but Harry really doesn't write more than "I'm alright, and thanks for your letter/package" to his sisters and wife.

My first thought was that this might be a product of his era, then I realized: I'm currently getting exactly the same fact-free letters from my nephew in Iraq.

Anonymous said...

Thank you very much for all the work you are putting into this blog. We saw this featured on the CBC and have enjoyed getting caught up with Harry's letters. We are spreading the word to friends, co-workers and family. We eagerly await the next letter. Thanks again.

K & A, Calgary, AB. Canada

michelle hays said...

Poor harry. He's cold at nights. That must have been aweful.

Anonymous said...

Fantastiskt att läsa, man lever sig in i händelserna. Önskar att det komm fler sådana bloggar som refererar till gammla skrivna brev.
/Lars

Anonymous said...

I have enjoyed your blog - what a great way to share a forgotten era.

Anonymous said...

thank you too - there was a feature at the tagesschau so i immadetely had to take a look at your/your grandfathers blog.. great idea, really..
greetings from leipzig/germany

Anonymous said...

1917 i expect you mean 1918. Great idea. Really interessting. Hope there are a lots of letters to keep on writing.

Anonymous said...

Inspired by your blog, I transcribed and uploaded a couple of letters that have been in my Family for generations.
http://ccgi.ammonyte.plus.com/blog/?p=107

I believe that Jack and Sid were from Chorley, Lancashire.

Anonymous said...

hey

thank god for this site.
i doing a assessment at high school on world war 1. It's really interesting. do you mind if i use some of this letter for my assessment as i am hoping to be getting an level 8.For my assessment, i'm creating a large model trench and a memories box containing a diary,letters, medals and photographs. i would be grateful if you could comment back with some links for other good world war 1. thanks for your help

molly aged 13