March 4th/1918
32507/9 Batt York and Lanc Regt
C. Company
12 Platoon L.G.S
I.E.F
C. Company
12 Platoon L.G.S
I.E.F
Dear Jack
I have received your paper's and was very pleased with them I am glad that you are both keeping well. as I am alright at present. I am pleased to hear that you are able to stay at home and that the army will not require you. I have had a letter from Ethel and she says that dad does not get much better. I am glad that you have an idea where abouts I am things are still quite I hope they remain so. We are not doing so bad for food out here it would be better if we got paid more regular we have only drawn ten lires in a month that is equal to five shillings in English money, (25p - 50 cents! BL) so I think we shall have a bit to our credit, we get plenty of fruit out here oranges and apples etc. It will be Willie's birthday this month 21th but I shall not be able to send him anything. We see some fine scenery out here we are quite close to the mountains some of these take about five hours to climb and they are not the highest. it is different to flanders being out here. I think Kate will try to get a day or two off to see you she told me in her last letter that she would like to pay you a visit. Write back as soon as possible I am always glad to get a letter.
I have received your paper's and was very pleased with them I am glad that you are both keeping well. as I am alright at present. I am pleased to hear that you are able to stay at home and that the army will not require you. I have had a letter from Ethel and she says that dad does not get much better. I am glad that you have an idea where abouts I am things are still quite I hope they remain so. We are not doing so bad for food out here it would be better if we got paid more regular we have only drawn ten lires in a month that is equal to five shillings in English money, (25p - 50 cents! BL) so I think we shall have a bit to our credit, we get plenty of fruit out here oranges and apples etc. It will be Willie's birthday this month 21th but I shall not be able to send him anything. We see some fine scenery out here we are quite close to the mountains some of these take about five hours to climb and they are not the highest. it is different to flanders being out here. I think Kate will try to get a day or two off to see you she told me in her last letter that she would like to pay you a visit. Write back as soon as possible I am always glad to get a letter.
With best love to you both
Harry
Harry
11 comments:
Interesting, isn't it. To me Harry does not seem upbeat in the least - in fact he sounds depressed. He is wistful and he is lonely. I guess he is also bored. He certainly is desperate for any sense of home and family. Great to be able to see the envelopes too, Bill.
I have been following these letters on a regular basis and have been "holding my breath" each time I log on. We, of course, know when this terrible war ended, but his family had no pre-knowledge and the wait for the postman must have been almost unendurable.
Thank you again for sharing this wonderful correspondence with us.
Two amazing men - you and your grandad. And of course the courageous women in Harry's life.
Kind of sad to hear he's missing his son's birthday. He, his wife, and us all wondering if he'll ever get to see another one of his son's birthdays.
Happy Birthday to Willie. I agree with Julie, he does sound a little depressed. Did some major changes occur in this month that I missed?
It is also cool to see how much salaries have really changed:)
I cannot fathom what life would have been like for Harry.
I come by every week or so and like everyone else, I am holding my breath.
Cool.Good post.I like this blog.
Hello!
My name is Berta, I'm from Spain. I found your blog because a spanish newspaper told us about it. Thank you to share with us this story about war.
xxx
Berta
each time i see a new RSS feed from your blog i am just hoping harry is still alive, i am so worried for him. this is a wonderful blog, i became to like harry so much - he's just a simple man in this huge war and he has to face such terrible things but he just takes it as it is. i think it just underlines the terrors of the war.
thank you for sharing this. (i am from slovakia and i met this woman from britain at a conference who mentioned this blog, so i just had a look and it's really very good)
in case you would be interested who was the woman who mentioned your blog actually in her conference lecture, it was Ms. Odala, an American (sorry, there was another British lady and I mixed them up) information specialist, editor of Online magazine and the presentation can be found here:
http://www.insource.cz/pdf/2008/ojala-marydee.pdf
(slide No.25)
just to show how information flows around this world today :-))
Hi from Italy,
I read your blog because here I can read somethings about a war fight on my country, and read how it was it's very interesting.
Just a note:
Harry was drawn 10 liras in a month, and that's was equal to 5 shillings in English 1918 money.
As the actual rate, the real conversion itsn't 25p-50 cents, but - if we follow conversion table from ISTAT (italian statistic institute) at http://www.istat.it/prezzi/precon/rivalutazioni/val_moneta_2007.html - the 10 liras with the coefficent of the year 1918 (2560.7406), are equals to 25,607 liras of nowadays, and it would be say 13 Euros: nearly 10 Pounds.
Few dirty money...
I also hold my breath each time I log on. I would desperately love to see Harry get home safely. Thanks for all your efforts!
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