France
12/5/18
Dear Gorrie,
Next Wednesday will mark the first anniversary of our leaving home after final leave. A year seems a long time but it has gone quickly and it seems only a short time since we left the station that night. I wonder if we will be home by next May. I have had no reply to my last letter to mac. but all my mail seems to be very much delayed now and all the letters seem to take a very long time to reach me. Alec Young and Charlie Musker seem to have missed my camp alright for I have seen or heard nothing of them since last January. Things are very monotonous over here for it is just the same mechanical routine every day. I am enclosing a letter card and booklet for Mum along with this letter. They were supplied by the Y.M.C.A. which seems to have its canteens and marquees everywhere. There is no other institution that does so much for the boys over here as the Y.M.C.A. Summer is now fairly started and conditions are improving all round. I sincerely hope that we have not to spend another winter over here. One is enough to last a lifetime. I seem to be missing a lot of letters from home for I have received so far only one for December and only two for January. They may turn up later for I have received letters before when they were five months old. There is nearly no news at all so you will have to pardon me for the shortness of this letter.
Neil says that he has written home for a cable for money. I don’t just know how he stands, but I have plenty. There is over £11 to my credit in my pay book. (Neil had all ready cabled home for £20). Keep on writing.
Norman