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Deborah Florence Glassford Letters and Memorabilia

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& I mean I'll either resign or get cashiered. Most of my time since I joined up has been spent as a damned schoolmaster & working to increase my knowledge & experience, & now they shove me in as adjutant which like all staff jobs is nothing but clerical work & I simply hate it. Really I don't know what the Hell they think I joined for.

Since I left the C.M. School I have been at the 30th doing "damn all" until last Monday, when I was sent for by the Brigadier . I had been out during the afternoon, & when I got back abt 6 pm, I heard there had been frantic messages all the afternoon for me, so off I went to the Bde Office & saw the Brigadier. He told me he had recommended (how many blasted 'e's in recommended!) me for a new job viz Adjutant to a new Batlion that was being formed at Shoreham, & that I was to leave that night or at least 4 am the next morning. I asked him what the Bn was, & he said "a works Battn composed of over age men certified by the M.O. to be physically fit". He also told me another Bn was being formed of men under age. It appears that every Bn that comes over from Canada has a large quantity of men over 40 & under 18. These are being placed in these two new Bns. He said that he understood the object of these Works Bns was to work on the Lines of Communication in France, such as repairing railways roads etc etc - but that this Bn wouldn't go to France just yet & might only be used as a reserve to send reinforcements to the Works Bns in France . Gosh! while he was talking, I saw myself a Foreman to a gang of stonebreakers & I wondered whether I'd better slosh him in the jaw get cashiered, & thus chuck the whole business, or keep quiet for a little longer . This is a perverse sort of World. There are hundreds of officers who are married & would give anything to get out of going to France & they are all sent right to the Front, whilst the others who want to go are kept behind on these footling jobs - Well I

BC Archives, MS-0089, Box 1, File 4 GLASSFORD, Deborah Florence (Leighton). Vancouver Correspondence inward, 1916