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Alma Russell Letters

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COPY. B. Subsection, 3rd Reserve Battery, Ross Barracks, Shornecliffe, Eng.,

January 2nd. 1916

74-A-227

My dear __

You must forgive me for not writing to you before this as I had promised but believe me I have had no time until a few days agoto do any letter writing. Today is miserable and so am I and the thought that I am writing to you in dear old Victoria makes me feel absolutely homesick. England is a fierce place, all rain and dreary although she is at war, and this Camp, well before many days are gone lots of us will be in hospital with pneumonia or some such illness. They work us in rain all day and then we sleep in gunsheds with cement floors on three boards raised three inches from the floor, no tables or seats to have our meals on, rotten food as regards cooking and quantity and all kinds of draughts coming through the doors,. Then in the morning we are up at 6,30 and have to put on our damp clothe after sleeping in damp rugs and be out on parade in ten minutes. From then on it is one continual parading until 4.30 and we get plastered all over with dirt, simply wallow in it. Men from the 48th, though, who are in huts close by say we are in a palace compared with their quarters so you can tell what they have to go through - Poor Billy I pity him. The weather is fierce and I wonder how people here can stick it. Why the mischief any of us lefts God's Country I don't know. Pardon me but I am not the only groucher. But we are soldiers and they can do what they like with us I guess and we are here to see the whole show through, and all rotten things come to an end as well as the good. Well about the trip - the most uncomfortable and tedious one I have ever taken

BC Archives, MS-1901 Box 1 File 14 / RUSSELL, Alma M., 1873-1964. Victoria; librarian. / Selected items, Ethelbert and Herbert Scholefield, no date and 1916.