Series 3 Dave Radcliffe

IV.

We have a fine place to live in here. The huts are about 60 ft by 22 ft., and are quite comfortable. There are about 30 of us in each hut. I sleep with Oliver. Jack Baynes and Clare Gowan sleep on one side of us, and Billy Richards on the other. He is single.

We couldn't attend church service on account of this quarantine. We assemble ont an the parade grounds for that.

I have seen Homer Nixon several times since coming over. He is in the 4th. Divisional Ammunition Corps.

I had a letter from Sam lately. He has just got back from Vancouver. He was over on a pleasure trip. He gets a pass and a year in the C.P.R. as far as he wants to go. He saw uncle Hugh Dunnan.

Well this is about all the news for this time. Write soon.

Yours sincerely

Dave.

Miss Nettie McNaughton, Granton, Ontario, Canada.

D.H. Radcliffe Bramshott Camp, Oct 28/16 Eng.

Sam's Canadian Army [handwritten over the printed letterhead Soldiers' Christian Association Camp Home.] [Logo.]

Miss Nettie McNaughton,

Dear friend, - Your very welcome letter to hand. Yours and Mr. Alp's letter to me came in the same mail. I sent you a letter two or three weeks ago. I was in a hurry when writing it, to get sending it to the P.O. with one of the boys from a hut that wasn't Quarantined. We who were quarantined weren't allowed to go up town, and in order to send it that night I had to make it short and in my hurry to get it ready I missed putting in one sheet. I wrote three sheets and thought I put that many in, so probably you got a blank sheet. It puts me in mind of one time Miss Philips from Port Huron, who hadn't got a letter from Rachel for some time, sent her a postage stamp enclosed in a letter.

Well, we just got out of quaratine on Thursday. We have been broken up as a battalion, as no doubt you have already heard. The officers in all the companies excepting C. Co., that is the commanding officers, were too old to go to the front, and also our colonel was rather old, and that had something to do with the batt. being broken up. We expect to be in France before Xmas, if not in the trenches. There will [torn] fighting yet, that is a certainty. Things look [torn] [illegible] just now.

II.

I had a fine time in the Emerald Isle. I saw all my cousins, also uncle George and uncle Hugh's wife aunt Martha. I enjoyed the trip very much. It is a most beautiful place, but still I wouldn't want to farm there, the farms are so small and hilly. My cousin Sam has some notion of settling down in Canada yet.

I don't know whether I mentioned Belfast in my other letter, but it's sure quite a fine city. The largest ship-building yards in the world are in this notable place, also the largest tobacco factory, largest linen factory and I'm sorry to say the largest destillery. Each factory covers a block or more, while the ship yards contain thousands of acres. Much of this has been formed by dumping cinders and all kinds of rejected material on the seashore and thus extending the yards away out in the ocean. This stuff underneath is packed down solid and then paved with something on top, and it is hard to believe that it has been artificially made, but the man who showed me through the yards and city once worked at ship building there, and it was from him I got this information. He is a brother-in-law of uncle George Radcliffe, Sam's father. You remember Irish Sam.

III.

Mr. Alp told me too, about your Endeavor Society. I'm glad to hear that the people are taking an interest in it. Oliver and Percy both got a letter from Mr Alp. Oliver let me read his. He writes a very nice letter. I sometimes wonder if Oliver and I will ever again have the pleasure of singing up in that good old choir loft.

Enough of that.

A soldier doesn