David to Fanny Sat Feb 10th 1917 [address censored]
Dear Mum,
Today has been glorious. Quite warm in fact.
We had drill all the morning which I quite enjoyed, as I had charge of a platoon.
This afternoon I went with west into the port and bought several things, some woollen gloves and some biscuits etc etc.
Things are fairly dear. I had to pay 2/6 a pound for the biscuits and they were something like “Osborne”.
While there I saw some German prisoners, clearing the snow from the roads. They are a low looking crowd, much worse than any of the other soldiers one sees anywhere.
I have asked the [censored] people to send my field boots to you. Please keep them for me.
This place is much better than [censored] as far as the other officers are concerned, as they are much more sociable, in fact I have got on with everybody very well so far.
Will you please send me some more socks, and also the tin of metal polish and some brown nugget and rags for cleaning purposes.
There is no difficulty about passing English notes out here and I got 27 francs in exchange for a pound, which is quite good.
I can also travel at about quarter fare on the railway and this makes first class much cheaper even than the trams. The only difficulty is however that there are only about 4 or 5 trains a day to the port.
I have to go on parade now, so must stop.
Dave