Our Family History

British Expeditionary Force
31.1.15

British Expeditionary Force
19.2.15

My friend Guy Burnett & I were offered commissions by his uncle, who is brigadier to them, in the Northumberland Fusiliers but refused them as the age limit for getting them out here is 27, or in exceptional cases 30 & as it is pretty clear that this Corps won't be used as a unit, at any rate for a long time, we decided about 10 days later to take them & wrote him. I'm glad to say he still had two available which he has kindly given us so we have sent in the necessary certificates etc. & expect to be gazetted in a fortnight or so. This will mean going back to England getting our kit & joining in the north. I expect we shall find the battalion stationed in a beastly dirty coal port town but they are for foreign service & hope to get out soon.

I must say I have quite enjoyed my time here & am very fit & as hard as nails but now we have gone in for commissions I am very keen on that.

I suppose you have seen (or will by the time you get this) General French's reference to this corps in his recent dispatch. Rather good was it not?

I am hoping when I get home, which will probably be early next month, to find a line from you in reply to the first letter I wrote you after you sailed.

With best wishes to you all

Yours very sincerely

Jim Trinder

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March 1915

Dear Miss Hewett
I am afraid my letters are very dull but there really is no news, that would escape censoring, to tell you but I hope if we get these commissions to be home soon & free from the restrictions to have something more interesting to tell you.

As regards the commissions we heard from England asking for particulars of our height and civilian occupation but nothing further as yet. However I suppose these things take a little time & as we are recommended by the brigadier, I think there is no doubt we shall get them unless the regiment is already full up with officers which I don't think it is or they would hardly have asked us.

Last week I was put on to help the armourer for a few days, not a bad job & at any rate a change.

Just at the moment I am stricken with rheumatism caused I suppose by the wet but hope to be alright again soon.

I am sorry to say my father is ill & from the way my partner wrote me it looked serious & as if he would not be able to attend to business for a long time but I am glad to say this proves an alarmist view & he will be all right in a fortnight or so. It rather worried me at first as it is impossible to get home from here on leave.

Well I sincerely hope I may get that commission in a few days & back to England to take it up next week & perhaps find a line to say how you are all going on.

With kindest regards

Yours very sincerely

Jim Trinder

PS if I do get a commission I shall get three days anyway to get my kit.

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Dear Miss Hewett
I have been hoping to have a reply from you to the first letter I wrote after you sailed & possibly you have written to Walton & the letter has not been forwarded, my mother's memory is very bad & I have not heard from her for some weeks.

We haven't heard further about our commissions but no doubt shall get them & should really be rather glad not to be gazetted for a bit as we are to be in the next officers class here, starting next Wednesday & the training would be very useful.

There is again practically no news here that won't be censored and as you will no doubt see from the papers before this reaches you things seem likely to move fast with the drier weather; last night's official communique reported the capture of 3 miles of German trenches. I am glad to see too that we a pretty successful against the German submarines.

Today I have struck the headquarters guard which is a 24 hours job 2 on 4 off. I have been very lucky though it's the first guard I've had since leaving Rouen early in January.

I shall be very glad to get back to England & be able to write a more interesting letter & tell you where I've been etc., I am afraid my present ones are fearfully uninteresting.

I am glad to say my father is going on well & will I hope soon be quite all right again.

We have had no more bombs dropped here I suppose in consequence of the superiority our aircraft have established over the Germans.

With my best wishes

Yours very sincerely

Jim Trinder

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Dear Miss Hewett
I was most awfully glad to receive your letter of Jan 25th this morning. I had been anxiously looking forward to hearing from you & was beginning to be afraid you weren't going to write so it was very unkind of you to suggest in your letter that I'd probably forgotten my letters to you when all the time I've been eagerly looking out for a hoped reply.

I was afraid of from the weather at the time that you would have a rough start for your voyage & so you evidently did, but it must have been awfully nice when once you got well started & over the seasickness & I only wish I'd been on board too; Tenerife must be a delightful place; I often thought of you on the way & by a card of dates I got from the shipping office in London was able to know pretty well where you were from time to time.  I'm sorry that apparently, Tasmania doesn't quite come up to your expectations but no doubt after the gaiety of the voyage it does seem a bit quiet. I knew of course that you would be a prime favourite on board but am equally dead certain you haven't had a better time than you deserved.

I enclose a cutting from the Times with an account of the famous battle of Ypres (quite close to this town). I think is thrilling, it's extraordinary our men can have done all they have, doesn't it make you proud of the regulars? I shall try & get the full account for you the minute I get back to England.

No further news about our commissions but I feel confident we shall get them shortly. I shall be jolly glad to be in England for a week or two & out of the censoring.

I'd greatly hope the " snap" is on its way by this time for I need not tell you I am very anxious to have it & shall value it very much indeed.

I hear from home that my young brother has just come out with his regiment the London Irish Territorials. He is a captain in it & a very good officer too.

Do you know it's nearly a year ago (beginning of April) since my last visit to Robertsbridge - the one when I picked up my motorbike - those were most awfully happy days for me & I only wish you were back again, however I hope we may meet again soon & that meanwhile you will spare time to write as often as you can. I shall write again soon though as we are not allowed to give any news of the war & nothing else happens here I'm afraid my letters are probably only boring you.

With very best wishes

Yours very sincerely

Jim Trinder

PS please excusing the cutting being so horribly grubby.

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Dear Daisy
I hope you won't mind me calling you by your christian name; I feel we know each other quite well enough to & the post is so slow that it would take a dreadful time before I heard from you if I might so I am boldly doing so in the hope that you won't object.

I have been much looking forward to the photo you so kindly promised to send but it hasn't arrived yet; however the mail from Tasmania probably reached England yesterday so I may have it before it's necessary to post this for the London mail of Friday & shall keep it back in case I do.

I had a letter from an aunt today in which she says ??? Chisholm who was at school with you - or at any rate your sister - at Bournemouth turned up in London for a few days seeing about more motors etc. for the Flying Ambulance with the Belgian army to which it is a attached. She seems very fit & well & has received the highest Belgian military decoration for her services - I think I told you this - but my aunt seemed a little upset at her wearing men's clothes. She has been a perfect miracle of pluck & done splendidly, apparently she was lunching with the Churchill's & all sorts of grandeur.

My younger brother Jack is out in France now; the whole of his territorial division have come & will no doubt see a good deal of fighting. I hope he comes through all right, in which case he ought to be pretty high up at the finish as he is a captain already & one of the four senior ones in his battalion too.

Nothing further about our commissions yet but as Guy wrote to his uncle the Brigadier yesterday we know when we might expect them. I should be able to say something definite as to them when I write next week.

There is very little news here; they say we only just missed being in the St. Eloi affair. As we were going to church this morning a German plane came over & dropped a bomb which fell in a field to our right. I suppose if it had landed on out column they would have considered it a case of "the better the day the better the deed"!! It is the first German aeroplane we have seen for some time, our airmen seem to have practically completely got the upper hand of them now.

I have managed to get the pamphlet reprint of that account of the battle of Ypres & hope to be able to get its into the envelope for you or to get a bigger envelope.  You had the cream of it in the cutting I enclosed last week though.

23.10.15(?) Alas nothing further from you I hope I shall have better luck next mail. I will send you the Ypres account in a separate envelope.

With kind regards to your father & sisters & with all best wishes to yourself.

Yours very sincerely

Jim Trinder

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April 1915

These look like draft letters from DH on which she also wrote "He wrote asking me to marry him"

Dear Violet
I can't understand your letter at all, unless it is you disapprove of Mr. Trinder writing to me. They are merely friendly letters & I send you his last to read. Of course, I am writing this mail to tell him not to write anymore.

Yours
Daisy

Dear Mr. Trinder
I have had a letter from Violet that leads me to believe she does not like your writing to me. I have told her a they are merely friendly letters so please don't write anymore or send me any papers. I don't wish to interfere between you and my cousin Violet. Thank you very much for the papers you sent please do not send any more.

Yours sincerely
M. Hewett

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Dearest Daisy
I am putting my home address on it this but am still in France. I have explained to the officer that this is a private letter containing no war news so you need not be afraid it has been read though it must bear a censor mark.

Your letter of Feb 6th has been forwarded from home. You of course know that Violet and I never were engaged & as a matter of fact we mutually agreed to end everything as far back as last spring, moreover I've neither heard from nor written to her for some months (though we haven't quarreled) & whether you write to me or not there is not the least probability of my doing either or seeing her again so you see you can't "interfere" because everything is ended already & has been for a long time.

As you say dear my letters to you have only been friendly but I have always greatly hoped they might lead to something much more for my greatest hope has been to get through the war alive & I ask you to marry me & as a matter of fact I've just felt I couldn't wait to know my fate for so long & was only waiting to get home for that commission (& so out of all this censoring business) to write & tell you all about my position & beg you to marry me.

I hoped you might possibly have guessed this from my letters though of course with the censoring I've had to write ordinary ones so you couldn't but if I only you knew how much I have thought of you & of all the happy hours I have spent with you on our walk to Bodiham & or the other days which are so dear to me.

Now you say I'm not to write but though I don't suppose there ever was any hope you would really care for me you are far too dear to me for me to lose it even the most desperately remote chance of my future happiness which must be my apology for doing so. If there is any chance for me please do write to me again & send the photo I have been so eagerly looking forward to getting.

I wish you knew all the plans I have been thinking of & how I've been saving up in hope of winning you & making a little home for you but though I might write reams what is the use when it all depends on whether you care for me & nothing I can write will affect it.

I simply won't think though that all my hopes are over & that I shall never see you again in & shall keep up a good heart in the hope of hearing from you again & everything coming out all right.

This is a very bad letter but as I say writing can't alter things & after your letter I don't feel I ought to say more than I have about it anyway you cannot but realise what your answer will mean to me.

Jim Trinder

PS I was really to tell you something of all this that I try to see you the evening before you sailed but it was just my luck that you were out.

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Dearest Daisy
Since I wrote you I've got my commission and am just home to take it up so as its mail day I've run down to the office & hope to be in time to catch it with a late ??? but shall only have time for a line.

I suppose I ought not to be writing at all till I hear (if I ever do for I quite realise it's a poor chance I have of doing so & that you are not the least likely to ever want to see me again) from you but after all I've not committed any crime in wanting to marry you & I shall write by next mail, while there's life there's hope & I shall hope till the time for an answer to my last letter is gone & needless say I've been thinking a lot about you.

I ought perhaps to have said in my letter that Violet knew of my feelings for you before I left in December & didn't like it though as I said it was all over between us long ago; the fact of the possibility of the letter being opened by other censors further down the line made writing from France difficult though really there was no reason for its so being as they wouldn't know who either of us were & would care still less.

It's you I want dear though I'm not good enough for you. It's just on seven so I must get this in the post or it will be too late & I just felt I must send a line.

Yours affectionately

Jim Trinder

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Dearest Daisy
I hope my letter from London caught Friday's mail but very much fear it may not have done so as the posts in England are I find somewhat late & disorganised nowadays.

By now the letter I wrote from France must be nearly half way. I didn't write again from there as I expected every day to be gazetted & start for home & having my letters censored by my platoon commander would make it a bit awkward.  Then too I thought perhaps I ought to wait to hear from you but simply can't do so it will take such awful long time.

I was very glad to get home & the first thing I did was to rush up to my room & have a look at the little drawing of sheep & lambs you did last spring & gave to me. I expect you've forgotten all about it. It is very dear to me & is the only thing of yours I've got. I don't have the opportunity for any decoration in my tent in Northumberland but am jolly well going to take that drawing up, I just couldn't get along without it anymore.

You can't think how I am longing to hear from you darling how absolutely ripping it will be for me if there is a chance for me & I can get through the war & marry you. Of course I realise what a tremendous big if it is in fact there are two ifs, the first & biggest whether you care a teeny bit for me & the second about of the war.

The fighting this summer and autumn is going to be simply terrific.  I see no way of ending the war except by killing so many Germans that they haven't enough left to hold on a much shorter line than the present one & by the time that happens literally hundreds of thousands of our men will be down.

My brother is out there now with his regiment (the London Irish 18th County of London) in the trenches somewhere between Ypres & La Bosce & so no doubt in this big battle which is naturally worrying for mater.

I am now a lieutenant in the 2/9th Northumberland Fusiliers. The 1/7th went to France 10 days ago. I don't know whether we shall go out as a battalion & the 3/9th send drafts to both or whether we shall send drafts to the 1/7th and the 3/9th be more or less kept for home defense. However I may know more about this when I next write. If my uniform arrives this afternoon Guy Burnett & I go up to join them in camp at Blyth Northumberland by the night mail.  I expect it will be a bit cold under canvas so far north at this time of year.

We had some amusing experiences coming back as officers to take up those commissions as though having first class passes we were of course in private clothes.  At Les Villettes where we change trains a major rushed up in a flurry to know why "you men" were getting in first class & an old French officer in the carriage we clambered into thrust out his sleeve with his rank badge on its ejaculating "mais non mais non".

I don't know what the Pixleys wrote to you that made you write and say I must not write again but I do hope Daisy dear that you thoroughly realise that since Violet & I ended everything last spring I have only seen her once (one day in December) & that there was & is absolutely no reason why I should not try & win you. If only I can ??? I just do my level best to make you happy. You are all in the world to me & and you must admit it even if you can't care for me a scrap that it hasn't been a case of being out of sight & out of mind. If only you knew how much you have been in my mind. Now I am back I am going to send you some papers. I think I'll sometimes send you Truth not that I expect it's much in your line (??? the sort of paper you like!!) but if as I expect you've read Pepy's Diary you will find the new Pepys very amusing.

I am posting this before going to Blyth as we are likely to be pretty busy our first day there & now that the posts are late it would not be safe to rely on catching the Tasmanian mail from there with Thursday night's post. I am already before this is finished looking forward to my next letter to you & to telling you how I got on as an officer.

With ever & ever so much love, I just can't think that I may have to go off to Belgium knowing you don't care for me.

Yours affectionately

Jim

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May 1915

Dearest Daisy
I arrived here yesterday morning but there is no rest for the wicked & I got orders to start for France tonight an hour or two ago.

This is a nuisance for my training as an officer has so far been of the scantiest & I was looking forward to at least six weeks here to pick things up.

The fact is our first battalion have been heavily engaged in the last battle of Ypres & have lost considerably so they must have officers at once & all those here who are for foreign service & over the minimum age of 19 are off tonight to join them. There are only eight of us & I am the second senior in rank!! The men haven't finished their musketry course yet & will be sent on with a home service officer in charge later.

Very likely the battalion will be sent back to a base in France to reorganize in which case I shall get some training.  On the other hand before you get this I many have joined the majority!!

I jolly well hope I may get through the war all right & that things may go well with me in other directions - you know what I mean.

I am only allowed a very limited kit for active service but need not say that the little drawing you gave me goes with me.

DH wrote here " it was a little lamb are skipping about at a Bodiham walk we had"

I shall write again from France as soon as I can but have only time for these lines now.

Whatever happens I hope your future will be full of the happiness you deserve

With best love

Yours affectionately

Jim

On the back DH wrote "He was killed before he got my letter. I was very sad"

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Dearest Daisy
Here I am back in France. We left the camp on Sunday night Southampton on Monday & Le Havre on Tuesday night. From there we had the usual long slow train journey & after 20 hours reached the railhead of our Division went on by motor bus to its Divisional Headquarters, slept the night there & came on the to the battalion next morning.

We found them pretty reduced used after Ypres battle where they did it simply splendidly. One is not allowed to give numbers which have not appeared in the press but I dare say you may have seen from the papers that they lost 14 officers (only one killed fortunately) & of course a big lot of men.

After being cut up like this they did not expect to do anything for some time but it looks as though it might be otherwise; anyhow we are off tomorrow morning early & it seems pretty certain we go eastward - that is towards the firing line.

Well it will no doubt be a terrifying experience & the longer we keep out of it the better but provided I manage to do it even a moderately decently I shall be glad when it is over to have been through & know what it's like.

Today in anticipation of the trenches we have been practice the men with sacks etc. filled with loose earth & tied over the mouth & nose as a preventative against the poisonous gas these Germans are using; of course proper pads will be issued in due course but we have not got any yet.

By jove this is a beastly war, to be killed by a bullet or shell is a thing to pray for compared to many of the deaths you may get.

I get very low spirited thinking that even if by any chance you did care for me it's probable I shall either never see you again in this life or else get horribly mutilated or something. However it's been a case of every one having to turn out & there you are.

I'm sorry to get sent off from Northumberland without any official training as it's rather beastly feeling you don't know your job.

Here we are billeted in a farmhouse. The doctor has a bedroom & we mix Company Officers sleep on the floor of the living room but for war it's not at all bad & I dare say we shall seldom have such good quarters again.

An awful lot of stuff seems to get lost in every battle & I am feeling rather sorry I brought your drawing out here & if I get near a parcel post rather think I shall send its home again. I should just hate to lose it.

Well Daisy I'm afraid there is very little news to interest you & as it's getting late & I shall have to be up early tomorrow for the move I will end up. I don't know if it even posted so early this will catch Friday's Australian mail. The posts up here on naturally a bit erratic.

With very best love dear

Yours affectionately

Jim Trinder

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Dearest Daisy
We left the wood from which I wrote you on Thursday last & moved up 3 or 4 miles to a field where we dug a trench for shelter from shell fire & to sleep in (raining all the time) but at 11:00 PM got orders to move off at once & struggled across country to a reserve trench getting sniped at all the last mile but not having any casualties.

We were in the trench 24 hours the Germans some 2/3 of a mile off & plenty of bullets flying & some shells busts and none of the latter came within 100 yards.

On Friday night two of our Companies were attached to a weak battalion of a Welsh Territorial regiment & went off to join them & hold part of the firing line. I & one of the Welsh subswere then ordered off to a rather detached ruined farm right at the front with the instructions to hold it at all cost.

Off we went across the fields to it. Quite a new experience for me. The Germans know the reliefs come up at night & they keep up a pretty brisk a fire & send up flares which light up the whole place so the bullets, whizzing around fairly ??? We reached the farm & found from the officer of the people we relieved that it has been taken & retaken several times in the last two or three weeks. On the Thursday night the place was surprised & that garrison scuppered & on the Thursday night the garrison were trapped by some ruse. A sham staff officer turned up & led them out & they were surrounded & captured or something of the sort so that morning the people we relieved finding the farm again in posession of the Germans worked their way up, charged & turned them out.

The position was as follows

A sketch showing layout showing A-F

A. German trenches
B. Moat
C.Abandonned advance British trenches full of dead
D. Ruined farm only walls standing & serveral wide breaches in these & where they were standing numerous large holes.
E. Farm yard
F. Reserve trenches

The German trenches were at only 80 yards off so having regard to the state of the walls you will see the position was not a nice one.

Our men were deadly tired but were impressed with the seriousness of the situation & worked with a will at throwing barricades across the open breaches in the walls.

By dawn (the German fire prevented us working in the daytime in front) we had got them bulletproof for about 3 feet up & were fortunate at daybreak in spotting the German relief coming up a bit late & rather carelessly (perhaps encouraged by taking the place on both of the two preceding days) & succeeded in knocking over three or four of them before they amended their ways which needless to say they did pretty promptly.

Then the fun began. The Germans a opened a brisk fire & soon knocked the stuffing out of the gaps in the wall & thereafter kept up frequent shots & an occasional fusillades through them & across the barricades so that we could only get about our position by crawling. (I ought to have said that to hold the place we had 80 men and some grenades throwers)

We put a lot of men on to dig a trench in the farmyard into which we could retire in case of shell fire & to lengthen it down to the reserve trench on the left so that if necessary to get up the reserve they would not be under fire.

In the afternoon we got some shells round but none of them actually in the farmyard.

That day we had one man killed & two wounded. We think we did hit one or two more Germans in their trenches but of course it's very difficult to be sure whether you've hit or not.

If the Germans had attacked us that afternoon I think they would have carried the place pretty easily, as the knocked out loopholes were just a death trap & it would have been difficult for us to bring any affective fire to bear but fortunately they did not.

As soon as it got dark a staff officer came in & asked me what we had done to defend the place. I showed him & he seemed pleased & said that probably our catching the German relief coming up & and generally showing we were wide awake had saved us from attack.

We all ought to have been relieved that night about 11 but they could not manage it & the S.O. told us we should have to hold on another day at which the men were pretty sick. He also told me he would want me late in the night to take a sergeant & two men & crawl up to the abandonned trench on the the left front & if the G's were not in it, enter it, count the dead, take off their identity discs & reconnoitre to see if the G's were attempting to do anything at a part of the moat there hidden from our sight. This genial programme would have meant going within 15 yards of the main German trench so I was not sorry that the necessity of getting up ammunition took up all the time & prevented him sending me after all.

After the S.O. came a large party of engineers who worked till nearly daylight making us sandbag barricades with bulletproof loopholes of steel etc. & our people sent us up a machine gun so we were much stronger next day Sunday. that day passed off with rifle fire in the morning on both sides. During a quiet interval we collected the British and German dead who were lying about the farm & buried them.

The men displayed great good feeling a over it. Some wanted the G's put in a separate grave but the general opinion was that death made us all be equal & and as several practical souls pointed out the other course would entail an extra grave.

They didn't have to do much digging though as we used to convenient deep shell holes in the farmyard putting the men in one & a British officer in another by himself. I read the burial service as the other sub was only 20.

That afternoon we got some more shells & they were trying direct shelling, when to our intense joy they put the first of these in their own trench so gave it up.

Our great fear was that by shellfire & bringing up a trench mortar to their trench they would blow our dilapidated walls to smithereens & while we were sheltering in our trench get over the intervening 70 yards & take the ruins. In that case we should have had to do a bayonet charge & turn them out which would have been unpleasant work & mean losing a lot of men.

We suffered on Sunday from want of water as through a mistake none was sent up on Saturday night. We only had a ??? left which we kept for any wounded. The men and dug a hole in the trench and extracted some villainous looking fluid which they boiled & made tea with but the other sub, I & some of the men preferred not to touch it.

We lost one killed and one wounded on Sunday & were relieved that night to the great relief of our men & with another casualty a man wounded by a sniper as we crawled back reached the Welsh field quarters safely.

The man we had killed on Sunday was a red cross man who the G's shot as he was attending to a wounded man in our left reserve trench. Of course they may not have seen he was a Red Cross though so close that I don't believe they care a pin.

It seems an absolute fact that when they took the farm from the Canadians the G's crucified a wounded Red Cross man who fell into their hands there. Pleasant people aren't they. When the Canadians retook the place they gave them no quarter.

This really is a terrible war. It seems simply a case of going on till you're hit & then it's a question of whether you are killed or wounded.

A KRR man who was in a trench near the farm was shot through the wrist & quite delighted at his " luck". "Hurrah" said he " I've been waiting for this xxx wound for weeks & pulling out a mouth organ he started playing "home sweet home"! Rather amusing but it shows you what things are like here.

Well Daisy I jolly well hope I'm able to keep going till I hear from you (which I shall hope to do in about eight weeks now) & and more than I can tell you that I shall get through the show alive & that things will come right for me.  It seems such ages & ages since I saw you that last night when we went to "Peg O my Heart". Very appropriately named for me under the circumstances. I so much wish I had been able to see you & have a chat when I ran up the next night & you were out.

I do wish too I knew how you are what you are doing & all about you.  What a nuisance it is your being right the other side of the world!

We are now some 4 miles behind the line in reserve billeted in a farmhouse. Very close quarters but dry the offices are in a loft over the stable.

I must end up now for the post but shall write whenever possible though I dare say you won't want to hear from me a bit. Still until I know you don't I shall go on hoping.

With very best love

Yours affectionately

Jim

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Dearest Daisy
Soon after I had written you (last Monday morning at 3.30 AM to be exact) we were moved up to the front again and went into some reserve trenches. We went up in the daylight. The last 150 yards were in the open the German artillery spotted us and their guns opened a hot and very well directed fire. The shrapnel spattered the ground in all directions and it was a miracle how we got across with so few casualties.

We were three days in the reserve trenches and then came onto the firing line with a depleted battalion of the rifle brigade whose proud boast it is that the Germans had never turned them out of any position they've been in. They have only eight men left of those who originally came out. The RB officer of No. 11 platoon has been killed so I've got both platoons but it is not an extensive command the RB having dwindled to 22 and my men to 17 instead of 50 or more in each platoon.

We can see Shell Fire Farm in the distance but alas it is now well inside the German lines of a having taken at and all our trenches in front by the use of their gas - they would never have made the advanced otherwise.

The trenches were very poor affairs but we've been at work every night now since we arrived improving them and they're quite good now. It's odd work with the Germans 250 yards away sending up flares which make it as bright as a day and plenty of bullets flying.You'd think we should all be hit very quickly but casualties are comparatively rare. When not in the trench I live in a dugout about 6 ft long 3 wide and 3 high excavated in the wall of the trench leading to the communication trench. You see the trenches must be narrow (this as far as possible preventing shells falling into them) so you can hardly get past a man in them so you have the communication trenches in the rear.

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Dear Jim
Thank you very much indeed for your letter. You know, I've always looked on you as V's lover & you must give me time to get used to the new idea, before I give you any answer. There are so many things to be considered & although I always liked you very much, & was so awfully sorry for you, yet I feel we don't know each other well enough to be engaged.

You know, it would mean the end of all friendship with the Pixleys if I married you. Would you like to go on writing to me as a friend? & give me more time to decide? & would you write to ??? & explain things? I think he was a little hurt because you did not. But of course I understood you wanted to find out first if I cared for you. You know he's been so good to us & done more for us than any other father ever did for his children that I know of.

I don't want you to look on this as a favourable answer. I want to think it over well first. I'd do wish it did not take such ages to get an answer back.
I wonder how you are getting on & expect you a very glad it's not so cold now. I think we are all going on to NZ soon - before August. Tasmania is very lovely in its way & grows on one but it is so very sleepy & the people are all so old fashioned. Most of the colonial families here have been out 2 or 3 generations & and have their own little conventionalities grown up. They are even shocked at us riding astride! You would love the weather here it's nearly always fine, & a lovely crisp air & we go on playing tennis & croquet or the year round.

I am with a middle aged couple with no children & I do nearly all the work. They tell you awful stories at home about the wages & doing no more work than the " lady of the house"! The only thing his people don't look down on you quite so much as they would in England!

We are all just a longing to get together again. Marion is staying with meet this weekend. It is so lovely having her & we talked last night till our tongues ached! No time for more I'm a dreadfully busy person now! I'm afraid this is all about ourselves. GPO Hobart will always find us. I am so awfully sorry for you having to wait all those ages for an answer & thank you so very very much for your letter.

Yours

Daisy Hewett

I don't think Jim ever received this - he was killed 16 days after it was sent

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December 1915