My Dear People,
Just a few lines to let you know I am quite well & doing alright.
I got two letters yesterday one from Sis and one from Mother - dated Jan. 9 & 21st. I was very glad to hear you were doing alright & had got my cable. We had a lot of snow here Friday & it had been raining ever since so the snow is all thawed now & it is not very cold now. I am going to the bombing school at Lyndhurst tomorrow. They have altered the run of things here now, before you used to do all your training in one Company till you were fit for France, but now you have to go through the 4 Coy' s. When you arrive first you are put in D Coy, then C, then B, & finish up in A. When you leave A Coy you go to France. This change was started yesterday & we all shifted huts. We were transferred from D to B Coy. Previously each Battalion had a Company of its own which trained all its reinforcements. It will mean that there will be a lot of shifting as the men will only be in each Coy two or three weeks. But it is part of a soldier's training to move about anywhere.
We do not have to eat brown bread yet as although they are cutting down, the rations for civilians they are still looking after us pretty well.
I am enclosing in this letter a receipt for the sum of Ten Pounds (£10.0.0) which I gave another Sgt. here. He is only drawing 1/6 a day & was rather low financially & as I had nearly £20.0.0 on me I gave him ten. He was in the original Battalion, was wounded in France & is now one of the anti-gas instructors here. His people will pay'the money to the credit of your account at Elders. When they do this & send you the receipt for it, you are to send this receipt I am enclosing to his people at the address on the receipt. It saves him the trouble of getting the money cabled over here. If my duty pay goes on much longer I will either have to bank it or else cable it home to you as I do not want it here. I expect his people will write to you as soon as they hear from him. I will repeat this information in another letter in case this one goes astray.
I was very glad to hear that A.V. [Almondvale] was putting up a fairly decent crop & I hope that eventually you will get a good price for it. I hope the parcel of flannels you are sending get here before I go to France but I am pretty well equipped that way at present. I will be at Lyndhurst for about a fortnight & I believe the grub down there is not too plentiful so I suppose I will have to buy up a bit at the canteen whichI have not had to do since I joined the army. My weight now is 11st.11b. so I guess I am not doing too bad.
Tell Nell her Frankie is alright & is still in the cook-house. A good place to be. Well as it is nearly bed-time I will close now. Hoping you are all as well as I am.
I remain,
Your Loving Son & Brother,
Tom.
They are sending a Photo of the Sgts of this Training Battallion to some of the Australian papers so you might happen to see it. Tom.
