Sisters’ Quarters
University House
Edgbaston Park Road
Birmingham
Jan 7th 1916
My own dear Sweetheart
I have just finished reading Sir Ian Hamilton’s last despatch, written from Hyde Park Gate, giving details of the operation in Gallipoli since the landing at Suvla Bay, and a little while before that. It is most interesting and I shall keep it for you to see when you come home. Your division is given credit on more than one occasion and mention is made of the Worcester & Warwicks having lost all their officers, either wounded or killed. It is a vivid narrative and brought the whole scheme clearly, before one. I cannot understand why it failed. It must have been just touch and go which side won.
The description of the arrangements necessary to ensure a good water supply showed me the enormous difficulties which had to be surmounted.
I feel almost certain you are still on the Peninsula although I wish you were anywhere else but there.
The papers contain very little news these days, on every front silence seems to rein, which makes me think it is the calm before the storm, and that we may hear big things ‘ere long.
Yesterday, my half-day off duty, I met Mary and Kathleen at Leamington – we had tea together and then went for a little walk, found our way to the Pump Room where we sat down, rested and chatted, and there found a nice place for supper.
We talked over many things, one being about my signing on again here. For some unknown reason Matron only sent for me today about it although my time is over-due. The Assistant Matron told me yesterday that Matron would call me today.
The varicose veins at the back of my knees and legs have been painful lately and cause me to get very tired. Mary and Kath and I decided that if I had a holiday and kept my feet up as much as possible, say, for a month, that they might get well enough for me to undertake another six months nursing. Matron told a Nurse the other day that the War Office had made no allowances for holiday in their regulations, only for the Territorial Nursing Sisters and that no holidays could be granted until the War Office issued new Regulations! Until we heard this we were under the impression that we came under the same regulations as the Territorial Nursing Sisters, who get a fortnight in the year certain, and 3 weeks off if they can be spared.
If the above is correct I am not entitled to a holiday and unless I can get sick leave, I should have to struggle on in spite of my doddering old legs!
Rather than I should do this, Mary and Kath think that if Matron will not grant me a month’s leave before signing on again, I must tell her I must resign.
They seem to think Dr Leslie may be glad of my services either privately or in the nursing home, at any rate they think I’d soon get another billet where the hours were not so long and where I had not to stand so much.
Well Matron sent for me today – she was quite nice but did not seem anxious for me to resign and said that she would ask one of the Surgeons to examine my legs tomorrow, but she did not mention a holiday or sick leave. However I am hoping perhaps the Surgeon may suggest one or the other! Ten days or a fortnight would not be much use. My next letter will contain the result of all this. I feel sure you will understand it that I would not do this unless I had good cause and indeed it is the last thing in the world I want to do is to give up. I shall get a good deal of criticism but my back is strong and good enough to meet this even if my legs are weak!
I daresay you cannot realize what it would mean to me later on in life if my legs were always painful, it would make all the difference to my happiness and well-being and less fitted for the mate you deserve. The pain seems to shoot right up the thighs and you can imagine I get very tired when standing all day. After I’ve had a rest and if I am rejected as physically unfit for Military Nursing it will still be necessary for me to work on account of the money question, but I must try and get an easier job.
However until you get my next letter address your letters here and after that address them to Badsey, for if I am not there they will know where I am.
Mother and Bar wrote today saying they want me home very badly, but explaining that unless I can get a military passport, I cannot cross via Folkestone and that the journey via Dieppe would cost £5 or £6 – which would be out of the question.
I doubt if I could get a military passport unless I was actually going to nurse in France – it is next to impossible to go anywhere in the War Zone unless you are on Active Service. Mother says she doubts if she could get across to England now if she wanted to.
Kathleen and Mary talked a good deal about George’s engagement strictly between ourselves, they are not very happy about it – Kath says it is obvious that Rose Lintott is unaccustomed to associating with people of the same social standing as ourselves and that she is not averagely intelligent about the things of everyday life.
However they and I agree that if George’s happiness lies in our making the best of things, we are all willing and eager to welcome Rosie.
What saddens Kath is that while George was in Sydenham, Clare Jones met her in the street and stopped and enquired after George and on leaving said, “Remember me to George”. Now she does not think they were ever sufficiently well known to each other to use Christian names so of course she went back in high spirits to tell George of her meeting. He took it quite calmly and simply remarked “all that is dead” – and the night he told her of his engagement, he told her that Clare Jones’ message had awakened no response and that this fact had assured him that he cared for Rosie and that his old love was dead. It has been a bitter disappointment to Kath that he should so soon have forgotten.
However I told her that we must accept the inevitable and not in any way by word or deed show that George’s choice is not acceptable. They certainly appear to be genuinely in love with each other, which is the great essential to marked happiness. Don’t you agree with me?
I had a letter from Aunt Lottie for the New Year – a very characteristic one – with the usual postscript and mixed sentences. She was staying with Aunt Lizzie. Her home at Folkestone is to be sold, so she may have to look elsewhere for a house by March.
Have the girls told you that one of the Miss Woods, I think, Lily, was married the other day?
I can see from the way your sisters talk, that they are looking forward to the time when you and I settle down!
Well, Best Beloved, I really must stop chattering. I do wish my letters did not take so long to reach you – and vice versa.
God bless you, dearest – I get very nervous for your safety as time goes on but I must try not to give way to this feeling.
All my love and one, just one!, kiss.
Ever your devoted
Mela
