May 12th 1916
My dear Juliet
It seems, and is, a very long time since I wrote to you and now I really must write to tell you how sorry I was to hear the sad news. I am sure you will feel the loss of your dear mother very, very much, but don’t grieve too much, dear, be happy to think how peacefully she passed away. I loved her and I often think that I never want to meet a sweeter or a better woman than I always thought her.
I am sure you would love to see Baby Dorothy now, she is perfectly sweet and is growing so fast. She really is a very intelligent child and tries hard to talk. She has nearly learnt to wave her hand when we say goodbye! Since yesterday she is promoted to something besides ordinary bottles (Allenbury’s food, I believe) and I hear that Mary is going to allow her to have orange juice occasionally, so you see she is getting on!
Yesterday, Olwen and I went to our Red Cross nursing examination. I think we got on quite well and we all liked the questions on the whole. Dr Rees, our examiner, complimented us all on our bandaging so I hope we have both passed. I have done quite a lot of nursing since last September. We have a Red Cross Hospital at Aberdare which is worked by the Merthyr and Aberdare detachments. I have been on duty twice, just for a month and last time for five weeks. We also go to the General Hospital for practice and see some very interesting cases. The men we have been having at Aberdare have been a very nice lot on the whole and very interesting. We have 20 Australians, such fine men and most of them were rather superior to the average British Tommy. A man from London named Warren was in the same company as Cyril and liked him so much, he was a private and Cyril was one of the officers commanding him at Gallipoli; he and Cyril were wounded at the same time.
We are having terrible weather here now, nothing but rain each day so it’s quite impossible to get out for a walk. Baby hates not going out all day. I managed to get out with her for a short time but we had to hurry back as it rained so heavily.
Rene, Hubert and Geoffrey came to spend Easter with us; it was so nice to see them all again. Geoffrey and Baby were most interested in each other and they were so sweet together. Poor Beryl was not able to get home for Easter as Ted Dyson, who was home from the front, developed some mysterious infectious disease so of course it was not safe for her to come home. She was not able to come at Christmas either so she has been unfortunate.
I must stop now as I have a letter to write to India and I want to catch tonight’s mail.
With lots of love
From yours affectionately
Dorothy
PS – Write to me some time soon.
