7/1/42                                                                                                   A.I.F. Abroad

My Dear Mother,

                          Well old Darling, I received your nice long letter of Dec 14 safely & was pleased to hear your sweet old self & all the family are OK, as it leaves me at the moment. Had a lovely letter from Beryl telling me all the Lake Nash news, also about hearing me over the air. Tell Little Lim that I have not met Bill McLean yet, but may meet some of them soon.

I do hope you have had some relief rain out home by now. I wish I could send you some from over this way, as I told you it started to rain a week before Xmas & only cleared up yesterday. There were several falls of sleet here & away to the East, quite easy to see with the naked eye there are Snow topped hills. When the wind turns from that quarter it makes me think of Home & Mother & the scones she used to make. Reading in our ‘Daily Post’ there was a proper snowstorm in Jerusalem , the coldest winter here for twenty years, so I am lucky to be here for the grand event. But I know where I’d rather be just the same. Mother Mine, you will have to get used to the shorter letters from me. We have been asked, one & all, to keep our letters about two pages if we can & sometimes you may only get an AIR MAIL Card from me, but I will keep them coming ever so often & that will be as well as long letters, a long way apart. You will find enclosed a little poem I wrote while I was at Tobruk & it was printed in our A.I.F. News last week. By the other small clipping you will notice that I won a £1 for it. The longer pieces I will send you Boat Mail. This one clipping will have to go round the Family Mum as we only get a limited number of News issued & quite a few Chaps send them home. I have to get hold of one more yet to send Beryl, she has a book of all my verses. I am posting one to my Adeline tonight. Yes Mumsie, I have received all the Stamps you have enclosed to me, in fact I have done much better than some of my Cobbers as regards parcels & presents. The only parcel that I am short now is one from Mrs Pollard, with Books in, but it may even turn up yet. The Captain of my Coy, Captain Cobb, he come from Winton district & was awarded a medal recently, a M.C. (Military Cross). Captain Bode, also from Winton, received the same honours some time ago. They are both very popular young Officers. Young Bill Mathers & little Bobby are some distance from me here in Palestine , but I told a chap the other day to come down Sunday & see me. They are in a better possie to get about than I. Beryl has been very anxious for me to meet her Brother Ivor, but I cannot get on to him at all. See some V.A.D.’s playing Hockey in the distance the other day, but they never invited me to have a game as I hiked past. They look well in their blue coat & skirt uniform. Now Mother Darling, I will have to pull up. I have never been better in my life as far as my health is concerned & I have on thousand Mils, £1 in my wallet, so I am not so badly off you can see. I will close now old Sweetheart & I hope this reaches you safely & finds you as well as can be in the hot trying weather you are having now & write to me whenever you have time; so fondest love to you & Violet & Liz & Nell & Aunt Jess, a& all the family away from home – from

                                                                                                Your Soldier Son

Kisses for you, Dave.                                                                                                  David John.