Reply to H. Cunliffe Company Band Bat. 75th Regt.
Stationed at Bramshott Kent England

Mon July 24th 1916

Dear Kiddo -

I write these few lines hoping to find you all well, as it leaves me at present, this is monday morning, and I am trying my best to write this letter, while all the noise and bustle is going on in the hut, of everybody getting cleaned up, and ready for the day, the battalion is going on a route march, but the brass band is not going because we are the brigade band now, and they cannot call on us when they like, anyhow I am not sorry that we are not going yesterday, bill and I, and the two gooch's went for a walk to a place called hindhead and we had dinner at the Royal Huts Hotel. and in that hotel we saw the chains hanging up, belonging to an old gibbet where three men were hung, for the murder of a sailor about 150 years ago of course we handled the chains, and looked at the original pictures of the men hanging in the chains, at present time, there is a Cross erected, on the spot where the men were hung, and there is not a bit of grass will grow around that cross, and not far from the cross, is a stone erected where the sailor was murdered, and writing on it, in the old English style, telling all about the murder, and on the back of it, it says, (curses on anyone who destroy's or injure's this stone,) we went to see these thing after we had finished our dinner, and I am sending you a picture post card of it, after we had seen that, we went Haslemere, about three miles away and we saw the old smithy and chestnut tree, that the poem was written about, in the school books, and you talk about it being a spreading chestnut tree, well, I should say it was, about the finest tree I ever saw, and it stands just in front of the Royal Anchor Hotel, an old, old inn where Lord Nelson, used to stay, when he was on his way to portsmouth, it is a very historic place, and well worth seeing, I am going to send you some pictures of the place, and when you see the pictures, you will have a faint idea, of the prettyness of the place, well I guess I will have to close my letter now so ta ta from your Loving Darling Husband Herbert,
Kiss the Kiddies for me,

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divide these

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xxfor yourselfx

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx for Mary
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx for baby

tell Edith not to go pinching any of these, because there's two here for her XX.