Witley Camp
Dec 6th, 1916

My Dear Father:

Have just come in from Ranges and thought I would sit down and drop you a line. We go to Ranges every day; walk to Milford Station (about three miles) and take the train there for Aldershot; quite a nice little ride.

I got Jessies letter of the 11th Nov. yesterday, was glad to hear from her. I thank her very much for going to trouble of getting Dug's address for me, but I didn't have to use it; Dug. was down to see us Saturday; he is not at Portsmouth now; he's at Epsom Camp, a short distance from here. I was certainly glad to see him; had a great talk with him about his experience at the front, certainly very interesting. He said he never had the pleasure of bayonetting a [?] he said they were always going the other way to fast. Ha! Ha! He looks pretty well, he says he feels weak; reasonable enough he would, being in Hosp. three months. I expect to go to France some time soon, one draft has gone, no [?] were allowed to go; Norman and Rufus [?] went in first one. When an [?] goes over there in draft he reverts[?] to ranks that is takes off his stripes. That is if we go in drafts; but if we happen to still hang together and go as a Battalion we still hold down stripes. Monroe[?] is an [?] now.

Don. Dug. and Ervin came in last night and so I had to break off, so I will carry on with the rest of it now.

I read two or three letters Don. got from the folks in [?]; got a pretty good description from one of them of the wedding, poor Hedley must have felt rather silly once or twice during the ceremony. Ha! Ha! I would certainly liked to have been there. Was glad to see in Jessies letter that Viola was knitting some socks for us; this seems to be a hard place on socks, in fact on all foot ware; roads are all hard.

Have you been getting my checks allright? Hope you have; did you make Sadie[?] a present for me; if you didn't give her some thing for xmas.

You must be having pretty early weather this year; sleighing in middle of Nov. is going some.[?]

I mailed a [?] book home the other day; hope you receive it O.K. I put my name in for one of them in Aldershot [?] before they were finished, and when they came out I didn't like them so didn't get one, but when we got over here they forced them on us; don't know why they didn't make us taken them in [?] You can accept it as a xams prest; (some present). It will be a nice thing to look at several years from now.

How are they coming on with Anniversary, no doubt will be first class; first one I have ever missed.

Well! hoping you are all well and wish you all a very, very, merry xmas. Sorry I am not there to spend it with you. bye-bye.

(Love to Jess, [?] and yourself.)

Loving Son.
Spence.