3/7/1917

Sgt W.H. Elkington 4106

C. Coy. 20th Battalion

A.I.E.F.

Dear Aunt Evie,

Thanks for your last letter which I received recently & which I must confess I have been rather slow in answering. At present I am on my way bact to France after having spent a very enjoyable ten days in Old England. I came straight across from Bapaume & where we had been in reserve after our smash up at Bullecourt, & stayed the night at Boulogne where we went into a place called Vidors Billets. Next morning we embarked on packet steamers & raced across to Folkstone under escort. Finally I found myself Victoria Ry St & were marched to Horseferry Road (our head quarters) & received my pay & dumped my equipment & rifle etc.

I then decided to look up my uncle George & received a most dramatic welcome from them. I stayed there for about four days altogether & saw the sights with Uncle George & Aunts Clara & Emily which I must confess bored me to death as I felt more like theatres & restaurants than sleepy old buildings & relics etc. I did go one night to see High Jinks at the Adelphi, with Hylton & had a fairly good time. I also spent 1 l/2 days in going 75 miles to see Vivian Elk & his wife Daisy, but they were too busy with a dorg that wanted to die of old age & they would not let it do so. So I came back to London & took a risk & looked up a Mr Hookham (contrary to orders from Putney of course) & for the last three days I had a glorious time of theatres, picture shows, whisky wine beer & 10/- a time feeds at the Monico, which was really what I wanted after stewing & going green mouldy out among the shell holes.

I am writing this on my way back to France & don’t feel too pleased as to my future prospects there [indecipherable] & in fact would much rather be here for another couple of weeks as I was just beginning to get used to things when I had to go back.

I hope you will write to me occasionally & forgive me for not writing to you more often than I do since I have a lot of work now & have at least 25 correspondents whom I must also attend to. I will close now with best wishes to all at Llangfoyst

From Your affect nephew

WalterE

Sgt WH Elkington now (tres bon, eh)

[Transcriber’s note: “Vidors Billets”, unable to verify. Ed- it is near Boulogne Station]