Joining Up

Date: September 21st, 1914

Address: c/o Mrs.Sherman, 55 Stoke Road, Aylesbury, Bucks

From: Tom

To: George

Dear George

I will tell you how we have been getting on. We spent Saturday night and Sunday at Windy Nook and then went to Todds Nook Schools at Newcastle. We put up there for the night, 800 of us. We were called at 4 am and told to get ready to go away. We had breakfast at 5 am: a lump of loaf of bread 4" thick and 2 pieces of boiled bacon each 6" x 4" x 3/4" thick, washed down with tea out of an empty beer bottle. We then paraded in the street and made up into companies to march to the station.

We left Newcastle at 7 am and arrived at Aylesbury at 3 pm, so that we were on the train 8 hours. Aylesbury is a fine country town of 12,000 people who work at rivet-making , prinitng works, and Swiss Milk works. It is in Buckhinghamshire and is 38 miles from London. We are all billetted here at the houses of the people; at some houses there are 2 men, at others 3 or 4 or more in some cases. The 4 of us are at the same house and have got splendid diggings. The landlady has a son in the R.F.A. fighting at the front. We can hardly understand their talk and they cannot understand us; however we manage all right.

We are in No 3 Company, 9th Battallion, Durham Light Infantry. We parade for drill and marches at 6.30 am until 8 am and then have an hour off for breakfast from 9 am until 12.30 pm and then dinner and then from 2 pm until 4.30 pm when we are done for the day. I am writing this letter in the Town Hall which is open for soldiers and set out with tables full of magazines, papers and writing materials. There is a concert at 8 o'clock for us. The place is full now. Today it has been hot and we have had our jackets off drilling. We expect to have our uniforms by the weekend and then we will be swanky. This morning the men whose boots were thin or split were taken to the shops for new ones. Four shops were emptied of all the suitable boots. The army boots will be here in a day or two.

The army regulations require the landlady to provide us with 3 meals a day with a certain weight of food each time. We get 5 meals and no limit so we are well off. There are 700 of us at Aylesbury, we left 100 or more at Chittington a few miles back.

I remain

Your loving brother

Tom


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Notes:

Todds Nook School was on Arthurs Hill in the west end of Newcastle. There is a photo here: http://www.friendsreunited.co.uk/todds-nook-secondary/Memory/feac1543-9e33-495c-9417-f68c529a50c9#_

"Swiss Milk": the Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company was formed in 1866 and began importing condensed milk through a London agent. Popularity for their tinned milk quickly grew and they acquired their first condenser in Aylesbury in 1875. http://www.nestle.co.uk/aboutus/Pages/nestle-history.aspx