Ian Isherwood

My dear Mother,

Very many thanks for yours of the 30th also for Cecily’s. The Autocar & the Hassall Bertin Tapestry. Aquascutum sent the strap all right. thank you for getting it out of them. I have been in St. Omer all day to-day buying a hand cart for the Battn. to use up in the trenches. It was pretty hard to get & the lady did her best to rob me. but with the help of the Brigade Interpreter we got her to reduce the price. Incidentally I got a very decent lunch & a bath the latter very welcome, as the inhabitants of this place do not bathe.

I didn’t want to ride in, as it is a long way on a very uninteresting road, so I cadged rides off passing vehicles & got in for some of the way in a Divisional car & the rest in the post office van. Coming out I struck another Divisional Car for practically all the way & then a friendly French officer brought me right in. I missed a lecture on our new trenches, but it won’t matter, as we are going into reserve at first so I shall probably wade round them some night before we go in. An officer of the Battalion whom we are relieving has come down to take over these billets, with the interpreter who used to be with us (the one that wept by the roadside) & is now with them. he seems very much as he was except that he has got horribly fat.

When we go up I shall probably see something of Wipers. I will describe it if I can. It will be very interesting to see. & we may live there for a bit. Of course underground. The Divisional fellow who lectured to-day said that the drainage of the trenches up there had puzzled them for sometime, till someone discovered an old map of the place in the British Museum, which told them all they wanted to know.