22/08/1917
My Dearest Mother and Father
Thank you very much indeed for your more than generous presents which have arrived, so I was advised by the Credit Lyonnais. My birthday passed busily as usual and in the evening I went out to a dinner party: Tim and I and one of the Swedish girls were invited by two rather nice Belgian officers, both Counts!
It was just a coincidence that they hit on my birthday as they didn’t know.
I have been troubled with my hands again a little; not so badly as before. Went down to see the doctor at No 2 and he has given me some more medicine and it has gone again.
We have got our new X-ray installation in working order now: it is a new, very powerful, affair and ripping to work. We are doing fracture therapy every day and are having quite good results with it.
Last Sunday Tim and I were off so we took our bikes and went down river on the steamer and stopped the night at a hotel right on the edge of the forest. The next day we spent most of our time biking in the forest or else sitting by the river watching the ships go up and down. By the by I expect you will shortly be receiving a packing case with china in it which a girl going on leave took over and dispatched for me. There are, I think, 3 cups and saucers with cockerels on them and 4 egg cups, also 3 jugs. The jugs are a present for Mother.
I must stop now dears. Thank you ever so much for your present it is so good of you.
My very best love
Your loving Daughter Dorothy.
2/9/1917 HMB
My dearest Father
In about a months time I hope to be with you. Will you please write at once to Lieutenant A Van Hoorde – Bureau des Conges Militaires, General Buildings, Aldywch to ask for an application form for my conge to have me home free. Ask them to send it to you at once and fill it up and send it back to them and they will send a conge paper to me.
Be sure to sign yourself J.P. as it counts for something to show your legal status. Don’t write it yourself, get it typed or done by one of the clerks. The paper should be signed by Woolnough too: it isn’t necessary for a British subject but as our staff are the only British people who have this paper it is easy for them to forget and demand the chief of the district police for his signature, so it is best to have it at once and save delays.
Of course I shan’t “blue” my insurance money: I want you to take it and place it how you think best for the country and me. Put it in whatever War stock you think fit.
The weather has been fiendish gales, the like of which I have never seen, which have devastated the country and our poor little garden. However with some better days it is recovering itself a little. I have so much to tell you and talk about when I come home.
I must stop now
Best love to you both
Your loving Dorothy
About Alford 