Item 01: James Wilkie letters, ca. 1914-1918 - Page 183

[Page 183]

get the lads to go anywhere else & on 26 Jan. Centenary Day we had a most hilarious dinner there & a box at the Opera after.

I forget to say our party was eight that night, six of our own & 2 others.

We saw also the most wonderful & largest shop in the world, Nouveate Galeries.

We just arrived back in time to move, a heartrending business.

I may get a job in Paris but reports say I'm to be given a spell in England. I'm not minding which. I saw Bertie Macnamara the other day, he would come back to France. He looks well but his of course his glass eye isn't an improvement. He says he never received your letter. I sent it to old Brian to send on to him. I told you Brian was lying ill in the Hospital when it was shelled & he was killed. That's all I know.

I'm so sorry the fly has been so bad. I loved Biggs trying to prune the snake, it gave me quite a lot of joy. Your letters do somehow even when things are not too good with you & I'm rather concerned, somehow you manage to dash a humorous spot in & I giggle away & chuckle, although the things themselves, such as Ireland saying he couldn't pull you any further up the river, & the boggings of the car, they must have been rottenly annoying.

I hope you are getting my letters better now, I'm pretty rotten at times but I'm not a heaven born correspondent. You can quote that to Mac, he'll recognise the phrase.

I had a letter from Miss Hilda & an invitation to the wedding. I hope it went off all right.