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[Page 20]
who I suppose is now a burly youngster taking all sorts of interest in everything, & developing all sorts of wonderful characteristics, the most valuable thing I consider in a boy's education is for him to have the sporting instinct, you know what I mean, in this life in the Army the development or lack of it is especially noticeable, in fact here it is rather like being back at school, in this way, that everyone is judged on his own personal claims to regard or otherwise, in much the same way that as a schoolboy stands on his own merits, I have been times without number impressed with this fact, & that the, what I call, "sporting instinct" stands a man in better stead than any other attainment. But surely I have flown off at a tangent.
What I was rousing about was that you told me no personal items – however! I shall not pay you back in your own coin so prepare for an egoistical screed that you bring on yourself.
Where shall I start? You know Egypt by heart I have no doubt, and realise how delighted we all were to get away from that sunbaked spot with its train of everything uncomfortable & inconvenient, where we could only champ the bit at our enforced inactivity & long to get to wonderful France & be up and doing but now that we are here there are many who cry out for the "flesh pots of Egypt" & begin to think that it wasn't a bad spot – and this is Summer time & the weather beautiful, wait till winter, with which the nights & early mornings begin even now to be tinged, & they'll all wish themselves back (&there were no big shells in Egypt).