Series 01 Part 02: Hughes family correspondence, 3 April 1917-22 September 1918 - Page 449
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[Page 449]
2.
first entertainment of any kind we had been to since dear Roger's death, so you can just faintly imagine our delight at the news. On the Sunday before last we were coming out of St Joseph's as John Mullins & his family were entering, & he said "It is quite clear that you have been getting good news from the Front!" – so you see it must have been just bubbling out of us. With all this terrible renewal of fighting in France, we thank God, every day we live, that you are out of it at any rate for the present. The cable from Aunty Mary said "Geoffrey coming to London, establishment". Our ignorance of military terms is such that we don't know what "establishment" means. At any rate it doesn't mean renewed instructional training, & perhaps it means a brass hat!
Well, Frank, the fourth of John's boys to go, went off yesterday in the old boat that took us back from Europe in 1911-12. He was with us to lunch on Sunday, & we helped to line the streets yesterday when he & the other fellows marched through. We gave him heaps of baccy & pipes & cigarettes & a fiver, & our blessing, so we are sure no harm beyond sea-sickness can befall him. No doubt the rest of his family stocked him up also, & as the Horsley family treat him like a son & brother, he has probably got all, & a bit over, that the Regulations permit him to carry. There is no news of a marriage entanglement with Joy Horsley, but as Frank spent most of his spare time with her brother, it is a significant feature of the business. I recollect that when your