I WISH MY MOTHER COULD SEE ME NOW.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 November 1915, Page 12 (Supplement)

I WISH MY MOTHER COULD SEE ME NOW.

THE DANDY NEW ZEA LANDERS. Frank L. G. Jolly, of the Canterbury Tnfantry (Fourth Reinforcements), writing from Gallipoli on August 2 to his relatives in Dunedin, recounts in joyous spirit and in a most entertaining manner his stirring experiences at the front. He says, inter alia: "I only wish we could march through the New Zealand streets just as we are now. It would be a real treat for the people at home. The polished buttons are no more; mine have been browned up by heating to a red heat, to stop them from shining, for obvious reasons, My boots have not been cleaned for over two months—nothing to put on them. 1 have no socks on just now; this saves your feet from sweating (it is so hot) and getting sore. My puttees are faded and dusty; my trousers long since were cut off at tho knees for the sake of coolness and to save the drag at the knees which is so tiring in hill climbing. I carefully hemmed them, but found that they chafed under the knee through being an inch too long, so I just, turned them back the width of the hem. This brought the stitches to the outside and on the edge. Of course, under these conditions they did not last long. The stuff tore away from the stitches, and I have now a line frayed edge. Through sitting down anywhere and everywhere, and nursing your food on your lap, they have attained a degree of cleanliness which I will leave you to imagine, with the assistance of the additional interesting bit'of information that they are on day and night. The shirt is the exception, for I swapped my old one for a brand new one at the hospital. My braces have bits of leather bootlace where the straps ought to be. My tunic is not so bad, for the simple reason that I don't wear it a great deal. Coming to my cap. The wire which kept the rim nice and round and taut I took out long ago, because a taut surface like that makes a better target than one which is slack and breaks up the shadow's, so the cap iioav flops all over the shop, as it ought to. The chin-strap is gone long since, though I believe one of the buttons at the side is still there. We have been given shades of J<haki drill which fit across tiie top 01 the back half of the cap (fastened by a safety-pin at each side) and hang down the back of the neck on to the shoulders. Besides bein? a protection against sunstroke, these have the secondary and unpremeditated ad-« vantage of keeping one's head, neck and back cleaner through stopping the dust getting in.

' By the way, it ia sot about our sul; and wounded being dependent upon tlie charity of others. The various hospitals English, Australian and Xew Zealand take in all and sundry, mixed just as they come, without any distinction, just taking them where most conveflient"