Another short letter

Sherriff’s letter home to his mother was brief. The hard frost was still on, the ice was still thick and the skating was still thriving. He was feeling better for his rest (‘in some respects’), but ‘am still troubled with bad headaches…’. He hoped they would gradually wear off, but their persistence was making him feel ‘a bit miserable and “fed-up”, so you will excuse me writing a short letter, I know dear…’. In any event there was very little news to offer her, since he was having such a quiet time. He set out a typical day for her, which seemed to revolve around taking walks (with some of the other patients) between meals (of which there were four a day – breakfast at 9:00, lunch at 1:00, tea at 4:00 and dinner at 7:30). The men at the rest station with him were ‘very nice’, and were suffering from a variety of illnesses, but mainly Trench Fever (which he described as ‘a kind of influenza’).

[Next letter: 10 February]

[It is interesting that Sherriff’s letters had become less frequent, and much shorter, during his stay at the rest home. His earlier letters from the front tended to be short only when he was busy (in the line, for example, or with working parties while in reserve), so it is curious that the two weeks of rest had seen such a fall-off in his productivity. At the beginning of his time in the rest home he had written of his neuralgia provoking a ‘nervy’ feeling, but he had not mentioned the persistent headaches from which he now seemed to suffer.  It is possible that they had become more pronounced as the prospect of his return to the battalion grew nearer, and his nervousness of raising his anxieties with the doctor (lest he be labelled a shirker) may have been making things worse. The resulting state of emotional upheaval may have meant that he preferred to spend his time walking with other men, rather than attempting to put his thoughts down on paper for his parents.]

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