Dear Mom, Dad & All:-

     I hope you received my cable okay and were glad to hear the good news.  Also hope my last long letter reached you before this.  Today I received Mom's letter written the 11th & 12th of November and Dad's of December 16th.  V-mail reaches me a good deal quicker than regular mail usually.  I also received today a Holiday V-mail greeting from G.V. Brainerd and the old gang at Monte.  Had a letter last week from Bob Hamllton whom I believe Mom must have met at Monte.  He's been living in St. Paul and working at Armours, I believe, but expected to be in the army in January sometime.
     I believe I listed all the packages from St. Paul in my last letter.  Since then I received a carton of Regents from Basil and Rung.  I don't know which of the gifts in the packages from home was from Florence, but give her my thanks.  I received her Christmas card about the 10th of December.  Don't think the mail situation has become worse just because it's army handled now.  All the CTC and RC (Canadian) AF boys are squawking, too.  The African expedition probably was the cause of much of the delays enroute.
     As I wrote before, the package containing the robe and the Sam Browne belt is evidently at the bottom of the Atlantic since it is the only one that hasn't arrived and you had better apply for the insurance on it.  I sent you my picture the day before yesterday which ought to keep the mice away or do to cover up the keyhole with these cold winter nights.  The photographic technique isn't so hot, the focus on my face and the distortion of my left eye by the lens of my glasses making the whole thing pretty lousy.  However, it'll have to do.
     Evelyn is having her picture taken next Saturday to send to you, so you can see what your new daughter looks like.  I'm sure you'll like her quite as well as Lorna, with whom I keep up a correspondence.  She's still on the same station.  My relations with her were entirely on the platonic side as I wrote you, but your fancy wove more romance into the pattern than was really there.  She really is a swell girl and I like her very much, but not in the same way that I do Evelyn.  Evelyn is just as pretty, maybe more so, just as, as you put it Mom, wholesome, and just as fine a girl and you'll agree with me on this point when you get her picture.
     I was just interrupted to go down to supper (8:50 pm) and hear the nine o'clock news on the wireless.  The supper was the usual one, vegetable soup with meat broth in it, pork pie, a typically English concoction consisting of pork meat baked in a crust of dough and served cold, bread & butter & cheese, and coacoa. (My spelling is slipping).  I'm not much on the pork pie, but the rest was okay.
     I had a very interesting day off yesterday.  Slept most of the morning and about two-thirty went down to meet Lt. Leas, one of my buddies, at his place.  We both had bicycles and rode out in the country to a small village to have tea with a family named Lyons.  This is no part of the country for bicycles with all its hills I can tell you, but we finally got there about four o'clock.  Mrs. Lyons introduced me to her two daughters, Pauline (about 14 years of age), and Corrinne (about sixteen or seventeen), and her son John who comes in between the sisters in age.  We then went into the father's study, a room about the size of our living room, but a bit shorter.  There was a lovely bright log fire blazing in the fireplace and after the cold ride it sure felt good; and as we sat in front of it to thaw out a bit before tea.  I glanced around the room, which was really worth looking at.  The far end of the room was made up of five large windows reaching almost from ceiling to floor, rather like our colonial style.  Just to the right of the fireplace was a table of black wood of some kind that must have weighed about a hundred pounds.  The legs consisted of wood carvings of african native porters about twenty-five inches high.  They were carrying two poles which supported the top of the table and hanging from them was the usual sort of affair the africans use to carry their royal personages.  Stretched at length upon this was the figure of a man, his hands clasped behind his head, and his hat resting on his stomach.  Corrinne explained her father (now in the army in the midlands somewhere) had been a commissioner in South Africa and the reclining figure was supposed to be him.  The natives had carved and made the table and given it to him.  Across the room from the fireplace was a large bookcase and on top of it was half a dozen carved figures, from twelve to eighteen inches high.  They were the gods or idols the natives had worshipped.  The room was filled with lore of Africa and pictures of the African veldt and natives decorated the walls.  It was a room such as you might read about in an S. S. Van Dyne thriller and I would have liked to have gone around and examined it all closely, but tea was ready and one can't show too much curiosity, so we adjourned to the dining room.
"Tea" consisted of tea, of course, bread, butter and honey, fruit cake, chocolate frosted sponge cake, rolls & jam, and apologies for the meager fare.  This tea meal in England is when the englishman really relaxes from his always formal dignified behavior and becomes a bit more human, though still adhering to the correct ritual.  This is the meal where you talk over the days or weeks happenings, etc. lightly and easily.  It was very pleasant and as usual we had a tough time keeping the conversation off of ourselves as things usually develop into a sort of question and answer affair on America and American life with us on the receiving end of the questions.  After tea we went out with the girls and looked over the livestock consisting of a dog, several cats, two rabbits, half dozen chickens, and also had a look at the garden.  We than returned to the fire in the study and played hearts with the kids until a quarter to seven when it was time for us to go home.  We left with an invitation to return soon again and began our struggle over the hills on our bikes.  It was seven thirty when we got back to Wes's (Lt. Leas) hotel and he invited me to come in for dinner.  Lt. Creveling, Cy for short, had also invited Rex, my CTC pal to come to dinner.  Cy & Wes have adjoining rooms, so the four of us had a good dinner together.  We than sprawled around Wes's room and played phonograph records on an old portable phonograph and had a few drinks.  One of them was of 17 year old Scotch and another of Cherry Whiskey, a very smooth and flavorful drink.  It was a pleasant evening all around.  Wes put on a couple one man acts for us, he goes in for dramatics and gave us a demonstration of baton twirling with a cane.  He was drum major at Ohio State U for two years.  Rex and I left at eleven thirty and stumbled home in the blackout, and it was really black.
     I didn't do very much all last week except attend the ususal officers meeting Tuesday night.  I didn't hear FDR's whole speech, but parts of it were recorded and broadcast on the nine o'clock news.  He sure gave a fighting speech.  Sounded more like Churchill's usual speeches.  Sure right to gain the support and respect of all parties for it.  It was well received over here.  The usual cry is that the Americans don't know there's a war on, but this let the English people know that they do, and are doing something about it.
    Have you heard from Bug yet?  It's almost a certanity he's not over here. Glad to hear Jim is still okay and fighting fit.
     I think Dad must have some kind of a jinx on the postal authorities because his letters always get here in the least number of days.  I even got them (one in ten days) when my mail was being sent all over the country.  I hope mine have been getting through okay.  I will number them consecutively from the first of the year so you will know if you miss any.  This is the second one I've written.  The last one was sixteen pages on Jan. 2nd.  You might do the same so I could check up on yours.  All of you should use the same numbers though, regardless of who writes.  That is if Mom writes one week letter number six and Dad writes the next week or sooner his should be #7 and whoever writes next should mark it #8.  I never have been able to find the numbers on the packages.  Better mark them inside the box with crayon or ink.  The outside is usually covered with various addresses by the time I get them since they are forwarded two or three times after they start from home.
     In looking over your Nov. 12th letter again I see you say you sent two Christmas boxes before the one containing the underwear and alarm clock.  I only received one containing pickles, jam, neckties, socks, shoe trees, Regents, Razor blades, the fruit cake, etc.  This box was mailed the 24th of October and received December third.  The next box I got was received the twenty-first of December and mailed November sixteenth, I think.  As I don't remember seeing anything with a card on it from Florence.  I suppose it is the box containing her gift that I haven't received yet.  However, it may come since Rung's and Basil's box was mailed October sixteenth and I got it January seventh.  Irene's box of Fanny Farmer came also on the twenty-first of December.  I have enough films to do me for a while, having bought a dozen in Eire last May.  It's funny trying to answer your questions when I get a letter you wrote on Nov. 12th on the 10th of January and have had a letter you wrote November 27th since the twenty-second of December.  I think I've answered this one a goodly number of times so make a note of it.  I'm still on the same work I was last doing with the CTC and will be as long as I am over here.  I didn't see Mrs. Roosevelt, but George Huff did and  being an amateur photographer as well as myself, got her picture.  I'll enclose it with this letter.  It's his own developing and printing, too.
     Well, it's getting late so I'll close now.  I'm going to see Evelyn the twenty-third again and am sure looking forward to it too.

And so Goodnight from England.

Bob