1917/04/24

Melville writes to his mother from his new camp, located in Kent, England. He tells Jessie about the newly-arrived Canadian soldiers (including himself) being quarantined until they are cleared to join the rest of the army camp. He mentions the current weather conditions, which he finds agreeable. He also talks about how the camp was recently bombed by a zeppelin, which resulted in several Canadian casualties. Finally, he mentions seeing Colonel Ballantyne and "Chick" Flood during his travels.

Otterpool Segregation Camp
Kent, England
April 24 1917

Dear Mother,
We arrived here at five o'clock yesterday morning. The place is about nine miles from Folkstone and a couple of miles away from west Sandling Camp where there are a lot of Canadians. We went down there to-day to have a bath. The men live in wooden huts, about 60 in a hut. We are in tents just now, in quarantine for two weeks until they are sure we have no diseases. After

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that we go on pass for six days and then go into camp. We may go to Sandling, Shorncliffe, or Whitty.
The weather here is fine and warm. To-day the sun was out all day, and it is just like summer. We are at the place where a zeppelin dropped some bombs once and killed a few Canadians. There is an aviation school about a mile from us and there are always five or six aeroplanes up. There was a lot of food wasted in Canada feeding the battalion, but now not a scrap is wasted. The

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fellows are beginning to realize that there is a war on. Food over here seems to be a little bit scarce, although the people are very economical. There is nobody that doesn't get enough but the prices are all away up. In Folkstone the restaurants are not allowed to sell meals to soldiers, because they say the soldiers get three meals a day and it would only be a waste of food.
At Sandling today

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we saw "Chick" Flood and when we were coming back we passed Colonel Ballantyne.
There is a canteen which is open for four hours a day, a wet canteen where they sell beer is open for the same time and there is a Y.M.C.A. where I am now that has a canteen attached to it. Any members of the battalion that goes out of our camp area loses his pass, so we will have a pretty slow time for a couple of weeks. I think I will go to London as well as Edinburgh on my pass.

Your Loving Son,
Melville.

2017.22.111