One of the most touching aspects and a relief from the horrors of the Great War was the correspondence between the soldiers away fighting and their families and friends at home.
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While letters were heavily censored (increasingly as the war moved from the Dardanelles to the muddy fields of France), the sense of longing and a willingness to turn from the fighting to happier thoughts can be sensed in much of the writing.
Letters, composed in the snatches of time between fighting and eating, sleeping and moving, gave troops a break from the misery of warfare - the constant noise, body lice, hunger and thirst, fear and loss.
Receiving a letter (or package) from home was one of the few delights a digger might expect while in the trenches, and the postal delivery was much anticipated.
"...meals are very little cared for on Mail day as everyone in the Mess goes into his corner, lies down, and reads his letters over and over again and the Mess Orderly gets that wild at us not coming to dinner, that he calls us all the names he can lay his tongue to, and it generally ends up by him clearing all the "stuff" away," wrote Creswick's Norman Ellsworth in 1915. Battery Sergeant Ellsworth died of wounds in Belgium in 1917.
The following is a letter from Private John Stanley James, of the 10th Machine Gun Company (later the 3rd Machine Gun Battalion) in response to his cousin Edna, a student at Queen St Primary. The students were encouraged write letters says Edna's son Dennis Denman.
Dear Edna,
Received your most welcome letter yesterday therefore it affords me great pleasure in answering same. Was rather surprised to get it. In fact I got quite a shock but as I haven't a weak heart the shock had no fatal results.
You are attending the same school as I did but let us hope you'll make a better job of it than me.
Have never had the pleasure of seeing you but hope to some day .
At present we are in the trenches. The Huns does not like the Australians because we are a bit too good for him.
He sends over the usual song of hate daily but we give him his full iron ratio.
You must be a clever little girl to write such a lovely letter. You cannot be much more than ten years of age but of course you come from a clever family. I would be so pleased if you wrote me constant. We like to know there are someone thinking of us.
When you write again please put the following address Pte James AIF 5429 tenth machine gun co Australian Imperial Forces France.
Please remember me to you father & mother also brother.
Yours respectfully, JS James
Private James returned to Australia in 1919.
