C.M.H.
Eastbourne 23/9/17

My Dear Nerta,

I was glad to get yours of the 28^th with snaps, but why didn’t you send snaps of the back verandah? If you had turned the camera long ways, you would have had the whole thing in it. Perhaps this is the only addition you had made but I thought there was an open verandah at the opposite side of the house the pictures are very good but if the negatives had been properly developed, they would have been much better. I am getting wonderfully good results with my work here, and expect some special paper next or this week and have about six pictures to send you then. I am using glossy bromide, much like Velox, but almost as sensitive as plates or films. Have to handle it in dark room, but it is very quick and gives a brilliant picture which appeals to most of the public. Then I use a sepia, self toning P.O.P. which gives good results, and another very rough paper on a deep cream stock, which with the sepia image, makes, I think, a beautiful picture. This is what I am going to send home.

I am also going to have a couple of myself in the office taken, and should get good results with this machine, as it has a lens which gives a very large image. I am afraid I will have trouble getting a lens with shorter focus (& therefore wider angle & smaller image) but will try several London firms. I wrote one of the largest firms there, but could not get what I wanted. I have already delivered or have orders for more than eighty, most of which are one shilling each. A few are the smaller ones at six pence. Last week alone I sent away fifteen shillings for paper, besides what I bought here in town. From the Irish negatives, I have sold or orders for picture to the value of over eighteen shillings, so I am kept fairly busy and getting a little money in, on the side. I have practically everything I need now, except a 7.7½ plate lens, for which I will have to pay £2/- to £2/10/ and then I will have a pretty decent outfit all round. When I have to move & send the stuff home, you can have a regular picnic, if you get Mr Pollard or someone to show you how to use the outfit, and you can do the best work imaginable with the outfit, I am accumulating here.

Those brooches are miniatures of the “Tiaia” a famous piece of Irish Jewelery. I can’t just tell you the history of it, but you will find it in the Brittanica, It may be Tara; I am not just sure. 

You have surely been doing some running around all right, but suppose by now, you have settled down to hard work again.

Why don’t you develop your own films? It is so much cheaper and better. Use B.W.s “Tabloid” Pyrosoda, full strength and develop for nine or ten minutes. They give excellent results. You should use a camera of some kind occasionally while away, because you will certainly appreciate in after years, having these pictures. Of course you don’t need to take as many as I do, but I would take a few.

I am very lonesome without my little London Lass, and I can’t get interested in anyone else, so am leaving the others alone, for a while at least. We are back on regular time now, and it gets quite dusk about seven, which is not at all interesting. In fact, I hate to go out at night now.

Ault Darrow is back in hospital again. He is in pretty good shape tho.

Next parcel, please send ½ dz pretty good handkerchiefs, not silk but thin mercerized, good quality & marked with my name, also Hutax brush & powder and a couple pairs sox & put my named tapes on them. The last few pairs have not had them & I lost a pair in the washing that came back to-day.

Well Kid, I want a bath & another letter to write before tea & several after, so must close.

Your loving brother,
Worth.