63 Belgrave Bd. S.W.
3/5/16

Dear Ones All,

It seems a long time since I last wrote home but I do hope you understand how hard it is for me to keep up with my correspondence. I have put in five weeks of the hardest work I have ever done in my life since coming to London and every night when I come home I am just too tired mentally and "nervously" to sit down and write at all. And then if I do manage to summon the energy to write it is always a question of which one of the family to write to, or Molly, or one of the many other people across the water who have been so good about writing to me. The natural result is that from every one of my friends and relations I hear the same thing "Why don’t you write oftener?" Believe me, Dear People, I am so lonely- in spite of being so busy, that nothing would make me happier than to be able to sit down and write letters to you all day long but in spite of my own inclinations I have to stint every one in the matter of news.

The past week or so have been even worse then usual and I have been putting in eleven hours hard work every day. The combination of long hours and London fog has sort of got my goat, as Mother would say, and this afternoon I got one of the Brigade cars and went out to Hendon on a combined business and pleasure trip. As you no doubt know, that is the site of most of the early attempts in aviation in England, with the result that around the new deserted exhibition aerodrome there have grown up many of the largest aircraft factories in the

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My own particular friend Millman is in hospital as the result of his engine failing just after leaving the ground, causing his machine to side-slip into a tree. MacMurray of Toronto has had three had crashes lately all in Havilland Scouts- treacherous little beasts they are. The first one was at Dover just before he flew across to France,  when he made a bad landing and ended up with his machine lying in a most indecent attitude flat on its back with its legs in the air; the second one was in France when he perched in the top of a tree; and the third was when he was flying across the Channel and his engine went bad and he had to come down on the water- the machine of course went to the bottom, but Mac was picked up by a French trawler. From the clipping Fatter sent I see that some other Toronto boy in the R.N.A.S. had a similar experience but Murray’s was a worse one for he had a tiny little scout machine with wheels and not a regular sea-plane with floats like the "Really Not A Sailor" chap had. All of which reminds me: why don’t we like the Royal Naval Air Service men? There really are some splendid pilots amongst them and yet they and the R.F.C. have about as much dealings as the Jews and the Samaritans!

1 am so glad to hear that little John Ross has recovered from his operation and is sleeping better now. Poor little sister May, I wonder if anyone in the world has more cause for grumbling and yet grumbles so little as you!

Thanks for the paper telling about Neil Van Nostrand’s little stunt, Father, and please send me a Toronto paper occasionally. Pete Wedd, and Wilcox and I just devoured that last one. The advertisements for "Spearmint" and "Grape Nuts" were among the most pleasing things I have seen for months, for they spelt AMERICA in large letters like that!

Mother Dear, I won’t need any more socks for many moons.

Must close now for it is getting so late. With love in abundance to each one of you.

Yours as always,
Eric.