The following letter was received by the parents of Sergeant-Observer Robert Alldrick, whose plane was shot down over Holland some months ago, and who is now a prisoner of war in a German internment camp. It was posted December 30, and arrived in Grimsby on February 25. Marked airmail, it probably came by the South Atlantic Route, and it had been opened by censors. The letter is written on an envelope which is folded when the message has been written on the inside. The flap of the envelope fits into the body of the paper by means of a slit.
Yes, thank you, we had quite a decent Christmas. In the special red Christmas food parcel we had a plum pudding, Christmas cake, tin of roast pork with thick gravy, tinned milk, box of biscuits, all of which made a nice Christmas dinner. The usual German dinner was dressed up a bit. We decorated our barracks quite nicely, with different coloured packing paper from the red Christmas boxes. I had your letter with the parcel list on Christmas eve, and a day later came a card from --- and yours, which was very nice. A letter from --- next day and a letter from --- and ---. Thank them very much for me. It's mighty swell to get their letters. Yesterday I also received a clothing parcel. At first I thought it was yours, but it was from the British Red Cross and the articles were all different from yours, as follows: 2 pr. combinations, 3 pr. socks, balaclava, 2 cakes soap, 2 sticks shaving soap, tooth powder, face cloth, a shirt (it's pretty thin), pullover, woollen gloves, towel (not much use), woollen scarf and a pr. pajamas. All in all pretty good, but I wish it was my own. I wrote a few lines to The Independent the other day. Winter has just begun here, you should see us playing like kids, snowballing and sliding. Oh, say, how about sending news of the hockey league? We (the Canucks) are still interested in our home sport. I've won our house championship at cribbage (but I'm not best by any means), now busy at poker. Well, so long for now, hope all are fine.
