Sapper H.L. Irwin #2339
Can Engineers
R. E. Barracks

Feb. 15th 16.

Dearest Mother

I rec your very Dear letter of the 23/1/16, and more then glad to hear from you as always, Will Mother I am not angry at you or dissappointed, But love you as much as ever, and am looking forword to coming home with all my heart, and am longing to see you as much as ever I did, I am very sorry if I said any thing in my letters to hirt you, I did not mean to Mother, and am very sorry, But want you to forgive me and remember that I love you is much as I ever did, and think of you all the time, and will always love you, And will do all I can to help you & make you happy, and about the money I want you to get the $20 00 all the time, and the $15 00 for Florence that will be all O. K, But as you know Mother, I only get half wages now & could not get along with-out a lettle help like that, But if you send Florence the $15 00 each month every thing will be fine, It is very hard for us to get along just now, But hope we will all be together soon & be happy again, and when I get out of this D– army and get back to work again, I hope every thing will be fine then, I have never been paid for two month now, the last Reg pay I got was last 15th of Dec, so you can see how bad we are up again it now, although the people we are staying with are very good & do not worry us for our rent The $10,00 you sent helped a great deal more then you can imagine, the reason why I have not been paid is that they took my book from me to get things fixed up in it, and have not got it back yet, and can not get paid untell I do, .But it should be back any day now, I have been feeling a lettle on the bum for some time now, I am atending Docter now, it is some kind of blood poison, I keep braiking out in sores all the time, The Docter seems to be puzzelled about it, I have a bunch of sores in head. I hope I dont loose my hair through it. But it looks that way just now, The Docter has given me some kind of doap, Dont know if it is doing any good or no, Florence is doing all she can for me, she raps my head every night, my face is all over sorse too, But I hope I get better soon, But all I worry & care about is that Florence dont catch it, for it would worry me then, Florence seem all right just now, But I worry about her a lot some times, But she is the same Darling girl, and she is so much better then any other girls, that it maks me proud to think of her as my wife, Mother I sure do love her., And Idealis her., We are stell very comfortable, and very happy together, she is very good. & takes things in the right way, I dont give her much money but she knows how to make the best use of it, And takes things as they come, and is happy & good to me, Dont worry Mother, I love my Dear Wife very dearly But I never will foreget my Dear Mother, and will help you all I can,

The weather is very good here, it has been very windy for some days now, & rain nearly every night, But the days are very nice, I have been puting in telephone all day as well as running my Engine and am very tired tonight, half of our boys have gone away for a fue days, to work on some rifles at Lephook, But will be back again in about three week, so our staff is very small just now,

Will Mother I have no more news just now, I had a letter from Granma Thicksen last week & also [?] & Frank, will ans them as soon as I can so I will let Florence write a fue lines now,

Dearest Mother

I am pleased to hear at last that you have received the news of our wedding & also got the cake alright & guess that by now the photo’s have arrived all O. K. We have been very anxiously waiting to hear from you & how you felt about us getting married & I am very relieved to know that you are not as angry as you said that you would be & I hope not unhappy either because we are really very happy together & although we are terribly hard up & will have to be very very careful to manage on the pay which we are getting now as it takes nearly all of it just to live. that is when we do get it, I do not regret for one moment not having waited until the end of the war & I know that I never will, no matter what happens. The £2 which you sent for a New Year’s gift was really a God-send as it paid off two weeks rent, but we are still in debt & I wish they would hurry up & pay us. We thought that the English army was long winded enough but they are not patch on the Canadian. I do hope that you are keeping better now & I am so sorry for poor Hazel & George. They seem to be in worse straits than us, if George stands to lose all his capital. You said that you would like to write to my Mother well, I guess it is my fault that you don’t know her name & she would very much like to hear from you. Her name is Mrs. W. J. Jones, “The House” No. 8. Wharf, North Wharf Road, Paddington, London. W. I was too tired to finish this last night, & Harold is so afraid I shall miss the mail. But I think it will be alright as it doesn’t go out until tomorrow So if it doesn’t you must blame me

Well, I will close now as my Darling will soon be in to lunch & I will post this as I take him back to work. It is a nice fine day, but very cold. So with best Love

I remain

your affectionate Daughter

Florence