Letters of Ronald Henry Etherton, August - October 1943-Part 6 of 11

4. 
Bridge.  The Maid of the Mist steamer had 
stopped running for the day when we arrived. 
I had a letter from Velma today. 
She has been in looking for you. I She 
doesn't know your surname so I'll tell her 
also where to find you but if you'd like to 
ring her you'll find their number in the  
'phone book under Chas Freeman 9858 
82 Ave. 
And now I think I should go. 
Goodnight dearest      xxx 
Ron 
  
P.S. Thanks for the gum. 
Those two fellows who are so sure 
about the war that as you mention  
seem to change their minds a lot. 
Should see one of them on next trip.  Will 
remember you to him 
R. 

Halifax 
Wednesday 
25 August. 
Letter 7 
  
Dear Jean, 
I received your fifth letter 
today.  I'm terribly sorry I went so 
long without writing.  I won't do it 
again, I promise.  Since my last 
letter I'm afraid I've had nothing 
 much to write about. 
Yesterday evening we saw 
"Stage Door Canteen."  Have you yet?  It's 
not a bad show but lays on the 
moonshine too thick.  The yanks ought 
to check up on their uniforms.  If you 
see it try to pick out some of their 
many mistakes.  The Canteen seems 
to have improved a lot since I saw it.

2. 
I wonder whether the photo will 
arrive in time?  I hope so but 
don't worry about it going astray. 
It will be O.K. 
I sure would like to be in  
Edmonton for Christmas.  Too bad I 
can't but I'll be thinking of you as 
usual. 
The weekend before last in town 
I found a stack of dimes on the 
roadway alongside the tram tracks. 
It was just near a bank and I thought 
that someone from there had dropped 
them but just as I was finishing 
picking them up the fellow who had 
lost them came along.  He had 
dropped five packets each containing  
5 dollars worth of dimes between

3 
his shop and the bank.  I made sure 
from one of the bank tellers & handed 
them over, mud & all.   You see it  
had been raining like the dickens 
so I guess he had a worse job than 
you because they probably all burst. 
I've taken an hour and a half 
to write this much and can't think 
of anything else so I'll just have 
to close.  This is our lunch time 
& we have twenty minutes para 
before parade (nice long lunch time. 
Isn't it?) so I'm just going to 
lay down & daydream - about you 
Love 
Ron.

Aug 25, 1943 
Halifax 
7 

THE LORD MAYOR’S PATRIOTIC AND WAR FUND OF N.S.W.   
A.C.F.   (N.S.W. Division of the Australian Comforts Funds)
  
Aus 423088 
Sgt Etherton R.H. 
R.A.A.F. Base P.O. 
London.   Halifax 
Thursday 26 August '43 
Letter 8.        
Dear Jean, 
I haven't any news for you 
but I just want to tell you how much 
I love you and how sweet I think 
you are and how much I'd like to 
be able to hold you close and tell 
you so. 
I can't think of anything else 
to write; probably I'm just in the  
wrong mood for letter writing but I 
will definitely write tomorrow and try 
to think of something in the meantime 
Love - Ron. 
P.S. Mails out of here are often held up 
for various reasons.  Don't worry if you 
don't receive any letters for a while. It 
may not be anything. 
R 
  
IN YOUR LETTER DO NOT REFER TO: 
The name of your ship, any other ships, [[ its ship? ]] convoy or it's escort or the time of sailing,  
ports of call, or probable destination; the description of troops aboard; any other information 
which, if intercepted, would be of value to the enemy.

8          
Aug 26  
Halifax 

Write the address in large BLOCK letters in the panel below. 
The address must NOT be typewritten 
               
 To:- Miss Jean AYRE 
13007   122 St., 
EDMONTON 
Alberta    CANADA 
  
890730 
DATE STAMP 
7 Sep 43 
  
Write the message very plainly below this line. 
_____________________________________________________________________________ 
Sender's Address  Aus 423088 Sgt ETHERTON R.H. Auspost LONDON England.
______________________________________________________________________________ 
3rd September 1943 
Letter 9 
Dear Jean,                                             
I promised to write this letter quite a few days 
ago but could not because we were on shipboard. I have 
several sheets which I wrote on board but I suppose I 
should throw them away.  They're badly written and 
grubby.  Our trip across was, in the circumstances, not bad. 
By that, I mean that it was calm.  Everything else was  
lousy as is usual on troopships.  It's one of the sides 
of service life that is not shown in recruiting 
posters.  However, I don't think that it has ever killed 
anyone.  Censorship prevents me from telling you anything 
else and, also, where we are stationed so there's not  
much to write about yet. England is much different to  
what we expected. It is not nearly as war weary as we 
expected. In fact, I think that the people at home are 
every bit as hard hit.  Poor old Australia.  There are no 
great abundances here now but there are no terrible 
discomforts.  We eat very well - better than in Canada 
and we thank excellent organisation for that. And in 
this town there is tons to do, for which we are  
thankful as we are not flying or working.  There is an 
indoor ice rink, numerous theatres, several stage shows, 
swimming baths but no Jean, so what's the good. No,  
 I'd much rather be back in Edmonton.  This is too short  
so will write Air Mail soon. Love Ron. P.S. Will cable first chance 
___________________________________________________________________ 
This space should not be used. 
MAKE SURE THAT THE ADDRESS IS WRITTEN IN LARGE BLOCK LETTERS IN THE PANEL ABOVE.

CANADIAN PACIFIC 
COMMUNICATIONS 
STANDARD TIME INDICATED 
  
CDIX 
CANADIAN PACIFIC 
TELEGRAPHS    
World Wide Communications 
W.D. NEIL. General Minister of Communications Montreal 
  
7  RN  MR  15  GLT   IMP 
GREAT BRITAIN    SEP   4   1943 
JEAN AYRE 
13007   122ND STR 
EDMONTON     569 
  
ARRIVED SAFE AND WELL       ALL MY LOVE. 
  
RON ETHERTON 
11.50PSEP8TH. 

Letter 10. 
Tuesday Sept 7  '43 
1. 
Dear Jean,              
I am giving this way of writing  
a try.  It's a bit more personal than an 
airgraph and may be even quicker.  Will you 
tell me whether it is.  We are more or less  
established here now and life isn't too bad. 
My present worst complaint is the complete 
absence of mail.   I understand that it may be 
as much as a fortnight longer before any does 
arrive.  I hope that it's regular after that. 
We are not very occupied but evenso 
do not get even one day completely free but 
shortly we will be getting a week's leave. 
Our day is passed in an extremely boring 
manner.  Little is done and a lot of time 
wasted.  We have various inspections and 
tests, route marches and long lectures about  
nothing at all.  The one interesting item is 
P.T. (physical training).  The instructors are good 
and we all need a lot of exercise before we're 
fit to fly at all and I intend to be in the best 
nick I can by the time we get on to Ops.  
We have still a considerable amount of  
training and practice before that happens. 
How long it will be I cannot say. In the 
past we'd have had the opportunity to go 
on manouvres with the army and navy, in  
tanks, rescue boats, subs or anything.  I 
don't know whether we will now.  There also 
used to be Commando courses but now 
unimportant lectures have taken a great part 
of the course and it's title is a misnomer 
I suppose that we'll come back from leave 
and just hang around until something 
2. 
happens. 
I don't think I mentioned that there's 
a large indoor public swimming bath here. 
It's bigger than any in Edmonton - not much 
but also it's never crowded. A swim there is 
included in P.T.  You'll notice that I called 
it "bath".  A painted notice outside says 
"baths" but a brass plate inside says 
"bath".  It's dated 1895 when the pool  
was built. That's a long time ago. Isn't 
it?  I expect that you think that it's very 
old and dilapidated but you're wrong. It 
must have been renovated dozens of times 
because it's quite smart and attractive. 
The rest of my baggage arrived with my 
skates so we went to the ice rink on Sunday 
afternoon. Gee, but I was awkward.  I don't  
know whether to blame myself, the after effects 
of the rollers or the artificial ice.  It was hard 
and even though the weren't many there it 
got cut up a terrible lot after a while. 
I've also been to two stage shows. Compared 
with the shows in New York or even Sydney 
they're junk.  I haven't been to the pictures 
since we've been here but I've seen some  
good shows advertised. 
From what I've seen of the girls 
hereabouts they're rather like Australian 
girls but not quite as good looking. That is, 
on an average. They are very homely and 
not nearly as smart as Canadians or Americans. 
They do not know how to make up or do 
their hair. They bleach their hair and, worse 
still, there are a lot who have recently