Michael Billings Collection - Wallet 12 - Part 15 of 16

VX 38383 Sgt. M. Billings, 
District Accounts Office 
New Guinea. 19. 2. 44 

Darling Kay, 
Greetings once more from Dad commencing xxxx to churn xx 
out a few more hundred words to the little woman who sits and sighs for 
him way back home h. Ah, such tender sentiment.Saturday night but no 
pictures or parties to go to just a night the same as every other here 
and to pile it on,I'm back on the job finishing, praise be,my tour of xxx 
night duty.Looking forward to tomorrow for I'm going to have a beaut
bludge, I can tell you, loads of spine bashing and a long swim and snooze
in the sun.Weather is so hot and sticky now that after work a chap
feels washed out so Sunday ,a day of delicious leisure can’t come too
quickly. To get on, I trust this finds you both swell and quite free from 
the illnesses of the flesh and spirit .Since the avalanche early in the
week, no more letters from you but I always say ‘ ‘tomorrow one will come”
As in your last, things with your charge were'nt so hot, I hope it won’t
be long before brighter tidings can be reported .And when he is peevy
it naturally reacts onnyou. 
I have’nyt anywhere near finished dealing with your
swag of letters so shall go straight on where my last finished. It-’s
about time that book for your mother turned up so after giving it a bit
more time, I’ll get on the wheel of the gent wot took my order. In my xxx
last letter, I asked you to airmail my empty kitbag when you took
delivery so if that should fail to arrive, Im just repeating it here.
By jove,Dame Fortune is poking a wry face at you lately with everything
getting broken or twisted ,Richard down in the dumps and desperate
recourse to a pipe that should be decently interred like any other
dead thing.There can’t be much wrong with you if you can tackle that
and survive. It is six years old if it’s a day. I have come by another
snap of a group snapped at the local beach and lo and behold, there’s
Jo-Jo the dog faced boy well to the fore. Unfortunately, this one was
taken three months ago and I really cant lay claim to looking as fit
asv I appear in the picture. However, I send it along for your collection
and criticism. My paunch is going down a gain, I don’t eat a great deal
for one thing nowadays , I guess the tinned food has palled and my
interior seems to be easily satisfied with small helpings.Just as well,
for the hot and heavy stuff we get is right out of focus with the xxxxxx
climate and its accompanying hot flushes and itching rashes.
I told you about my attempts to get young John
transferred to our show but so far I have not heard a thing about it
either from him or officially. xxxxx For reasons I cannot disclose here,
there may be a temporary hitch but I reckon it should go through
eventually.Hope so,for it would be champion to be with him even, if it
should be but for a short time. I see you and I don’t agree on the
subject of A class men being permitted to cling to city jobs however
that’s a subject upon which we shall agree to differ. However , that’s a
subject I’ll tee up to argue with you in person armed with an imposing
array of fact and logic. Herewith my reply to your double enquiryon
my pay check.What a fathead you are about being so diffident in asking
these things. If you are to secure a flat for us , of course it will
make things more expensive, the question of you being hungry for coin
does not arise, you sweet puss. That’s one of the reasons I’ve been
hoarding up what change I can up here so that if we want to go in for
something to our advantage, it’s there.First, the figures, pay as a sgt.
11/6 per day which at present is allocated as follows --

2. 
Allotment to Mum 3/6
Allotment to Bank 2/- 
Drawing rate in pay book 5/- 
Increase in pay from Corp. 
to Sgt. to come 1/- 11/6 
. . . . . 
The 2/- allotment to the bank has not been touched
since I made it and at present it amounts to roughly £27 plus £8. I
sent from out of my pay book.Unfortunately, I left it a bit late to
get into the higher money brackets and so have'nt quite gained the
financial benefits from the higher rate compared with the cheaper cost
of living here. At present, I intend to let it accrue in the paybook
and as the balance gets to a respectable sum bung it down through the
army straight into the bank. So if you want some quidlets, the cheque
form I have here can be completed and passed to you and you can collect.
Seeing you have told me several times that under present circumstances
you are able to manage O.K., I have'nt increased your allotment as I
have been trying to keep the long view and accumulate as much as possible
for a purpose so dear to our hearts, the acquisition of our own place.
You know the old business maxim, don't lose your capital which is always
there in expenses which once spent are gone forever.For that reason and
the fact that our holdings are pitifully slender as it is, I have perhaps
been a bit lousy where you are concerned as I cannot overlook the fact
that every pound gone out of our purse means one to add on to what we
shall have to borrow in any case. However, when you get on to the questionn
of getting a spot just for ourselves, even though temporarily , I look at
it differently seeing we are agreed that preparatory to getting our
permanent abode under way, we must have a base from which to direct
operations. So when that looks good I shall be delighted to open the
pursestrings . So don't be backward in putting the hard word over, old
scout when you're good and ready.
Another aspect willalso give you some food for
thought and be some sort of a guide for the future is this,at present
our income taking into consideration your allotment, Richard's allowance
my pay including deferred pay and subsistence totals more than I would x
be getting if I were back on my old job by quite a bit,at least £1 per
week.anyhow. Unpalatable as it is, we won't be on easy street after the
war so dream no visions of expensive houses with Persian carpets and
velvet hangings. Still, if it desists before I'm too decrepit, I aim to
rise to a better billet than formerly as I have lost patience watchingx
the efforts of what I consider are my intellectual inferiors. And with a
energetic wife and a shall we say, wonderful family as a spur, it should b
be worthx going after. 
Changing to matters more intimate, I gave forth
my pronouncement about your intended long hair stunt in my xxxx usual
candid and probably rude way. However you just sandwiched the matter in 
near the end of your letter hoping maybe to divert my attention from
such an omportant matter. I look at it this way,when I left you your
curly thatch was my pride and joy so I shall be cheated if it it is any
the less beautiful. I don't mind lots of things but that is one thing I
insist upon, the preservation of its glory so get to work, you sluggard ,
one hundred brush strokes a day and if you can turn out an effect
equal to that as depicted in the snap I sent you I promise you a special

3.
opportunity to display it otherwise I shall debag you and use the bc
back of that hairbrush on your tail as a mark of my disapproval. 
As I come to your last letter I perceive that my
rebuking GE letter has reached you.Well, in retrospect, I feel a bit of
a heel in tearing into you as the worst that could be said against x
you is guilty under very strong provocation. Life is not all that
it should be for you and when troubles rise up thick and fast, your
outlook isxapt to go cock-eyed .I only hope that it won't be long now
before I can do something to alleviate things.Anyhow, it's all over and
forgotten now for you certainly made the 'amend e honorable' in your
letter and were big enough to give yourself a good kick in the pants.
However, don't take a momentary aberration too much to heart and I still
want you to pour out all your thoughts and ideas as you have always
done. 
Passing to the wee fella, I'm glad the visit to Doc. was
quickly followed by an improvement and a return to his normal good
health and high spirits right on its heels. I'm awfully sorry xxxa bout
the pain his refusal to feed caused you, I can guess that it would rack
you all over, you poor kid. 
Well,once more, time has flown before I can
finish I can clean up all the data your bundle placed before me, but
I trust that before I do so some more from you will happen along so
that I won't have to go back to the old business of scratching the
skull for a topic to write you about for this dump is not conducive
to clear thought or hot news. So bye ' bye, precious, lots of deep sleep,
and good days to you both . Repeat one only big kiss for Junior from
Dadda and for you,sweetheart, positively oceans of the fine old
commodity, love interspersed with many kisses. 
Micky

ACTIVE SERVICE 
19 2 44 

Address :- 
Mrs M. Billings 
548 Barkers Road 
East Hawthorn 
VICTORIA 

PR00610 
Australian War Memorial 
[Opened by Censor.]

VX38483 Sgt. M. Billings 
Dist. Accounts Office 
New Guinea. 
22.2.44 

Darling Kay, 
Well, first off, this is
going to be my photographic
special for I'm very happy
to inform you that both the
studio portrait of Richard & you
and the seven snaps have all
arrived as well as your letters
of 12, 14 & 15 Feb which is
a extra special cap from the
mailbag. 
It was wonderful to
read that Richard has come
good again, complete with two
teeth too. Now he's over that
hurdle, I think he'll progress
nicely and the weight he lost
should soon be replaced. Poor
chap, he must have been down
to it to lose a whole pound.

2 
Now he's off again. I suppose you 
are feeling a lot chirpier too
minus the worry & enforced
insomnia. 
The photographic
collection taken as a whole 
were magnificent & quite the 
best lot you've done. The studio 
portrait of course is in a class 
of its own, the most heart-warming 
thing I've been fortunate enough 
to possess. You can kiss the little 
chap ecstatically for his lovely 
thought in sending it and tell 
him his daddy thinks he is the 
beautest boy there ever was and 
that he's dying to meet such a 
fine little man. That was a 
sweet wheeze, Kay darling and 
in keeping with the whole 
simple beauty of the picture. 
It's really hard to say which 
of you too au is the lovelier.

3 
and I think that Richard in 
sending me the picture is really 
showing me how lovely his 
mother is and I endorse his 
opinion with acclamation. 
For the effect is simply beautiful 
and I'm skiting like the devil 
about my gracious and pretty 
wife and her strapping, smiling 
son. Isn't he a little trick eh? 
He's certainly a personality with 
those sparkling eyes and cheeky 
grin. It's not hard to see he gets 
a kick out of life, the imp and 
he looks as though having his 
photo taken is just a big joke. 
He's got you in properly, sweet, 
that expression of yours speaks 
volumes and I don't doubt that 
your love for him is ^not a bit 
exaggerated. Quite seriously, I 
don't know that Mendelsohn has 
much on you for camera skill

4 
for the snaps you sent are exquisite 
and the poses excellently selected. 
They are all so natural, none the 
least bit forced and with a small 
babe to control, surely a tribute 
to your perception. The one of 
you sitting on the brick rail is 
just what I wanted for it depicted 
you just as I remember you best. 
So lovable is the lovely bundle 
that I kiss that one frequently, its 
just you looking just adorable, 
irresistible to me. Maybe its a 
lot of guff but when I look at 
it I understand what sweet 
motive moves chaps to go through 
anything for you symbolise that 
freshness + charm and dinkum 
Aussie girls possess. These snaps 
have a two sided effect though 
for its misery to look on your 
loveliness and be kept apart 
from you. The other one of

5 
is jolly good too, more the 
dutiful wife though than the 
other which typifies the sweetheart 
but as a contrast extra good. 
You look pretty robust again now 
and physically you look unimpaired 
by the strenuous days you have 
passed through. So that consoles 
me a lot seeing a smile of 
welcoming tenderness and in the 
other a hearties "affair" matching 
the sunshine around you. 
After gazing at either, my arms ache 
to hold you and kiss you madly. 
The two of you holding the Kewpie 
Kid aloft are alike and just so 
different for Richard in one looks 
out at the world fearlessly and 
looks a bit like Churchill with 
his firm jaw. In the other one 
he looks a cheerful young codger 
with some prank forming in the 
bright young man mind.

6 
The next one is that of him 
sitting in his pram looking 
very interested in his chubby 
little hands. I like that one for 
it gives me a good look at his 
fa face full on and I can see 
what a cheerful bloke he is with 
those enquiring eyes and big 
generous mouth, a laughing 
lad all right and if not a 
beautiful face is far from being 
the opposite, certainly a face 
that is full of life. The one of 
him flat out like a veteran 
sunbaker is very good too, expresses 
interest in everything that is 
going at on around him and 
characteristically I see he's all set 
to break out in one of those 
infectious grins. Something's on 
for he's not paying the slightest 
attention to his faithful toy, 
hound. In the last though he's

7 
definitely putting on a turn lying 
there on his side with those 
expressive eyes playing to the 
gallery. That gives one a good gander 
at his physique and he is 
splendidly proportioned, isn't 
he and looks as sturdy as an 
ox. Definitely a source of pride 
& joy to his Dad & Mum 
for there's no apparent weakness, 
physical or mental in that 
bundle of vitality. More congratulations, 
darling, for in addition 
to rearing the prince of boys, you've 
contrived by some magic (guts 
is its middle name) to have kept 
yourself looking marvellous. 
One thing before closing on the 
photos, the change in Richard 
since your last batch of snaps 
was startling. Truly his baby 
days are passing but if I have 
missed out on that, I, at least,