My grandfather’s letters to the kids were usually really short, because the kids were very young. But as the war wore on and the kids started to write him, he wrote some longer letters that were more descriptive of his life.

Right now there are lots & lots of bees and wasps. There were so many crawling in & out of a hole in the Manor House that one of the officers smoked them out. He took out a brick or two & there were 10 pounds of wild honey—we at it and it was good.