Stalag Luft 3,

15-11-42 (5)

Dear Mum – Still awaiting my first letter from England, so have had no news for three months now. Expect to hear from Tom this side of Christmas, though, so he will doubtless be able to tell me how things are going. Some of the N.Z’s here have had mail from home from late-ish in September, so perhaps I’ll be lucky soon too. Winter is coming along fast and we have had a very very light powdering of snow, so it won’t be long now before we are ploughing through it. We live in a very civilized manner here, you know; eight to a room, each room doing its own cooking. Our room is quite a mixture of nationalities – 3 English, 2 Belgians, a Norwegian and a New Zealander, which is a pretty fair jumble even for a prison-camp. I am keeping myself so busy that in spite of having all day to play round with it doesn’t seem nearly long enough for all the swot I want to get through; that way, the time passes at an amazing rate. You know, I think, that letters to us must be on one sheet of paper only, but you can write on both sides so I look forward to some quite fair-sized epistles in the not-too-far-distant future. I am wishing very much that I had years ago persuaded Dad to give me some language tuition; it would have been most useful now. Hope your hand is not losing its cunning with the cook-pots, Mum; I promise myself a feast when I get home. Look after yourself, and love from Arnold G.