12 Charleville Circus
Sydenham SE
Feb 22nd /16
My dear Mother
I am pleased to hear you are going on well and have been able to come downstairs. I hope the weather will soon turn mild enough to enable you to go out. Today has been bitterly cold here, and a few flakes of snow have fallen at various times during the day.
Cyril’s leave looks as though it may be postponed for some time. I wonder whether his regiment will be ordered to Mesopotamia. It would be nicer if he was sent somewhere not so far off and where correspondence would be easier. Whether his regiment goes there or not, I hope the Government will not delay sending a strong force there, and endeavour to co-operate with the Russians in the Caucasus and finally join up with them. The news from the Caucasus is the most cheering there has been for some time. May it prove the beginning of a series of successes.
I hear on pretty substantial authority that the Board of Inland Revenue are not going to release any more men from the Claims Branch until at any rate the end of May. I understand that some more Assistant Clerks are to be allowed to join the Army from other branches. We are endeavouring to cut down the work as far as possible by a less stringent investigation of the claims, but of course there are limits to which one can do that, and as the high rate of tax causes an increase in the number of claims, I fear there will be a heavy arrear later on.
You will feel quite lost without Mary and Baby. I wonder whether the latter will continue to thrive as well at Dowlais as she did at Badsey.
I have just read an interesting book of Stephen Graham’s entitled “The Way of Martha and The Way of Mary”, in which he compares the Russian Church and Russian thought with the Church and thought of Western Europe. He likens the Eastern Church to Mary and the Western to Martha. In the same book he gives an interesting account of a visit to a Coptic monastery somewhere in Egypt.
With love to you all, I remain
Your affectionate son
John D Sladden
