Pte BERTIE HIBBETT: POSTCARD: Lion Lodge, Audley End, to Miss I. N. Hibbett, 95, Foden Rd. Walsall, Staffordshire.

3/1/15. Sunday night. Tattoo playing in Market Place. 9.10 pm

I wish I had kept Mother’s letter open to tell you what a very,  very interesting service it has been tonight.  Intercession Day you know. But I will let you know in a letter later on or when we see you.   Mother I know would be greatly interested in what seemed to be a very old & quaint Carol. ‘A virgin most pure as the Prophets did say‘ (1).

Will send you a ‘telly’ when we’re about to come Home.  Regret I mentioned the mishap to vase now.

What a lot of letters we have and shall have to write for the many presents. Who sent the papers! Mrs or G. Lallermand (2).

Bertie.

NB  I used this Audley End Postcard to illustrate Bertie’s 28th Dec. Birthday Letter to Ida forgetting that there was a message to Ida on the back.

(1)Traditional, West of England Carol: earliest version found in New Carolls for the Merry Time of Christmas. London. 1661. Printed version 1734. Popularised in Victorian times by Davies Gilbert’s Some Ancient Christmas Carols.1822. [Other endings to first line ‘do tell/ foretold’. ]

(2)George Lallermand was Ida’s young man, a family friend since their arrival in Walsall, 1904.

NEXT POST: 12th Jan. 1915.