Italy, December 1943
After a month's stay in a convent at Castellammare, near Pompeii. during which they did duty with British medical units, the sisters of No. 14 General rejoined their unit at Caserta. They had received a new issue of battledress from the Q.M. Stores, which handled only men's sizes. "We paraded in alphabetical order," recalled one sister, five feet one inch tall, whose surname began with "S". This put her towards the tail end of the line, and she had to settle for a size forty-two, which necessitated her taking in some rather large pleats before it could be worn. It was a relief when the sisters were finally able to draw nurses' uniforms. When wearing battledress in public some of them had been propositioned by Italians, who were apt to regard trousered women as street-walkers.

No 1 Canadian Gen Hosptial
Cand Med Forces
Dec 29th 1943

Yesterday your letter 1st Dec arrived and believe me it was a tonic in itself. To date Nov mail has not caught up with us.

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...Christmas day seven of us were invited thirty miles for dinner and dancing. It was a swell party. I tell you what our Canadian boys are a bit of alright, The boys were as pleased to see us as we were to see them several mentioned that after dinner we should be put on one side of the room and talk so they could sit and listen for a while, needless to say that did not happen. (1st Canadian girls they had heard in 3 years.)

...One of the boys gave me this pen the other day. It is about as good as the one I lost in convoy.

...The other day I was able to purchase the whole sum of three eggs. Hold your breath while I tell you that they are now $2.50 per doz. Might be alright to be on the selling end of that business. Really no wonder, the poor hens have no where to keep warm and as I have mentioned before it is plenty cold. The eggs were grand so we felt it almost worth the price.



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