George was working as a luggage porter for NZ Railways in the small rural town of Tuakau, just 60km’s south of Auckland. He had been transferred there in February 1914 from the Clinton Railway Station.
It's from Tuakau that George enlisted and sent south to Trentham Army Training Camp outside of Wellington.
Trentham
21/2/1915
Dear Mother,
I suppose you know that I am in camp among the boys here. I couldn’t stop out of it any longer and I wouldn’t have missed this lot for nuts.
Well Mother, I am liking it tip top and it just suits me right down to the ground. Bill Mack & Alex Craig is here, they are in the Otago mob. I am in the Auckland lot. We are all together in one big camp, their tents are only about fifty yards from me and we knock about together at nights, but there is not much time by the time we finish our days work and have tea, it is pretty near dark.
There is a good few ways of amusing yourself at night here in the way of concerts, picture shows, shooting galleries, ping pong & etc but they are in a very small scale and too small to hold a quarter of the mob, and there is such a crowd in them it isn’t much fun unless you go in very early and wait, there is plenty of reading here in the way of books and all sorts of paper.
Bill & Alex are in different tents but they are next to one another. Young Muir is also in the next tent to them. I was strolling around the other night with them when I run into three Clinton chaps and it’s just like as if everybody in New Zealand is here and just like school days.
I can tell you it is just alright. I would have wrote when I left Auckland but I had to wait till I got here to give you my address.
There is eight in each tent and I have struck a bosker lot of chaps. I wouldn’t swap them for a good deal. If I had known Bill & Alex were in this Fifth lot, I would have joined the Auckland lot that had to fill up the Otago mob.
We are up at 5.30 every morning, have physical drill, breakfast and then drill all day, one hour and a half for dinner and two smokeo’s. They march us all down to the river every second day for a bath, and when about five thousand get in at once, there is some fun. It is a terrific place this to blow and the dust storms is fairly hot sometimes, we are all as brown as berries and sunburnt.
You remember the chap that was with Withey’s mill one year they called Dick, I think he got a fork run into his leg at Sutherlands when he was in the straw stack and was very bad, well he is here with the middle aged chaps that are going to Samoa to relieve the others. I dropped across him last night. I couldn’t help laughing at him, he is still the hard looking case with his spectacles on. You can tell the Witheys that the old Dick is here. Old Jimmy used to have rare fun out of him. Joe Carnegie’s brother is here somewhere, but I haven’t found him yet.
I left my two boxes with Jim when I was coming down and got him to keep them till I come back.
We won’t be supplied uniforms for over a month or more, they can’t make them fast enough. They supplied us all with a sort of dungaree with the wide military hat and it’s great to see us all drilling in them. It is alright too and better than the uniform to loll about in.
We are talking about getting our photos in them and if we do I will send you one down Mother just to have a laugh at.
We were all reckoning on getting away from here in six weeks time, but we were all paraded the second day we were here and the head officer told us we were to be here for four months for shore (sic) and we were disappointed and it will be a whale of a time before we can get a smack at the Germans worse luck, but I suppose we will just have to put up with it.
We are having a week off before we go away so I might be able to get down yet. Alex & Bill and I will come together if possible, but it won’t be for a while yet.
I got a send off from Tuakau and they gave me a pipe and a safety razor, a bosker outfit. I am to keep in touch with about twenty there. I have to be shure and write to the S.M. so I will drop him a line after I finish this.
Well I must stop now Mother, so whatever you do don’t worry about me because (letter torn paper missing) me right to the ground and (missing) I will write some of these (missing) scribble.
Your Loving Son
George
The Salvation Army Institute
Military Camp
Trentham N.Z.
June 8th 1915
Dear Mother
I got your letter today, I also got Doll’s on Friday. I was going to write to her but I will make the one letter do you both because if I wrote two I would be run out of news and that is a very simple thing to do.
I sent you the rest of the photos that I had over, and I am wondering if they reached you alright. I see by your letter that you wrote it on the fourth and I think they must have crossed because I sent the photos “with the letter inside” last Wednesday so you will most likely have them by now.
I got a surprise when I read Dolls letter and she was saying that Jessie and Mrs Lister (?) were on the station that night we came through because Alex Craig & I looked back & forward on the station but couldn’t see a sign of them. There was a terrific crowd there, it was as much as we could do to elbow our way through so I don’t think they would have moved about but stood in the one place and we must have missed them. We had a good look through and were quite satisfied that Jessie & her Mother wasn’t there.
The crowd couldn’t all get on to the station and were standing back on the road and Alex & I reckon they might be among that lot but we haven’t time to go out amongst them but I suppose it couldn’t be helped and just “a sad case”. You can tell them when you write Mother that Alex & I were disappointed when we heard they had been there all the time.
The boat we are supposed to go on is the Maunganuian and she is a bosker boat, supposed to be the best of the three so we are very lucky if we strike her.
We had our second sham fight the end of last week. Left camp at nine on Friday morning and got back again about the same time on Saturday morning. There was a great lot in the paper about us Fighting Fifth and the hot stuff we are and we have all got swelled heads and will hardly recognise the plain reinforcements in camp.
The Fifth have the best shooting record so far, the best discipline, and the best soldiers at marching and sham fights, so the papers say. The Fourth were supposed to be the pick of the lot but the papers say “best papers in the world” that we have easily surpassed them, so you just take the notice Mother. When this Fighting Fifth get into action, the Turks will stop playing war.
I was down at Jim Young’s place in Petone one night last week. She is a very nice woman and has given me a box of cakes three times now. “Nice Woman” Mrs Young.
We will be off on Saturday, Mother, and you should see the chaps here smiling, doing their work twice as well and counting the days. I heard today that we are having two months in Egypt, but I hope it is a lie. We want to get into it and stir them up. When all us Palmerston lads get together we will be a small army on our own.
I seen the Dr here on Thursday night. I had been on town and was having a walk along the Petone Station on the way out at night when I got a terrific biff in the back and when I turned around the Dr was just steadying his bag for another smack. He is a great lad and would like to get with us, but he told me the Fifth was full in his line and he was disappointed, he was still going to give it a go and I wouldn’t be surprised if he got with us. He will be with the next I guess if he doesn’t.
Well Mother, this is all just now, I will give you all the news as I go along. Tell Doll I enjoyed her letters and Tina’s too, and I am sorry I can’t answer them all but there is nothing fresh.
Have plenty of fruit ready for me when I come back Mother, and I will show you a few new tricks with them.
Goodbye Mother, Doll, Tina, Alex, and say goodbye to all the others for me.
Your loving Son,
George.
** Steven edit: The Dr mentioned is Thomas Harrison from Palmerston … who missed the 5th reinforcement and then joined the 6th reinforcements Field Ambulance.