I hope you’re feeling swell.

Although like you I’m not at work

I’m feeling very well.

They tell me that your heart is bad

That you must stay in bed

But with a damned complaint like that

You’re lucky you ain’t dead!

 

Of course I know it’s very hard

To lie in bed all day.

Especially when you shout and bawl

And they silence you with tay!

They tell you for to “shut your mouth

Be quiet if you can

So close your trap – don’t act the hash

And take it like a man!”

 

Poor James McCaughey he is dead

He died on Wednesday

He took a stoke ten days ago

Just ebbed his life away.

He died at 5o’clock this morn

A peaceful death died he.

He’d been anointed by the priest

It think ‘twas last Sunday!

When we left Aughnacloy

To escort him on his last road

To Ballymaclilroy.

For that’s the place we laid him in

Beneath a fresh-made mound

Just to the left of Mother’s grave

Beside our Mother’s ground.

 

Well, Harry that is all the news

That I can treat as rhyme.

I’ll do my best to justify

Your faith in me in time.

Of course you know it’s very hard

To suffer and to smile

But just the same it’s worth a try

So be cheerful (for awhile!)

....................

(This was a letter from Daddy to his brother Harry who lived in Birmingham and who was ill at the time!     Apparently they would write like this to one another from time to time!)---- Cora.