letter

Letter from a Mayo kid to Mum and Dad.

Dear Mum & Dad,

I am well. Hope you are. Tell big brothers Sean, Paddy and Mick that the Army is better than working on the farm - tell them to get into the Army quick before the jobs are all gone.

I was a bit slow in settling down at first, because you don't get outta bed until 6am. I like sleeping in now, but all you do before brekky is make your bed and shine your boots and clean your uniform. No cows to milk, no calves to feed, no feed to stack---nothing.

Men must shave, but its not so bad, coz there's hot water and a light to see what ya doing.

Breakfast has cereal, fruit and eggs but there's no fillet steaks or sausages. You don't get fed again until noon, and by that time all the city boys are buggered because we've been on a 'route march', just like walking to the well in the meadow.

This will kill Sean and Paddy with laughter. I keep getting medals for shooting - dunno why. The bullseye is as big as a bloody bull's head and it doesn't move and its not firing back at you like the Johnsons did when our bull got their cow pregnant before the Ballina show. All you gotta do is make yourself comfortable and hit the target - piece of piss. You don't even load your own cartridges - they comes in boxes and you don't have to steady yourself against the rollbar of the tractor when you reload.

Then you gotta wrestle with the city boys and I gotta be real careful coz they break easy - it's not like fighting with Sean, Paddy, Mick and all the other local fellas all at once like we do.

Turns out I'm not a bad boxer either and it looks like I'm the best the platoon's got, and I've only been beaten by this guy from Dublin - he's 6 foot 8 and 120 kilos and I'm 5 foot six and 65 kilos, but I fought to the end.

I can't complain about the Army - tell the boys to get in quick before word gets around how good it is.

Your loving daughter,
Siobhan