Broadsground
Upton St Leonards

2 January 1916

My dear Jack,

By the time you get this I hope you will have got our wire to say that Ted is safe. We had a wire from him at Alexandria & one from Guildford this morning to say he was alright. I was at the hospital washing up when Gladys and Marjorie came & told me that the Persia had been torpedoed in the Mediterranean & in the evening we had a telephone message to say four boats had got to Alexandria. The nurse came to see us yesterday at tea and she told our fortunes in our cups & she said we were to have some good news from over the sea, of a ship from an ‘E’. Marjorie & Louie went down to Mrs Ridler in the evening & cut the cards & she said it would all come right as the cards were so good round Ted & me, & there were some very anxious thoughts coming just before.

Nell never lost her faith in the uncanny as evidenced by Mrs Ridler’s second sight.

The other notable thing about this letter is the mention of the telephone: the unified telephone service in Britain was just over three years old in the beginning of 1916 and even then it was very limited. However, Jack Fielding Sr was an engineer and a prosperous man and an early adopter of new technology.