Letter from Lewis Ellis to his mother and father

Letter from Lewis Ellis to his mother and father

Writes that he had now travelled to Virmont [sic], Manitoba an elementary flying school. Describes the local area, food and activities.

1941-11-26

Three page handwritten letter and envelope

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EEllisELEllisH-[Fa]411126

[inserted] 12/41 12/42 [/inserted]

[Postage stamp] [Postmark]

Mrs. Ellis
54 Wulfric Rd.,
Manor
Sheffield. 2.
Yorks.
England.

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[RCAF crest]

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[RCAF crest]

LAC ELLIS 1238597
c/o RCAF
OTTAWA

26 Nov 1941

Dear Mam & Dad,

Since I last wrote I’ve travelled another 2000 miles west to a place called Virmont [sic] in Manitoba, 210 miles west of Winnipeg and about 100 miles from the American border. Its a [sic] Elementary Flying Training School & there are about sixty Tiger Moth training planes here and we shall be going up tomorrow Thursday for the first time provided the weathers fit.

It took us – 84 of us, three & a half days to get here so we had to sleep on the train in a sleeping car – we had a grand time & the food on the train was perfect

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Tell our Sidney where I am now is where the cowboys live & the policemen are the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The town is very small with one cinema & two pubs & its a 10 [deleted symbol] cent bus ride away. The weather here is very cold & dry and the ground is covered with snow & the flying field is covered so it has to be rolled by [inserted] steam [/inserted]. The food here is too good to be true – every thing is [deleted letters] fried in butter & there are gallons of milk & tins of bacon etc and you serve yourself & have as much as you like. We’re the first English to come here & everyone in the village turned out to see us arrive & I got a [sic] invitation to a horse ranch & one to wheat farm

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so the first time I get chance I shall go visiting.

Well we are still doing ground work but we’re all waiting for tomorrow & we expect to be flying solo in a fortnight or so. Well I think thats all from here I havn’t [sic] had a letter from home yet so I don’t know how things are going over there – I hope every body is OK.

Well I think thats all for now I’ll write & tell you how I get on tomorrow.

Your loving son

Lewis

P.S. Our time is severn [sic] hours behind Greenwich.