FIT-16

41^st Casualty Clearing Stn.
B.E.F. France
2^nd March, 1917

Dear Mr Goldsbrough,

Allow me to offer you my heartiest congratulations on your promotion as Chief Librarian. I had this news in a P.C. from Miss Miller¹⁷¹ who is unfortunately in hospital¹⁷² .

Mr Elliott's sudden death¹⁷³ must have been a great shock to you all as it certainly was to me. I had received a letter from him a few days before hearing of his death. Great changes have taken place in the Library since the outbreak of war. Belfast seems intent on producing its own food, judging by the new "garden plots" arrangement in the local parks. I expect everyone has turned amateur farmers in their spare time. The French farmers certainly are very industrious and one can see very little ground used for grazing here. Every available spot is tilled and the farmers are always busy in the fields close behind the line. We are very busy at present as we have moved our station to another part of the line. As this moving entails a lot of labour, a great amount of real hard graft falls our share, loading and unloading lorries and digging roads etc. As the weather is very mild at present this work is not unpleasant. As you can see from the papers, we are making great progress on this front, and the boys in Mesopotamia are giving the Turks a rough time. Summer I hope will see the end of it all. As we are very busy I can get very little time for writing so will now conclude. With your permission I will write to you at intervals as this is a practise I always carried out with Mr Elliott. Best wishes to yourself and the staff.

Yours very sincerely,
Joe Fitzsimons