Pte Charles Willimott (Lilydale), Mechanical Transport Division: In England. In a letter to a friend in Lilydale – ‘We are present billeted in Romsey, in the south of England, but are under orders to clear – I don’t know where. England is just one huge camp – troops everywhere. They all live in huts. Some of the camps are almost as large as Melbourne. We are engaged in carting stores and road material in one of the camps about 30 miles out. If it were not that one sees so many troops about one would never realise that he is within about 100 miles of the firing line, as business goes on just as usual. The only difference is that all the towns are in semi-darkness at night, London was not like the same place at night with all the lights lowered. I was granted five days’ leave, so I looked up my old Dad but found that almost all my old friends were at the front or training in Kitchener’s army’.