Private Arthur Dicker 

2nd Battalion, the Devonshire Regiment:

We don't know who Private Dicker wrote this letter to but most likely he wrote, as most young soldiers did, to his mother. He was killed in action on 9 May 1915 aged 22, just a few months after this letter reached England. His home was in Tiverton and his parents are believed to have been Henry and Ellen Dicker.

"We had an enjoyable time out here on Christmas Day. I enjoyed myself A1 in the trenches. We were shaking hands with the Germans!

It is an awful mess out here: you are up to your knees in mud all day long in the trenches, and the weather is simply rotten - nothing but rain all day long. I have not seen (here a name has been censored out) yet but we are near their firing line. It made me jump when I heard the big battery guns the first night. I am getting used to them now.

We had plenty of Christmas pudding and cigarettes, and a nice present from Princess Mary; also one from Lady Rawlinson consisting of Christmas pudding and cigarettes and matches. We had yet another little present: a small Christmas pudding from friends at Torquay; it was very good.

It is very cold here and we suffer much from frost-bitten feet."