Harrogate Herald - 21st January 1920

Corporal W Smith, RASC, writing from South Russia, says : 

Dear Mr Breare, I should have written you ages ago to tell you that I have moved further up country to Taganrog, which is a small town situated on the North side of the Sea of Azov, and once or twice you have been round the town you have seen all there is to see. Before I go any further I must thank you for sending the Harrogate Herald so regularly. I should imagine that my copy has to travel further than any other copies you send abroad now, if not, there won't be very many further. The enclosed note is valued 5 roubles, which in pre-war days was equivalent to 10s 5d, a rouble being 2s 1d. Nowadays it is worth, according to the official rate of exchange, only 3d. When you read in the English newspapers that a pair of ordinary boots cost £150, it means that the price in roubles is roughly 1,500, which at the official rate of exchange is £3 15s. That is only an example, but boots are dearer than £3 15s per pair. Up to the present we have not had any real winter, only slight signs of it in about three sleight downfalls of snow and rain. We are not at present, as many people at home will imagine us to be, amid the eternal snows. I should say that we are having a better winter so far than you are having at Harrogate. considering everything we are having a pretty good time out here, and enjoying ourselves as much as possible. I am very late in wishing you all the compliments of the season. Again thanking you for the Herald.

Harrogate Herald – 7th July 1920

Sergeant W Smith, RASC, who is now at Sebastopol, in the Crimea, write to Mr Breare, on June 12th :

You will see that I am in the historic place of the Crimea. It is a treat being here compared with Novorossisk. The place is much cleaner and also more interesting. I have visited Balaclava ( I also intend to go there again tomorrow afternoon), the Redan and Inkermann, and is possible shall get up to Alma. There are no other Harrogate fellows here unfortunately. I wish there were sometimes.

In a later note Sergeant Smith says he hopes to embark for home very soon, and expects to get home early in august.