Greetings list members, I am curious about contents of a letter which has just come into my possession which was written by my grandfather to his son in law, my father, in the late 1940s in answer to a letter my father wrote to him describing the sailing dinghy he was building so he could go out on the bay sailing and fishing. Dad had obviously made reference to taking Pop out fishing, a pastime my grandfather thoroughly enjoyed, when he came to live with us in Tasmania after his wife died in Christchurch NZ. I'd like to be able to find out what this Battalion based in Aden might have been all about - James Jesse Stroud was in the British Army in India at the start of the 1900s - married in Colaba in 1906 and returned to NZ in 1907. Called up again to take part with the Expeditionary Forces to France/Belgium in WW1 but suffered severe wounds and shellshock during an artillery attack in 1917 and repatriated back to England and home to New Zealand - retained on the Army payroll to compose and write music for the troops until the mid 1940s. <quote> Glad you could get that plastic - (??? looks like poly??) for The Cat, Paul dear. and go careful with that rule. I used to calculate approx one third of length for beam (again ?????) I helped a laddie build two boats at Aden in my teenage - one flattie, and one whale boat, and we went a sailing with the battalion paraded to see us launch and sail out to sea. The full yarn, with embellishments - by the log fire, sailor, in the days to be. <end quote> sadly I was only a lassie of 8 years of age when he came to live with us and despite being a constant companion to such a charismatic grandfather, I was too young to recall the stories he told me. I remember his violin playing and the beach walks we had before he died in 1951. If anyone can point me in the right direction I would be most appreciative - I have his war records for WW1 but not for the period when he was in the British Army and a member of the Viceroy's band in India until 1907. We know he went off to England to try and trace his birth parents (mother an actress/singer in a troupe which travelled to Aust/NZ around 1878/9 - said to have handed the infant to disembarking passengers in Bluff, NZ as she couldn't cope as a single mother. Father said to have been a wealthy Englishman whose family wouldn't approve of their heir marrying a showgirl. Adoptive name was James Jesse Stroud. Fingers crossed I can add one more bit of the puzzle into the overall picture. Cheers Ainslie.