NAM.2009-07-27-40

Letter from Percy Day to his mother, SS Dominion, just through the Bay, Saturday morning, October 1902. Day has been in England but is emigrating to South Africa. Day writes that he will post his letter when the ship calls at Gibraltar the following day. He writes, ‘I am glad that there was nobody at Southampton to see me off there was some sights to see, girls fainting & crying, & falling into fellows arms. & some of them were painted, & powdered up, & the paint, & powder ran off there faces with tears.’ From a collection of letters and other papers of Sgt Percy Day, 3rd County of London Yeomanry (Sharpshooters), part of the 21st Bn Imperial Yeomanry while serving in the Boer War during 1901-1902, and afterwards as a settler in Cape Colony, 1902-1904. Associated with the Boer War (1899-1902).