664A Mt Eden Rd 23.12.57

Dear Donald,

Thank you for your Christmas message. We enjoyed it & Elizabeth says it is the best card we received. More to it, if you know what I mean. Hope you enjoyed your flight(Week in Sydney, tramping in Snowy, on to start PhD at ANU) & didn’t have any bumps. Reports of the heat in Sydney are not nice reading. I hope you haven’t melted to a grease spot. Mind you, it is a dry heat& I think you will find, as we did, that it is less trying than a much lower temperature here, on account of the humidity we have with ours.

The parents had lunch with us on Tuesday on their way home. I expect they have heard from you ere this & will be glad of that. We will be very interested to hear what you think of Canberra. It is something quite different from any other place; that is if they have kept it so. The line of demarcation between the different salary groups amused us very much. Apparently blue blood didn’t count, just your cheque book! Roger(a grandson) has been accepted for Medical School, so will be off to Dunedin next year – very happy about it. Elaine(Roger’s sister) & her husband sailed for U.K. on Sat. for a working holiday & hope to be away about 2 years. They have not chosen a very good time to arrive in England – too near mid winter.

Two 4 year olds in the Kindergarten which shares the building Elizabeth’s(she is a nurse) rooms are in in Mt Albert had a fierce argument about whether there were ghosts or not. The little girl said there weren’t. Mummy said so. The little boy was equally certain there were. After nearly coming to blows the boy clinched the argument with “there are ghosts, there’s the Holy Ghost”

Well here’s wishing you all the best for the holidays & a successful & happy year from us all

Ever yours. Aunt Fanny