Emma Duffin
25 December 1915
Christmas day was a very strenuous day for everybody. Capt. Delmaye who was very musical had trained a choir of orderlies and nurses and they went around to all the wards singing carols to the great delight of all the patients. Our patients were each given a lucky bag which we had prepared for them and the air resounded with tin hooters and squeakers and whistles of all sort. The men were like children, they were so delighted with everything. They all got a present from the Red X and one from the hospital so they really did very well and Wyatt, who was still on ‘no diet’ was given a present from the queen of a nice notebook.
(Later…) We drove down to the Khedivial in a gharry, ate a hurried dinner and returned to hospital to an orderlies concert in the recreation room. The concert was quite good and Capt Delmay’s choir sang glees. We got home about twelve and tumbled into bed utterly exhausted. I thought of the only other Christmas I had ever spent away from home in Germany. We had visited a hospital there too and sung German carols outside the wards and I wondered if they had done it this year. It seemed impossible when one thought of all the dreadful things they had done but they had been very good to me then and I felt sorry that we could never meet on friendly terms again.