Taken from the Bromley & District Times on 9th March 1917, pg 6
Extracts from a letter from Corporal Harold Parker, the Royal West Kent Regiment writing to his parents at West Wickham.
I expect you will be surprised when you hear I am in Switzerland; as you all may guess I am very pleased to be here, and a fine reception we had coming through the country. Of course, you know why it is I got here; all the badly wounded are here, especially eye cases this time.
We are in hotels, and very nice they are. I have never been so comfortable as I am now since I left home. There seems no need of parcels here, so please stop others who have been so kind as yourselves to send to me while in Germany; and I can tell you, if you had not sent you would never have seen me again, as it is starvation in Germany without parcels.
Of course I can write freely now, and we that are here are very glad we can, for there is nothing worse on earth than to be a prisoner in German. People in England will never know what the prisoners have gone through. I can tell you that you are no more safe as a prisoner than you are in the firing-line.
