Hero’s last request: Is haggis postable?
WWI soldier’s joke is revealed in auction letters
AMID the horrors of the First World War, two brothers still found time to write light-hearted letters back to their family in Scotland.
‘Is haggis postable?’ one joked, hankering for a taste of home.
But although the letters by Eric and Ronald Travis Townsend arrived safely, the young men who penned them never made it back: both were killed in battle within days of each other.
Now the poignant correspondence, written by the pair, is to be offered for auction.
The letters were preserved by their mother in Troon, Ayrshire, who collected them – along with photographs – into leather-bound albums so that her sons would not be forgotten.
The books reveal how Eric jokingly asked his mother ‘Is haggis postable?’ for Christmas, and how Ronald, who had emigrated to Canada in 1913, was determined to return to Europe to fight for his country in the war.
Eric, a captain in the 5th Highland Light Infantry, was just 22 when he was killed in action, in Palestine, on November 8, 1917.
Ronald, of the Royal Flying Corps, was killed in action in France 22 days later, aged 28.
The albums, ‘Letters from Eric Travis Townsend’ and ‘Reminiscences of Ronald Travis Townsend’, will go under the hammer at Bonhams’ Fine Books and Manuscripts sale in London on September 15, when they are expected to fetch up to £800.
Luke Batterham, Bonhams’ fine books and manuscripts specialist, said: ‘These books are incredibly moving as they are put together by a mother as memorials to her sons.
‘Theirs is a moving story of two young Scots who, when war came along, signed up almost immediately. They wrote home to their mother and were largely positive so as not to worry her.
‘In Eric’s last letter, he writes from Palestine to say fighting has resumed, but he’s “entirely out of it” and enjoying time off, bathing in the sea. It is likely news of his death in action will have reached home before his letter.
‘Its poignancy, and the suddenness of events, pitches you into the mind of the parent. Ronald had moved to Canada where he became an accountant, and was assigned a desk job during the war, but he was determined to fight and died just three weeks after his brother.
‘He wrote that, when his children asked what he did during the war, he didn’t want to look them in the eye and say he “signed cheques”.
‘Their mother transcribed their letters and, along with photographs and memories of their childhoods, created these albums so that younger members of the family would never forget them or their sacrifice.’
He added: ‘You get a picture of two Edwardian children growing up...
and then suddenly the war. They are beautifully presented.’