15th Mar, 2019 10:30 GMT/BST

Books, Maps & Ephemera

 
Lot 91
 

91

WWI letters home to the Stokesley and District Parcel Fund A number of letters dating from...

WWI letters home to the Stokesley and District Parcel Fund
A number of letters dating from c.1917-19 to the Parcel Fund, often care of its secretary Mr G Henderson. The letters come from a wide variety of Regiments, Services, locations and ranks. There are members of the RAVC and the RAF, a Lieutenant in the King's African Rifles, the Company Sgt-Major of North Camp, Ripon and some writing from military hospitals. These are thank you letters for food parcels and money sent often as Christmass gifts, and give a sense of grateful relief at having been remembered. It is possible Mr Henderson is George Henderson, a Police Sergeant in Stokesley during the war. If this is the case the dating of the letters holds a certain poignancy as his son, Andrew George Henderson, an RE Corporal, was killed in 1916.

The letters are reminiscent of a theme and variations, with the same idea repeated in dozens of different styles. For all the similarity, each letter is the voice of a person otherwise lost to history. For the most part, the people in these letters likely left little mark on offical recorded history, despite their service in a world-shattering event. Their letters briefly return them to view, whether in the formal tones of a thank you letter, the little hopes for peace, bombastic notes of Godly triumph after the Armistice, or the occasional honesty of being fed up with the lot of it, the voices of a lost generation offer a moment of humanity amongst terrible carnage.

Sold for £160
Estimated at £150 - £250


 

. Creased, curling and dusty comensurate with sitting in an attic, but compelling.

 


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Auction: Books, Maps & Ephemera, 15th Mar, 2019

Books, Maps & Ephemera

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