Letters from Scots brothers killed days apart in WW1 sell for nearly £3k

The letters were written by brothers Eric and Ronald Travis Townsend, from Troon in Ayrshire, to their mother Lucy, who preserved their words lovingly along with photographs of her sons in leather bound albums so that they would not be forgotten.

In one letter, Eric jokingly asked his mother "Is haggis postable?" to Palestine, where he was stationed in the run up to Christmas. Meanwhile, Ronald, who had emigrated to Canada in 1913, wrote expressing his determination to return and fight for his country to make his children proud.

Eric, a captain in the 5th Highland Light Infantry, was only 22 when he was killed in action on 8 November 1917. Ronald, of the Royal Flying Corps, was killed in action in France just 22 days later, aged 28.

The two albums, "Letters from Eric Travis Townsend" and "Reminiscences of Ronald Travis Townsend" went under the hammer at Bonhams' Fine Books and Manuscripts sale in London, where they fetched £2800 - nearly five times the £600 estimate.

The poignant books were bought by a bidder in the auction room after stiff competition from absentee bidders and rivals bidding by phone.

Luke Batterham, Bonhams' Fine Books and Manuscripts specialist, said after the sale: "These books come with an incredibly poignant story - they were put together by a mother as memorials to her sons who were both killed in action.

"They contain letters from the front, often jokey and light in tone so as not to worry their mother, along with photographs and memories of their childhoods.

"They were put together so that the younger members of the family would never forget them or the great sacrifice they made.

"Flicking through the pages of the wonderfully presented books one sees the seemingly idyllic, Edwardian upbringing of two children and then suddenly, the war.

"Their successful sale shows that their legacy continues and, despite it being over 100 years since the end of the Great War, their grave sacrifice has not been forgotten."

Eric Travis Townsend and Ronald Travis Townsend were born in Glasgow and raised in Scotland, but educated at Rugby School, where they excelled at sports and served in the cadets.

Eric, born 1894, joined the 5th Highland Light Infantry on leaving school and was mobilised for action on 5 August 1914, the day after war was declared.

His letters home provide a vivid account of his war from departure at Devonport Docks aboard the Transylvania on 2 June 1915, to Malta, action in Gallipoli, transfer to Egypt where he was injured, and to Palestine.

A few weeks after jokingly asking his mother "Is Haggis postable?" he composed his last letter, on 4 November 1917: "Dear Mother... The war has started again here, but we are entirely out of it... in fact enjoying bathes in the sea!"

Just four days later he died in combat. A note from a Captain of his company stated he was battling with the Highlanders for a Ridge, "taken and re-taken four times, and it was in one of these advances that Eric was killed, I think by a machine gun".

It is thought likely that news of his death reached his mother before his final letter.
Ronald, born in 1889, had emigrated to Canada in 1913, but at the outbreak of war joined the 50th Gordon Highlanders. Trained in accountancy he was assigned a job at the Pay Office to the Canadian Expeditionary Force.

Determined to fight, he wrote home 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'.

Resigning from his desk job , he gained his "wings" with the Royal Air Force and was sent to France, where he died in action just 22 days after his younger sibling Eric.

It was recorded that Ronald's aeroplane was hit "when leading a flight over the enemy's line at Lesdain, near Cambrai... and he made the supreme sacrifice".

In 1927, their grieving mother erected a memorial plaque to her sons at St Ninian's Church in Troon.