For my father, an inveterate letter writer who didn’t write a last letter.
She wrote me a letter after her death,
and I remember a kind of happy light
as I sat by the rose tree
on her old bench by the back door
so surprised to receive it
wondering what she would say
looking up before I could open it
and laughing to myself in silent expectation.
Farewell Letter, David Whyte
Thanks to Wensley Clarkson for suggesting the idea for this book to me. Also, thanks to the archivists at the Imperial War Museum for helping me find the right World War I and World War II collections; thanks also to the archivists at the Wellcome Trust Library; and, finally, huge thanks to those trusting individuals who have allowed me to publish last letters from their loved ones. Wise words from Rod Suddaby, Phillip Hodson and Malcolm Stern were appreciated.
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Iraq and Afghanistan
2. World War II
3. World War I
4. Incidental Wartime Farewells
5. Death Draws Near for the Fatally Ill
6. Suicide Notes
7. Final Words from Prisoners
8. Famous Last Letters
Epilogue
Copyright
Over the summer of 2007, I found myself inhabiting a new world. It was the deeply personal and often heartbreakingly moving world of last letters to loved ones.
In my research, I pondered who would write such letters, and quickly realised that soldiers, the fatally ill, the suicidal and prisoners about to be executed all had an increased impetus to write such a letter, although I have also included a few wartime last letters that are incidental in order to illustrate the differences in tone and thought when these letters are not deliberately written as their last ones. I have also added a final chapter of famous last letters because these possess their own fascination, whether it be the narcissistic musings of Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain before he killed himself, or writer Hunter S Thompson’s wry wit before he put a shotgun to his temple.
In order to find these last letters, I wrote to editors of local newspapers asking readers to get in touch with me if they had such letters that they were willing to have published; I spent afternoons immersed in wartime letter collections at the Imperial War Museum and the Wellcome Trust Library, and I explored the endless possibilities on the Internet. All avenues threw up different treasures.
At times, I was startled when I found recent last letters from young soldiers – 19- and 20-year-olds – who had died in Iraq or Afghanistan, because their words seemed so casual and unknowing about war, yet they expressed their love so clearly. At other times, I was amazed at the eagerness of World War II soldiers to tell their loved ones how fiercely proud they were to be serving their country and presumably also to save their families some grief. I was always moved by World War I soldiers’ determination and fortitude in appalling conditions. All these wartime last letters were written with a tremendous generosity of spirit.
The letters of the fatally ill were, for me, the most affecting in the book. Often, young mothers – in their 30s – dying of cancer grasp this opportunity to tell their children and partners just how much they are loved and will be missed. They are unfailingly written with immense courage. The certainty of their deaths seems to grip their pens and caress the page in their precious last words.
Suicide notes are different. Mostly, the writers of these notes are desperate and sometimes angry. Whereas the fatally ill have often come to terms with their imminent death, the suicidal are sometimes motivated by revenge as well as hopelessness. Sometimes, they tell their families not to blame themselves; at other times, they say exactly the opposite.
Equally, last statements from prisoners soon to be executed can err on the side of economy with the truth. Sometimes, however, they are simply seeking forgiveness, while at other times they are still trying to convince others that they are innocent. Whatever the motivation, all these last letters are interesting for what they leave out, as well as what they put in.
It is impossible to avoid the potency of a last letter. To the loved ones, this letter is a tangible vestige of their partner or child or friend. This letter is the final proof that the dead person and their love existed. The last letter gives the recipient something to hold on to, when his or her emotional universe may be collapsing. It represents certainty in an otherwise uncertain existence.
In editing these last letters, I decided to mix contemporary and historical letters together, hoping that the juxtaposition will throw up questions. I have also included last letters from other nationalities as well as the British. Through them, we now have insights into what members of the Russian resistance went through during World War II; or the honour and pride involved in a kamikaze pilot’s view of the world; or the extreme reasons for killing themselves explained in anonymous German suicide notes; or what US prisoners said recently just before they were executed. All of these perspectives paint a bigger and more complicated global picture, which is one we, as a society, still need to understand more fully.
Finally, I have discovered what a sacred place the last letter occupies within the healing of a grieving heart. It definitely made me want to write one before I depart.
Please note, I have allowed some idiosyncracies, mis-spellings and dialect features to remain in the letters, trying to retain the original voice of the writer wherever possible, except where the grammar or syntax leads to confusion or obvious error.
Gunner Lee Thornton, 22 years old, from Blackpool was fatally shot after volunteering to take part in a dangerous patrol north of Basra in Iraq on 7 September 2006. His close friend, Corporal Stephen Wright, was killed by a roadside bomb on the same patrol the day before. Lee was in the 12th Regiment Royal Artillery and he was the 118th British soldier to be killed in Iraq and the third from his unit to be killed in three days.
Following an unofficial army tradition, which goes back to World War I in the UK, Lee had written a last letter to his fiancée, 21-year-old Helen O’Pray, just in case he did not return. It was a tenderly handwritten letter which he hoped would never be opened. Lee had secretly entrusted it to her parents when he had