Lloyd’s Last Post

I placed this letter on a gold ground for they were brave men.

This is the last letter of Lloyd’s in the collection. I found it recently,  slipped inside the envelope of another letter. It should have appeared before my post of 22nd November, were I observing strict chronological order. I apologise for my failings as an archivist. On 19th June 1917 Lloyd writes to his father, thanking the family for his parcel. I know he felt close to his family, especially in the alien landscape of war. He mentions nearly all his brothers and sisters and he tells his father  “don’t go and work hard and make yourself bad – Don’t forget I’m coming home someday and I expect to see that you and Mah are well and smiling”

I cannot bring myself to type it all out, it feels too sad. This loving son did not come home to work with his Dad and marry, and have a family. The Mabey family was diminished by his death, his dynasty denied.

What survives are the letters and this one photograph of Great Uncle Lloyd, smiling beside his brother Jim. When it was taken I do not know. I suppose it was before those two letters were written – before he saw too much and knew what war was.