Treasure trove of Blackburn Prisoners of War letters found by teenager (From Blackburn Citizen)

Treasure trove of Blackburn Prisoners of War letters found by teenager

7:40pm Tuesday 10th November 2009

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By Catherine Pye » Reporter

THE country’s largest collection of letters from prisoners of war sent to a civic fund has been found in East Lancashire.

They were found in a museum by 16-year-old work experience student Thomas Irwin who was asked to do simple data entry work on a bag of material that had been sat in a cupboard for years.

Originally stored at Blackburn Library, most of the letters acknowledge the safe arrival of parcels sent by the Prisoners of War Relief Committee, founded in 1915, and which helped starving prisoners survive.

Thomas’s uncle, Blackburn Museum officer Stephen Irwin, who set him off on the task, said: “I said it would be a dead dull job: all he’d find were thank yous for parcels and requests for clean socks.

“But then he came up to me to tell me he’d found long letters from the prisoners in the bag about escapees and murder.”

The recollections of Cpl Charles Hoole who served with the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment reveal the murder of a fellow Englishman by German prisoners in Holland, where they were both held.

The 24-year-old said: “I am pleased to say that I have been of some use here to my comrades for there has been one of them killed by German civilians and I have just finished my duty as detective for them I caught them last night.”

There are no futher letters to give details about the victim or the outcome of a trial, and now Stephen is curious to find out more.

Another letter by William Hilton, sent from Denmark, describes his escape from POW Camp on the last night of the war through barbed wire at midnight. Another by George Glover pours scorn on the soldiers marrying Dutch girls leaving women in Blackburn without husbands.

Stephen said: “This is the largest collection of letters of this type that we know about in the country, but there’s only about 100. The rest were probably thrown away.

“They are fascinating snapshots of life that pop out of obscurity and these characters come to life once again.”

The letters, which have now been cleaned using soft paintbrushes, will be stored at museum, but Stephen hopes families of those who wrote the letters will contact the museum and can be reunited with the words of their ancestors.