A SERIES of letters have been found which were sent from a British soldier killed in the First World War to his lover who never married after his death because "nobody could take the place of the one I lost".
The letters were sent between 1915 and 1917 from the trenches of France by Sergeant John Glasson Thomas to his new girlfriend Gertie Brooks. She met John just before the war broke out and he sent her regular notes from the frontline including the infamous Battle of the Somme, where more than 1.5 million men died.
John, of St Ives, said he "couldn't help thinking of her", described her letters as "consoling rays" and adding jokes about their shared love of Cornish pasties.
The couple were set to wed when he returned but John - who called himself Tommy - was killed in action in August 1917. Gertie never married and later told her family she would die "still loving and remembering Tommy". She eventually passed away in her eighties.
Zenith Replica Watches The dozens letters he wrote to Gertie have now been found by her family and put on display at St Ives Library where she was a regular visitor.
Ted Lever, of the St Ives Archive Study Centre, said the letters show the story of their tragic romance played out against the backdrop of the First World War.
Omega Replica Watches He said: "The interesting thing about the letters is that they are very formal. They started 'Dear Miss Brooks' and they continue in that way for some time. Then after eight months the letters begin 'Dear Gertie'. You can see the developing relationship between them within the letters. "Of course we only have the one side of the relationship as we only have his letters. We have this man who was full of fun and a zest for life. Somebody that people can relate to. But his letters also tells the story of the war. He passed through the ranks very quickly. He was a man of all seasons."
John met Gertie at a Methodist church in London in 1915 and kept in touch with his new love after volunteering to join the Army and being posted to barracks in Cornwall. They met several times - on one occasion to play tennis - before he was sent to the Somme in October 1916 with the 1/7th Company, Cornwall Garrison Artillery.
In one letter, dated July 19, 1916, he wrote: "I am very glad that you appreciate Cornish pasties, so do I, often eat a hot one when on my way back from town. Can you fancy me climbing the hill to barracks, cane in one hand and a hot pasty in the other. Quite a study for a snapshot I assure you."
In October 16, he wrote: "Your letter arrived just before we marched and I can assure you I was delighted to get it. T'was like a ray of light on what had been a Cartier Replica Watches dull time of weary work for me, and shed a sort of consoling ray on the winding up."
On October 22, 1916, John, during the Battle of the Somme, wrote: "War. No-one except those who participate, can realise the conditions! Guns were booming all round us, the sky was vivid with the flashes, and the noise.
"One evening I couldn't help thinking of you and the girls at the tennis who are so squeamish when insects about." John, who was decorated twice, died in August 1917 and his last surviving letter to Gertie was dated November 29, 1916.
A spokesman for the St Ives Library said: "Like many of her generation she never married but stayed true to Tommy until the end.
"Many years later she wrote to her niece th
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