Messages in a bottle written by two Australian soldiers in 1916 have been found more than a century later on the country’s south-western coast.
The cheerful notes were penned just a few days into their voyage to join the battlefields of France during World War One.
One of the soldiers, Pte Malcolm Neville, told his mother that the food on board was “real good” and that they were “as happy as Larry”. Months later, he was killed in action at the age of 28. The other soldier, 37-year-old Pte William Harley, survived the war and returned home.
The bottle was found earlier this month on the remote Wharton Beach, near Esperance in Western Australia, by local resident Deb Brown and her family.
…especially for Marian Davies - Pte Neville’s niece - who remembers her uncle leaving to go to war and never returning.
How old is she?? They said the notes were written in 1916. If she was old enough to remember her uncle leaving, let’s say 4 at the time, she’d have to be 113 today. Of course that’s possible but wow, what are the chances of finding a living supercentenarian relative with a memory of the author of a 109-year-old letter in a bottle?
I think the BBC has made the wrong assumption when cribbing from ABC or another news source.
Ms Brown has tracked down the great-nephew of one of the soldiers, Private Malcolm Alexander Neville, who came from Wilkawatt in South Australia.
He said his aunt, who was now 101, always told stories over the years of “Uncle Malcolm” and how he never returned home from the war.
I guess she, born in 1924, had heard a lot of stories from her parents or other families about him.
