Hundreds of First World War love letters discovered in attic up for auction

One of the largest collections of continuous First World War love letters is going up for auction today, after being discovered in an attic in Leicestershire.

The 400 hand-written letters by Donald Evan Davies to his sweetheart Freda Willshire, known as Dolly, forms just one part of what's thought to be one of the largest written WWI archives belonging to one soldier.

The collection came close to being discarded and thrown away.

The letters start arriving back to Brighton just two days after he left Freda on 6th April 1915 and did not stop until well into 1919, averaging a letter for nearly every three days during his active service.

The correspondence written throughout his training, the trenches of France, the Balkans and the Middle East express his love and devotion to his sweetheart, portraying a sense of innocent love and romance that disappeared with this wartime generation.

The letters, all still neatly folded and in their original envelopes, were Donald's escape from the horrors of warfare and those letters back from Freda were his reason to survive and gave him hope for his salvation.