During my childhood the tragic
murder of my great uncle in 1935 by Chinese
bandits was never mentioned within the family, as it was obviously still too distressing for Gareth’s remaining
relatives, my grandmother
Eirian, my aunt Gwyneth as well as my mother Siriol.
It was whilst clearing Gwyneth’s
home in 1988, after which she moved
in with her younger sister, my grandmother, that a small briefcase was discovered which contained every ‘weekly’ letter
that Gareth had sent to his
parents from university through to his far off travels, plus about 20 or 30 innocuous, journalist pocket diaries,
which to us telling a family story
were far less important than his weekly letters and were therefore overlooked, except for his final ones from
China…
