SCHOOLBOY'S LETTER
He Didn't Want To Leave England LETTER written by an elevenA year-old English schoolboy to his father created great interest when it was published in "The Times." The letter was simply signed "X". Winston Churchill saw it, rang "The Times" to find out the name of the author, and discovered that he was David Benn, son of William Wedgwood Benn, Labour Member of Parliament. David is a pupil at a boarding-school in the south of England. Here is his letter: "TI am writing to beg you not to let me go to Canada (I suppose you know that we are probably going?). (a). Because I don’t want to leave England in time of war, Prejudice apart, if it had been peace-time I should have opened my mind to it. (b). Because I should feel very home-sick-I am feeling likewise now. (c). Because it would be kinder to let me be killed with you, if such happened (which is quite unlikely), than to allow me to drift to strangers and finish my happy childhood in a contrary fashion. (d). I would not see you for an indefinite time, probably never again." This remarkable letter ended with a postscript: "I would rather be bombed to fragments than leave England."
David Benn’s father is to-day one of the prominent members of the Labour Party, but he was formerly a Liberal. During the last war he saw service in Egypt, on Gallipoli, and in the Mediterranean with the Royal Naval Air Service and won the Distinguished Flying Cross, the French Legion of Honour, the French Croix de Guerre, the Italian Military Cross and the Medal for Valour. He switched from the Liberal to the Labour Party after the war and in 1929 Ramsay MacDonald made him Secretary of State for India. Winston Churchill was so delighted with the letter that he sent the boy a signed copy of his book "My Life."
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19400927.2.4.2
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 66, 27 September 1940, Page 3
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320SCHOOLBOY'S LETTER New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 66, 27 September 1940, Page 3
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