When Debra Brown’s husband and daughter came home from their regular beach cleanup in their small coastal town of Esperance in Western Australia, she did not expect them to arrive with a bottle containing 109-year-old letters.
“My daughter got off her quad and she walked towards the ocean and there was a little glass bottle floating near the shoreline, just rolling around, she knew immediately before she even picked it up that it was pretty special because she could see how thick the glass was, it wasn’t a normal bottle and the shape of it and also the fact that you could see through the glass to the yellow paper.”
The glass bottle, found on Wharton Beach, more than 370 miles southeast of Perth, contained letters from two Australian World War I soldiers dated August 15, 1916.
The first letter was written by Private Malcolm Alexander Neville, who was killed in action in France, and the second was written by William Kirk Harley who returned home after.
Brown was able to track down Neville’s great-nephew on Facebook.
“It’s just been a wonderful ride, we’ve gotten to know Herbie’s (Neville’s grand-nephew) family and he said it’s brought his family closer together, not that they weren’t close but they are all in constant contact now about the letter and sending pictures of things to each other about the uncle in the war.”
Brown has since mailed the letters back to their respective families but has kept the bottle on display in her house.
“We feel proud that the bottle picked us, and we’ll keep on cleaning our beaches until the day we die.”
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