Mother's heartbreak revealed by untouched gift from soldier son killed in the Second World War
A toffee tin filled with 1940s French beauty products reveals the care of a soldier son and the heartbreak of his grief-stricken mother.
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Three months before 19-year-old Hadley soldier Aubrey Price was killed in Belgium on March 7, 1944, he sent his mother, Mercy, a Christmas gift from France.
Lovingly wrapped in sackcloth and encased in a toffee tin, the gift, when opened 80 years later, revealed perfectly preserved luxury French lipsticks and powders dating from the early to mid-1940s.
The gift was handed to the Soldiers of Shropshire Museum in 1999, and Dr Robert MacKinnon, a curator at the museum, explained tragic reasons that the gift remains intact 80 years later.
He said: "It has only survived because Aubrey’s gift, envisaged to be enjoyable for his mum and an object extending and demonstrating care for her, became painful and difficult to encounter and engage with for Mercy after Aubrey’s death."
