Paterson & Wright - Inverness - News story today

[caljam371]

Saw this on the news today and thought it could be a wee puzzle for you all.

http://www.scotsman.com/the-scotsman/sc ... -1-2242160#

Published on Thursday 19 April 2012 02:09

love letters from a soldier to his sweetheart – covering their courtship and marriage, and his reassurances about the impending Second World War – have been recovered from a canal.

Police are at a loss to explain the discovery of a writing box containing the 20 deeply personal letters found floating in the water near to the entrance of the River Ness in Inverness.

The letters were written by a Robert Wright, based at Catterick Barracks with 2nd Yorkshire Regiment, to a Miss Sarah-Rose Paterson in Inverness, starting from Hogmanay 1933 up to just before the Second World War.

One is an attempt to reassure his lover that he was not afraid at the prospect of war breaking out. The box also contained their wedding invitation and congratulatory telegrams, showing that the pair got married on 31 July, 1937, at Columba Hotel in Inverness. Miss Paterson was an MA and is believed to have been a teacher.

But after extensive efforts to trace relatives, Northern Constabulary has appealed for help in a bid to place the belongings into the hands of the rightful owners.

One of the letters, just before the outbreak of war, reads: “So you know, not the least (underline) bit scared. Just ache to get on with it and long for you so so much. Bye bye my darling.”

Willie Sharp, the force’s lost property officer, said: “These letters are so sentimental, so much so you can’t read some of them any further. They are so personal and lovely.”

There is a Sarah Rose Paterson or Wright death on Scotlandspeople in Inverness in 1994.
Also -
1968 WRIGHT ROBERT M 61 INVERNESS/INVERNESS
2007 WRIGHT ROBERT M 97 INVERNESS/HIGHLAND
2009 WRIGHT ROBERT ALFRED M 64 INVERNESS/HIGHLAND

Wonder if they had a family.

[WilmaM]

I was just reading that in the paper too, and wondered if Talking Scot could help.

[joette]

That's me greetin one of the most poignant letters I have ever read is from my Great-Uncle William Scott to his "darling Chrissie" his wife on the eve of his death in WW1.
He sends his love to her & to kiss his "wee lassies"(three),that he longs to hold her one more time & see her eyes alight with love for him again.He must have known that death was near.
I hope that somebody in this family reclaims these.I wonder if a bereaved family member threw the away though?

[Montrose Budie]

Watch this space as I'm going to do a bit of digging.

Sarah Rose Paterson was born in Inverness in 1910, parents Alexander Rose PATERSON, Draper's Assistant, and Sarah PATERSON MS ANDERSON, who had married in Inverness in 1907.

As the article comments, they married 31 July 1937 in Inverness.

mb

[Alan SHARP]

Greetings.

This is not the only genealogical forum running with this story;

http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.ph ... 275.0.html

and no doubt other sites, that I don't cruse through, will also pick up on it.

Nothing like a set of letters to a service man, or from a service man. In my parents estate I found 27 letters mum had saved from her teanage boy friend, with whom she exchanged letters. I knew nothing about them, but now have a work in progress that has seen some 30,000 words transcribed from the letters, and another 30,000 from diary notes kept by the pilots. Sadly they did not return.

Alan SHARP.

[Currie]

The big story here is probably how something as big and bulky as a writing slope managed to find its way into a river. It could turn out to be the strangest thing since Moses. Maybe someone was sending it to a relative downstream and was too mean to pay the postage.

I hope it doesn’t end up like the story of the cat they couldn’t get rid of.

He gave it to a little boy with a dollar note,
Told him for to take it up the river in a boat;

But the box came back the very next day,
The box came back, we thought it was a goner
But the box came back; it just couldn't stay away.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th_KV1XVYFU

Alan

[caljam371]

STV news have found their old neighbour. Confirmed her death from cancer and that he stayedthere for another 10 years. He was principle science teacher at Inverness Royal Academy and they were interested in nature.

[Alan SHARP]

Greetings.

Alan 'currie" you do find them. While not wanting to run away with the thread, that find takes me back to my post:-

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=15513&p=123798&hil ... 10#p123798

Alan SHARP.

[Montrose Budie]

The Scottish Daily Mail has a story today updating the situation.

This confirms what I've found out, -

Robert WRIGHT and Sarah Rose PATERSON married in Inverness on 21st July 1937; Robert shown as resident at Bottisham, Cambridge.

Sarah Rose PATTERSON was born 19Dec1909 in Inverness.

Sarah died aged 84 in Inverness, the informant being her husband Robert

Robert died aged 97 <date removed>, the informant being a friend, <name removed> Inverness,<postcode removed>".

The Daily Mail article reports that Robert and Sarah had two kids, <names of children removed>, but that both have died, and that there are no living relatives according to Northern Constabulary.

John Lister WRIGHT died aged 59 <place of death and date removed>.

There's no trace of a Scottish death of Rosemary WEIGHT.

It has to be assumed that the details of the informant for John Lister WRIGHT's death provide no clues given Northern Constabulary's comments that there are no direct living relatives.


Sarah died in Inverness <date removed>, aged 84, the informant being her husband, <address removed>, Inverness.


Assuming that the death records of the kids <names removed>n give no clues, that then has to take the situation back to the siblings of Sarah Rose PATERSON, i.e. kids of her parents Alexander Rose PATERSON and Sarah ANDERSON.


Which leaves us in the same situation, i.e, watch this space.

mb

<post edited to remove recent names and dates as per TS guidelines.LesleyB>