"Having a real good time, the letter pulled from inside a glass Schweppes bottle said. Food is real good so far, with the exception of one meal, which we buried at sea. Neville, who was killed in action in France in April 1917, aged 28, had departed Adelaide aboard a troopship three days earlier. The dear old (HMAT) Ballarat is heaving and rolling, but we are as happy as Larry, he wrote of the ship, which was later torpedoed and sank in April 1917."
"Handwritten in pencil on paper and rolled inside the bottle with a cork in the top, Neville also asked the person finding this bottle to send its contents to his mother in his tiny home town of Wilkawatt in South Australia. Esperance woman Debra Brown's family found the bottle while collecting rubbish on the picturesque beach, saying it was likely exposed when severe winter storms washed away dunes. We believe it's been buried because it's so well preserved, she says."
A two-page letter written on 15 August 1916 by Private Malcolm Alexander Neville was recovered inside a glass Schweppes bottle on Wharton Beach near Esperance, Western Australia. The pencil note described life aboard the troopship HMAT Ballarat, praised the food except for one meal that was buried at sea, and asked the finder to forward the message to his mother in Wilkawatt, South Australia. Neville later died in action in France in April 1917 at age 28. Debra Brown and her family found the corked bottle while collecting rubbish after storms exposed dunes. The bottle contained a small amount of water; the family dried it, used tweezers to remove the rolled paper, and located Neville's record on the Australian War Memorial.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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