Submitted by
Nicky Smith
12h February 1981
Mrs Lillian Rosewarne
A correspondent writes:
The quiet, obscure and virtually unnoticed death on February 8 in
indigent circumstances of Mrs Lillian Rosewarne, has severed a link
with The Times of the world of Mrs Miniver, and young men
dying with echoes of the patriotic spirit which animated
Rupert Brooke, Julian Grenfell and others of similar sentiment.
Vivian Alan William Noall Rosewarne was killed with his bomber crew
of 36 (B) Squadron during the deliverance of Dunkirk. Among his effects
was found
a letter
to be sent to his mother if he were killed.
Published anonymously in The Times of June 18, 1940, the
simple beauty of the words and serene acceptance of his fate,
had a tremendous effect on the thinking and feeling Anglo-Saxon
world. Reprinted in various formats, the letter,
An Airman to His Mother, sold almost 500,00 copies
in 1940 alone, the greater part of the proceeds going to the
bereaved mother.
To further serve the national interest, extracts were broadcast
by the BBC, it was translated into Arabic, illustrated and
framed to be hung in schools and chapels, and with Michael Powell
as producer and John Gielgud as narrator, turned by MGM into
an unusually touching, yet not mawkish, short film.
The artist Frank Salisbury, transformed a photograph into an
oil portrait to be hung in the RAF Memorial Chapel. For the
pilot's mother it was a rather different post-war world.
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