Soup Talk and Book Launch: Patricia Townsend

She writes: ‘My father, Sam Townsend, served with the Royal Engineers during the
closing months of World War 2, writing letters home to his parents every few days.
After the war he never spoke of his experiences and I didn’t know his letters existed
until, shortly before his death, he gave them to me. Although he couldn’t disclose
where he was when he wrote each letter, I was amazed by his vivid descriptions of
what he saw and felt.

In this book, I reply, 80 years later, to my father’s letters. My letters to him are in the
form of sonnets, each responding to, and quoting from, a particular letter from him to
my grandparents. The book is richly illustrated with photographs, many taken on a
journey I made in 2024, following my father’s war route through France, Belgium, the
Netherlands and Germany. Some of these are montaged with wartime photographs.
Other photos are from my father’s own album. The book is my attempt to understand
my father’s experiences, how they affected him and how they may have indirectly
impacted my own childhood.’

Patricia Townsend is an artist working with photography, moving image, installation
and poetry. She has had three solo exhibitions in the Blue Gallery at Brantwood and
her moving image work ‘Inner Worlds 1’ is currently on display at Abbot Hall Gallery,
Kendal.