| Description | Graham Howard Shepard was E.H. Shepard's eldest child and only son. He was educated at Ferndean and Marlborough Schools before matriculating at Lincoln College, Oxford; among his school and university friends were the poets Louis MacNeice and John Betjeman. He married Ann Faith Gibbon, a Canadian, in 193- and their only daughter, Harriet Minette Shepard, was born on . After university, he worked for THE LONDON ILLUSTRATED NEWS as an illustrator, cartoonist, and probably a writer, and enrolled as a member of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. When World War II broke out, he was called up, eventually commanding the corvette HMS POLYANTHUS on North Atlantic convoy escort duty; on 21 September 1943 POLYANTHUS was torpedoed with the loss of all but one hand. These letters include: a postcard from France, signed "Osbert", a letter from "Uncle Herbert" at the front [possibly the same as the previous writer]; and a letter of condolence from a friend at Cambridge on his mother's death. |