Holton, Alfred Edward

Collection relating to 101 Private (Pte) Alfred Edward Holton, who served with the 33rd and 36th Battalions AIF, and was a prisoner of war of the Germans during 1918. Comprises a 99 page retrospective memoir handwritten by Alfred Holton during 1932-33 as a series of letters to his 11 year old daughter, Irene Edith Holton, who was in hospital recovering from rheumatic fever. The Holton family lived in Tumbi Umbi on the NSW Central Coast at the time, and Irene was hospitalised in the Western Suburbs Hospital in Croydon in Sydney. As the family were not able to visit Irene regularly, her father wrote weekly letters to her about his First World War experience. The resulting memoir is an extremely detailed account of Pte Holton's thoughts and feelings of his time in France, including the Somme region, and of his experiences of life on the battle field and as a prisoner of war. Also included is a 57 page typed transcript of the memoir, which was typed by his grand-daughter, Diann Peters, and completed with input from his other grand-daughters, Denise Wesker and Barbara Jacob in 2012.