Dear Mr Saint
I hope to find you and your family in as good a health as the last time we corasponded. Bettina and the grandchildren are all doing well and hope to visit Bristol in the summer.
Today though I do not write as your friend but as mayor of Cherbourg, to you as under secretary to the minister. What there is left of my beautiful nation is under siege, fay creatures have pushed us back on to the cotein heights and deny us our homeland. I fear that soon even this remnant of France must dissappear and we will be remembered only in history.
I ask, as neighbour, friend and fellow human, for you to speak to your lord Salisbury.
Any aid given would be welcome, I know our nations have not always been friends but together you and I, we stood shoulder to shoulder at Balaclava, and our two nations have always been the pillars of civilisation.
Yours in hope
Monsieur Thomasin
