WW1 western front battlefield rose sold for £3,600 at auction
A rose picked from a World War One battlefield by a soldier and sent to his wife in memory of a dead daughter has been auctioned for £3,600.
Louis James Young's granddaughter, from Buckinghamshire, sold the rose mounted on a card bearing the inscription "Flowers from the Battlefield".
It went under the hammer at Hansons Auctioneers in Etwall, Derbyshire.
The card was dated June 1917 by Agnes Louisa Young. Their daughter, Lydia Agnes, had died in July 1915.
It is likely Mr Young was serving at the front when she died and sent a poignant poem with the flower, a Hansons spokesman said.
It reads: "An angel took my flower away, Yet I will not repine, For Jesus in his bosom wears, The flower that once was mine."
Mr Young survived two wars unscathed but the Luftwaffe bombed his home during World War Two and it had to be demolished.
The house was never rebuilt and is currently a children's playground.
"Fortunately the rose, postcard and other documents survived," the spokesman said.
"The couple had a second daughter in 1922 who was christened Rosaline, meaning Little Rose."