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A poignant letter in which a World War One pilot told how he expected to be 'blown up' before he was killed at the Somme has been unearthed 104 years later.

Second Lieutenant Richard 'Ross' Allen was shot down in a dogfight with a German plane on November 16, 1916.

After his death his devastated family put together an archive of his life which included a letter of condolence on behalf of King George V.

It also featured the prescient letter he wrote from the frontline while in trenches the previous year.