Leslie Dockray collection

Leslie Dockray (1898-1993) was the son of Edwin Dockray, who had inherited the family tobacco business, which ultimately wasn't successful. After a traumatic childhood involving family separation and upheaval from an early age, Leslie eventually settled back in Yorkshire where he spent most of his working years as assistant clerk and steward at the East Riding Mental Hospital, Beverley, Yorkshire. Leslie, an avid stamp collector, contacted a Mr A.A. Bruch, a German stamp and coin collector from Berlin, through an invitation to correspond in 1934. There ensued a correspondence over the next 20 years. Initially the letters were about family life and collecting. The letters allude to the increasingly difficult conditions for a part Jewish individual living in Germany under the Nazis including expressions of desperation shortly before the outbreak of war and evidence of attempts to to leave the country. The correspondence stops in 1939 and resumes again in 1945, where, amongst other things, conditions in postwar Germany are described in some detail.

Donor: Brenda Dockray