THEY ARE a soldier's emotive thoughts of home penned by one of the country's greatest wartime poets.

And the letters written by Wilfred Owen reveal an insight into the lives of thousands of First World War evacuees treated at Hampshire's former Royal Victoria Hospital.

The messages sent home in June 1917 are among a collection of poems and stories written about the hospital by its patients currently on display at the Netley Chapel in what is now the Royal Victoria Country Park.

But despite his week-long stay at the site's Welsh Hospital - where poetry was often encouraged as a form of therapy - Wilfred never joined his fellow evacuees in composing an ode to the hospital or its nurses.

Ironically, at the end of his stay he was transferred to Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh, where he was to spark a great creative relationship with fellow poet Siegfried Sassoon.

The two letters to his mother Susan do, however, show what the posthumously-acclaimed poet - famous for his Anthem of Doomed Youth - thought of his time in Netley.

Wilfred, who served in the 2nd Manchester's, first arrived at the hospital on June 16 suffering from shell-shock.

In his first letter home, Wilfred writes: "We are on Southampton Water, pleasantly placed, but not so lovely a coast as Etretat. The town is not far off and we are allowed to go in. I just wander about absorbing Hampshire."

By the next letter he has become less impressed with his surroundings: "This place is very boring and I cannot believe myself in England in this unknown region.

"They kept me in bed all yesterday, but I got up for an hour and went out today, only to be recaught and put back to bed for the inspection of a specialist."

But he ends with the ominous concession: "Here also we fare much better than anywhere in France. I sleep well and show every sign of health, except in the manipulation of this pencil."

Exactly a year after that letter was written he was declared fit for general service and rejoined the regiment to return to France.

Five months later - on November 4, 1918 - he was killed.

Park historian Patrick Kirkby said: "Poetry was part of the therapy here and many patients wrote poems about the nurses, with whom they formed a close bond if they were here for a long time.

"Wilfred Owen was only here for a week and as far as we know did not actually write any poems."

The exhibition, entitled Netley Magic - Poems from Netley, runs until the end of September.

Converted for the new archive on 25 January 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.