Bridging Time 1944-2024

Letters to My Father 

By Patricia Townsend

Discussant David Black
Chair David Morgan 

Monday 14th September 2026
8-9.30pm
Online only

This book is an artist-writer’s epistolary memoir, built from her father’s Second World War letters.

Patricia Townsend is a London-based artist and psychoanalytic psychotherapist who inherited a bundle of fifty letters written by her father, Sam Townsend of the Royal Engineers, beginning in July 1944. Through researching his wartime experiences and retracing the route taken by his unit, she created a dialogue with the past by responding to his letters in the form of sonnets. From this process emerged both a book and an exhibition that weave together historical record, poetic reflection, and artistic exploration.

Biographies

Patricia Townsend is a writer and visual artist working with photography, moving image, installation, and poetry. Her work is held in the collections of the British Academy and Abbot Hall Gallery. She holds a PhD from the Slade School of Fine Art. Under the name Patrica Marsden she also practises as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist.

David Black is a psychoanalyst and poet. He is author of six collections of poetry and Emergency Kit (Faber), Wild Reckoning(Calouste Gulbenkian), Twentieth Century Scottish Poetry (Faber) and many other anthologies. As a psychoanalyst he has published many professional papers, an edited volume on psychoanalysis and religion, and a collection of essays relating to values and science. 

David Morgan is co-chair with Louise Hayman of Poetic Mind. Psychoanalyst and Fellow of BPAS. Training Analyst BPA.