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Laurel's letters fetch £2,900

Letters Stan Laurel wrote to a pen-pal over a ten-year period have fetched £2,900 at auction today.

Edinburgh housewife Walterina Hunter first wrote a fan letter to Laurel in 1952, when she was a teenager.

They struck up a correspondence about everything from Laurel's poor health and the death of Oliver Hardy in August 1957.

He wrote: ‘I naturally was very upset over the death of my dear friend & partner & the reason I didn't attend the funeral services was that my Dr. advised me not to go...’

Laurel suffered a nervous breakdown after Hardy's death, but the pair kept exchanging letters until 1962, three years before Laurel's death.

The collection of 18 letters and three photographs went under the hammer at at Lyon and Turnbull in Edinburgh.

>> Read the auctioneer's description of the lot.

Published: 5 Sep 2007

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