Have you news of my boy Jack?

Letters reveal poet Kipling's torment at losing son in WW1

- BY ED CHATTERTON

RARE letters written by Rudyard Kipling revealing the torment of losing his only son during the First World War are to be sold.

The pair of deeply personal notes by the British writer and poet seek news of 18-year-old John, missing after the Battle of Loos - fought 110 years ago this month in northern France.

His anguish may have inspired his 1916 poem My Boy Jack, which begins: "Have you news of my boy Jack?"