One of the largest collections of First World War love letters has been sold at auction for £5,300.

The 400 hand-written letters between Donald Evan Davies, a solider with the Prince of Wales Own Civil Service Rifles, and sweetheart Freda Willshire, from Brighton, span nearly the entire duration of the Great War leading up to their eventual marriage.

Experienced auctioneer Charles Hanson described them as the most moving collection of letters he had ever come across.

He said: “How he managed to keep writing these beautifully and intensely emotional letters throughout the war is staggering.

“It feels as if you are there with them and can’t help being caught up in their love affair”. The letters start arriving back to Stanford Avenue, Brighton, just two days after Mr Davies left his sweetheart for war on April 6, 1915.

Averaging nearly a letter every three days during active service, they continue well into 1919.

The correspondence covers his training, his deployment to the trenches of northern France, the Balkans and the Middle East.

The content sees him gushingly express his love and devotion with the backdrop of the horrors of war.

He writes of dreaming of smothering her with kisses and spending days – and night – together. That is as risqué as it gets.

The letters were all still neatly folded and in their original envelopes when found.

He returned from war in 1919 and the pair got married and started a family.

He continued to work in the Civil Service at Somerset House in London and was awarded an MBE for his work in establishing the Air Raid Precaution service in 1941.

Also contained in the archive, which was sold for £5,300 at Hansons Auctioneers in Derbyshire, is a series of his diaries which start in 1909.

The wartime entries express the reality of war that he shielded from his then partner. He talks of the loss of his beloved brother, Wally, in November 1916 and how he spent weeks in field hospitals suffering from trench fever and wounds.

He also describes his escape when he stormed a Turkish trench in early 1918. He reached the trench before his comrades and came face to face with a Turkish soldier who shot at him from close range - but thankfully missed.