A candid letter by Neville Chamberlain saying 'I still hope we may avoid the worst' six days before the start of the Second World War has emerged.
The beleaguered British prime minister pursued an appeasement policy with Nazi Germany in a bid to prevent an escalation into a global conflict.
After signing the derided Munich Agreement with Adolf Hitler in September 1938, he infamously declared that it was 'peace in our time'.
Now a newly discovered letter shows how he clung on to the hope that his strategy would pay off right up until Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939.
Writing to Conservative MP Captain William Brass on August 26, 1939, he stated: 'I still hope we may avoid the worst, but if it comes we are thank God prepared for it.'
