On 6 July 1917, the Newcastle Morning Herald published a letter sent by Private Ernest Pockett to his parents, written on a German field postcard. Some of it read, “This is Friday, the 14th April, and everything O.K. The weather is getting better now, although we had a good fall of snow on Wednesday. We have been having a few casualties lately. I am at present having a good old rest, which I badly needed. We spent the winter on the worst part of the western front, and have been going hard at it. I have not seen a civilian for five months, so you can guess how we need a change. Our battalion was the first through Bapaume, and I worked harder that day than ever I worked carrying messages for twenty-four hours through a town which was stopping a fair amount of shells, etc. All the Neath chaps are keeping well, and I am in the best of health.”
Soon after arriving in Neath from England with his parents in 1912 at the age of 16, Ernest Pockett was representing the little team that played in the third grade. By August 1917, Neath had sent 18 players to the front and could barely raise a team. In June 1919, after the war had ended, Ernest Pockett married Emily Bakewell in Pontefract, Yorkshire. The couple soon returned to Neath where they had two sons. He resumed playing for Neath and was still making appearances for the team in 1926. Ernest Pockett died in February 1966, aged 69.