About two years before his death, Colin wrote a letter to a friend, Jennifer Jones, who was facing terminal cancer. The letter mentions the 'great unknown' and an 'awfully big adventure'. He hoped Jennifer would face the future unafraid. He ended with a poem modestly described as an "attempt at verse": "Though your body is mortal Your soul is a spark from the eternal And as it is immortal It lives on, in the next world Because it is indestructible Therefore, so are you! The true you is your soul So believe and be unafraid."