It's been the search of a lifetime, but Roger Waters has finally discovered what happened to his father and has written a poem of thanks to the war veteran who gave him answers to his questions.

Much of Roger's large body of work was, of course, created by the anger and frustration of the great void in his life of growing up without a father, knowing only that Lieutenant Eric Fletcher Waters was killed in World War II, with no further details until now.

93-year-old Harry Shindler, who’d never heard of the band until he met Waters at a veterans’ memorial event, has followed a paper trail which resulted in his discovery that Lieutenant Eric died around 11.30am on February 18, 1944 during the Allied landings at Anzio, Italy, in a once-open field that’s now the centre of the town of Aprilia.

Waters wrote Shindler a poem, 'One River', which was published on Monday in Italy's La Repubblica, containing the lines: "My father, distant now but live and warm and strong / In uniform tobacco haze."

He signed it, "To Harry, with gratitude".

To which Harry replied: "He might well think his war is over now."

Meanwhile, Waters is currently working on his first rock album in over twenty years, according to rollingstone.com.

"It's 55 minutes long. It's songs and theater as well. I don't want to give too much away, but it's couched as a radio play."

He's not sure yet if he'll tour in support of the new album.

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