The Way It Was
It is 1943,the middle of the Second World War. Hundreds of thousands of servicemen and women are fighting across the world from North Africa to the Far East. At home their families are in constant danger from air raids .Everyone is anxious for news of loved ones.
There are, however, serious difficulties. E-mails, texts and mobile phones are many years in the future. Hand written letters are the only means of keeping in touch and these take several weeks to arrive. They are sometimes lost if the plane carrying them is shot down. There are heartbreaking occasions when letters continue to arrive, long after the writer has been killed.
I met a girl very briefly and found that we both liked the same things. Unfortunately I was posted to North Africa before I could say I loved her.
I wrote to tell her and her reply took five weeks to reach me ! She was cautious at first, but, in the two and a half years we were apart, we exchanged 675 letters and were married three weeks after I returned, Our marriage lasted 60 years until she died in 2006.
A letter written by someone you love is so much more personal than an e-mail or text. We kept all our letters and they have now been published in a book. The actual letters are in the Imperial War Museum where anyone can see them.
Tony Ross.
Tony's book can be found at the link below:
Dear Joan Love Letters from the Second World War
Also
Tony Ross gave an interview on
BFBS TV about his book
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