Forgotten Lives.

Eight years ago, The Old Lady's Townswomen's Guild group published this little book of the wartime memories of their elder members. The younger ones, of course, don't possess such things. The proceeds of the sales provided the funds for that year's selected charity.

There were seven ladies involved including TOL whose account was titled, "The Housewife's Story," while Joan Bamfield, this attractive cover girl, wrote "The Air Force Woman's Story." Joan, the same age as TOL, sadly died aged 93 in the few months between writing her tale and it's publication and so didn't see the fruits of her labour but it was, like all of the others, a fascinating read. It recounted how she learned to service and repair the supply truck that she drove all over Britain and like many young women of the time (she would have been in her late twenties), married early in the war and then, after a very short honeymoon, didn't see her husband again until the end of the war in 1945.

Both Sis and I were given copies for Christmas, as were many of our relatives, and they are highly valued by us, both as a social history document and as a record of a portion of our mother's life.

As an aside, it was only a couple of months ago that we that we discovered TOL's ARP (Air Raid Precautions) certificate; we had not known until then that she had spent the nights roaming the streets maintaining the safety of the good citizens of Bristle and ensuring that they were obeying the emergency wartime laws of the nation.