heartbreaking letters from a Second World War wife

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

Doreen Wright waved her 34-year-old husband Gilbert off to war and made a solemn pledge: she would write to him every day.

The pair had married five years earlier  after a whirlwind romance and when Gilbert, an engineer and amateur pilot, was called to the Auxiliary Air Force in 1939, Doreen was left  with three children under the age of five.

She moved from the couple’s house in Buckinghamshire to his family’s rambling home, Wootton Court, in Leek Wootton, Warwickshire and volunteered at the local Women’s Volunteer Service.

Every day, before retiring, she wrote to Gilbert, reporting the stories of her day, that she missed him and longed for his return and posted them all.

Undying love: Doreen and Gilbert Wright on their wedding day in 1934

 She continued writing after Gilbert's Hawker Hurricane was reported missing in action in northern France in the early summer of 1940. Instead of posting them, she wrote her accounts of the day in an A4 diary, certain that her ‘darling one’ would return to read them.

Three years after his disappearance, he was confirmed killed by German soldiers after a forced landing near Arras.

 

Alone in anguish, Doreen refused to throw out her diaries, cherished reminders of her beloved husband, she kept her letters in a box.

Doreen and Gilbert's children Bill, Nick and Mary: It was twins Mary and Bill who discovered the cache of letters squirreled away in Doreen's attic

 

After her death eight years ago, aged 95, her surviving children, twins Mary and Bill, discovered the letters in a dusty corner of the attic. ‘We had no idea about them,’ says Mary Simmons, a retired PE teacher. ‘She’d mentioned a diary in passing when we were small, but we had no idea that we had this extensive memory of my father.

‘Mother said nothing about him to me — the memories were too painful — but this opened a window onto his life. That’s why the diaries are so precious to us.’

The dog-eared book of letters begins with a note on May 29, 1940 written on the day Doreen learned that Gilbert, a Flying Officer,was missing from his squadron.

‘My darling,’ the heartbroken Doreen begins. ‘Perhaps some time, somewhere, you’ll read this letter.'
‘I’m going to try to write as I would my usual daily one, so that when you come back or I get this to you, you’ll be able to read what we’ve been doing — and thinking — and how the family is living, and perhaps it will help to fill any gap there may have been.'
‘I’ll try not to let too much of the heartache into it, but that will be terribly difficult as I’m one big heartache all over.’

Doreen’s daughter, Mary, found the discovery almost too much to bear.
‘My brother found the letters and kept them from me at first,’ she recalls.
‘He said: “You won’t be able to cope with them. They’re so personal.” And he was right. When I first started reading them, well, that first line choked me.

‘I picked them up and put them down and picked them up and put them down again before I actually sat down and read them.’

Gradually, Mary, now 74, discovered a heart-rending tale of unwavering love and devotion.

‘Darling one,’ Doreen wrote four months after his disappearance. ‘I’ve felt you round me all today — have you been thinking hard about me or something? Sweetheart, stay near me, it’s been so lonely.’

Doreen left no detail out of her missives. The spirited accounts told of everything from the children’s misbehaviour (‘Tears! What a family! I do need your help with them so much, darling — Come back soon’), to arguments with the chair of the Leek Wootton Women’s Volunteer Service (‘What a schamozzle — had a final bust and flair-up with Mrs Ryland and have resigned’).

They provide vivid insight into life on the Home Front.

In November, six months after Gilbert’s disappearance, the city of Coventry was flattened by German bombs. That night of November 14, 1940, she wrote of her terror. ‘Sounds and looks as if these beasts are trying to annihilate Coventry. There’s been the most terrific attack going on since seven o’clock and now it’s past midnight.’

 

 

 Detailed: Extracts from Doreen's diary from June 1940, shortly after Gilbert was reported missing

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Heartache: Extracts from November and December 1940. Doreen continued writing the missives to her missing husband even after Army official told her he must now be presumed dead as he had been missing six months

 The waiting and hoping continuedand Doreen became more determined to maintain her correspondence.

In November 1940, Army officials told her Gilbert must now be presumed dead, then gone six months, she reacted with fierce defiance. ‘They tell me that after this lapse of time, they’re going to “presume” your death. They can’t when you’re not dead . . . Goodnight, Darling one — Keep alive.’

But he was confirmed dead in February 1943. A letter from the Air Ministry pin-pointed his death to May 22, 1940 — seven days before Doreen had begun to write her diary.

He had landed in the French farming village of Berneville where he was challenged by German soldiers, he drew his service pistol and shot at them, but was grievously wounded by return fire.

He fled and villagers helped him to find sanctuary in a barn but he died two days later.

Gilbert was buried in Berneville cemetery in Plot 5, with a handful of Allied troops, and in the chaos of war it would be years before an investigation identified him.

Home front: After Gilbert was mobilised, Doreen, then 31, moved from the couple's house in Buckinghamshire to his family's rambling home, Wootton Court, in Leek Wootton, Warwickshire

 

Her worst fears realised, Doreen abandoned her letters to Gilbert, and wrote her father insisting there was ‘always hope’ that a mistake had been made.

Her grief dreadfully compounded when her eldest son, Nick, died the following year, aged eight.

Dashing: Gilbert in RAF uniform. It was established that he was shot by German soldiers as he tried to resist capture after crash landing in France

Recovering from scarlet fever, a tubercular gland in his neck ulcerated and caused a major artery to burst. ‘He had TB, and the scarlet fever caused it,’ explains Mary. ‘He was in hospital in London and had been due home any day. It was so sad.’

Gradually, the quiet courage that marked that wartime generation, Doreen picked herself up again.

Mary recalls: ‘She didn’t show us her grief, and she was determined to do so much with her life.’

After the war, Doreen returned to her Buckinghamshire home, Charlecote in Chalfont St Giles and busied herself with local politics and was elected councillor.

She raised her surviving children alone and nursed her desolation at losing Gilbert.
Not until the 1950s did Mary and Bill see their mother shed a tear for her husband. ‘When we were ten or 11, she took us to France,’ Mary says.
‘We went to Paris, and took in all the museums, and then we went to see Dad’s grave at Berneville. She broke down. She’d had to be so strong for us. Bill and I tried to comfort her, but we were only children then.’

Only after stumbling across her letters did Doreen’s children grasp what their mother endured. They discovered her innermost thoughts on loose leaves in two bundles from 1940.
The entries for 1943 have not been found.

‘Of course she spoke to us about the war,’ says Mary. ‘She’d tell us stories of the Coventry bombing. But we never knew that much about Dad. We had no idea what a passionate romance they had shared. Never once did we realise what she was keeping in the attic.’

Gilbert driving a car of his own creation: An engineer and amateur pilot, was called up to join the Auxiliary Air Force in 1939, leaving Doreen alone with three children under five

Gilbert with eldest son Nick and Sam the dog, c1937: Doreen faced a double tragedy when Nick of died tuberculosis caused by Scarlet Fever a year after her husband's death was confirmed

 

The twins handed the letters to Leek Wootton History Group, that have been published in a book.

Perhaps we should not be surprised that Doreen stayed true to her love for the rest of her life. She refused to remarry, and visited Gilbert’s parents at Wootton Court each year.

In 1948, the family erected a memorial to their lost son in the family in thr churchyard of All Saints, Leek Wootton. When Doreen died in 2003, her ashes were buried alongside it.

‘We had a combined funeral for them both,’ says Mary, ‘because Dad had never had a proper burial by his family. It was our decision to put her ashes there. They were together again at last — it’s what they both would have wanted.

‘For all those years until she died, she never ever stopped loving my father.’

 

DARLING, PLEASE COME BACK. I'M SO LONELY: EXTRACTS FROM DOREEN'S HEARTBREAKING LETTERS WRITTEN TO HER HUSBAND AFTER HE WAS LOST

June 3, 1940

Wotcher, sweetheart? Still trying ever so hard to keep my chin up. Got a Renewal Notice for your insurance today — Got Pa to deal with it — we’re keeping it up for you, darling.
June 4, 1940

Six years ago today, darling, we started our great adventure together — I thought then I knew what happiness was, but I didn’t know half of it.
Had a sort of feeling I might hear of you today, but there’s nothing in this morning’s post.
June 16, 1940

News is bad today — can’t think what is going to happen — daren’t think much.
Dearest where are you — where are you? It’s getting harder and harder to keep the corners of my mouth up.
Why isn’t there any news of you?
June 29, 1940

This seems to be getting into such an ordinary chronicle of ordinary things with endless repetition — will probably be much too dull to read when you do come back, but I must keep it up. As I’ve said before — it’s my only link, sweetheart — the only place I can have our evening fireside gossip.

Heartbreak: Doreen's letters to her missing husband continued long after military chiefs told her he must be considered killed in action

 

 

July 4, 1940
Just another day. Had an argument with Mrs Longland about church railings — am afraid I was rather rude or nearly so. Went for a walk with Mrs Pierce to the Gaveston Memorial this evening. And that’s all.
Have been thinking about you such a lot, darling — am wondering in whose hands you are and which are worst.
July 18, 1940
Rather depressed about you, sweetheart, so can’t write much — I love you — I love you — I love you — come back soon to me my darling — Goodnight xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
July 21, 1940

Have been trying gradually to prepare Nick for bad news — told him the other day about prisoners of war, in case — and he said tonight: ‘I don’t know what I’ll do if Daddy’s a prisoner.’

Nor do I, darling, but it will be better than the worst. Oh sweetheart, where are you?

August 17, 1940

Such a hot day — glorious one, really — but they sort of hurt me to know you’re missing them all. The peaches, nectarines and apricots are all juicy and gorgeous too.

The babes are also a bit coldy so couldn’t let them loose in the paddle pool.

Must to bed — Goodnight, my precious.

September 4, 1940

Wednesday again — 15 weeks you’ve been gone, my darling. Hospital names coming in now [of the injured] and still no news of you.

I think you must be about in spirit as I dreamt of you last night — that I’d got news that your back was broken but the man that told me didn’t seem to know any more.

September 8, 1940

Poor London got it in the neck last night — 400 dead — 1,300-1,400 seriously injured — 99 Jerries, 22 of ours — Lot of serious damage including railways and roads.

But very quiet tonight so far and all today. All troops confined to barracks this morning.

No other news. Darling one, come back soon — I’m so lonely and tired.

September 18, 1940
Another wretched Wednesday — can’t remember how many weeks now — my darlingest I’m getting so discouraged. If you could only get a postcard through.
November 13, 1940

'Oh darling, I can’t go on — it’s awful without you — if I only knew you were dead I’d come and join you, but I feel you’re not and that’s all that’s keeping me going'

 

 

Twenty five weeks now, my precious one. I don’t quite know how I’ve existed all this time and I’m beginning to sleep badly again with worry.

With these dreadful battles going on all day and night, I sometimes feel like praying that you won’t get back till it’s over and then next minute I think of all the awful perils of living in an enemy country and this death penalty business for sheltering people like you and it all seems so awful and dreadful.

Oh darling, I can’t go on — it’s awful without you — if I only knew you were dead I’d come and join you, but I feel you’re not and that’s all that’s keeping me going.
December 31, 1940

The end of what a year — it just doesn’t bear thinking about except for the first few months when you used to get leave occasionally. How happy I was in those short spells.

Oh darling, how I wish I’d prayed harder during the first half of the war.

How I wish I’d not hurried away from the station at Wick that last time I saw you, precious.

Was that a prophetic feeling you had when you came dashing back to give me that rather special kiss?

I often wonder what your doings were from then on — how many patrols you had and how many of those brutes you got and all your journeyings since. Your poor clothes must be in such rags.

I pray and pray that you’re being kept warm and well and fed — it’s all I can do now.

• Doreen’s Diary: She Could Not Have Loved More (Leek Wootton History Group £9.99) www.doreensdiary.org.uk

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