Letters reveal wartime romance: talk to Chichester Probus Club

He had now written a book based on the letters and his own extensive research, members of Chichester Probus Club were told at their July lunch meeting at Crouchers Hotel.

At the age of 18 his father Don had passed the Civil Service exam and was working for the Ministry of Health when he volunteered for the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve.

His mother Linda, born on the Isle of Wight, was 21 when she volunteered for the WAAF and became a radio operator, and playing a vital role in the Battle of the Skies.

She and his father met while on leave with other friends in July 1942 and they kept in touch. In September they spent a few days leave together after which he broke off his previous engagement and they began writing to each other.

He was promoted and deployed on HMS Dorsetshire on convoy protection. The ship was sent to follow the Bismarck and he was there when torpedoes sank her and 1,415 men died, an event his father never spoke about. David told the meeting that others he had spoken too had told him that the horror was too great.

His mother and father kept in touch by letter over the next three years in which he was engaged as officer- in-charge of a motor launch in six invasions including French North Africa, Sicily, Naples, Elba and Southern France. He came through unscathed.

Don returned in 1945, sent a telegram to Linda in Cornwall where she was now stationed, and they were married in Penzance shortly afterwards.

David said that his father’s role in the war earned him four medals but, probably because the work of women was rarely recognised, his mother received none. He applied on her behalf, and two were awarded in her name.

Questioned, David said his parents may have married without having spent much time together, but his mother said they got to know each other through their correspondence. After all, their relationship lasted 65 years, his father dying when he was 90 and his mother when she was 89. The club is open to new members who have or have had a career in business or Government in their own right.