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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Bill Ross of the ‘Action Desk — Sheffield’ Team on behalf of Dorothy Wright, and has been added to the site with her permission. Mrs. Wright fully understands the site's terms and conditions.
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When I was 15 I started to write to a girl called Victoire Desperez who lived in Brussels, Belgium, and this was the start of a very long friendship. Vicky was born in the same year as I, but actually on the same day as my Cousin Reggie. This made them both about two months younger than myself.

She had one brother, Jean, who was younger than she, and they lived in the Uccle St Job district of Brussels. It was to be a long time before we eventually met after the War, but we remained the best of friends over the years. We wrote to each other in both English and French.

In the early years when we were still at school, and then afterwards when we both started work, it was fun to be telling each other of our various boy friends, the holidays we were having, and the clothes we were wearing. It was all fun, and frivolous, and then in 1939 along came the War, and we lost touch for some time because of the regulations; it was not possible to write to Belgium for about eighteen months. During this time I had married and come to live in Rotherham and our Daughter Jacqueline was born.

We had not had any news from Brussels, but we read that the conditions on the continent were no better than ours and in some cases they were worse. However, one day I learned that it was possible to send a Red Cross Message that had to be written on a special form, and the recipient had to write the reply on the reverse side of the form. Both messages were allowed to be 25 words long. I immediately set about composing my message.

Pr-BR

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