Vicky Unwin - Love and War in the WRNS: Letters Home 1940-46

About the Author

Vicky Unwin is the only child of Sheila Unwin (ne Mills). She writes regular health and travel blogs and serves on the trustee boards of several charities. Her second book, The Boy from Boskovice: A Fathers Secret Life (Unbound, 2021), takes up the story of her parents and completes Sheila Mills extraordinary life story. She lives in London with her husband.

First published 2015

This paperback edition first published 2022

The History Press

97 St Georges Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

Vicky Unwin, 2015, 2022

The right of Vicky Unwin to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 75096 467 8

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall.

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

T his book is a tribute to my remarkable mother, and also to all those women in the Second World War who, in many ways, took a greater risk than the men in leaving the sanctuary of their homes and country in order to serve.

When I found Sheilas letters bundled up in black bin liners after her death in 2009, I decided to fulfill her final wish, which was to write her memoirs. She had often told me that she was immensely proud of her war years: she had even begun to sort the letters herself, using recycled envelopes. However, our daughters sudden death in 2011 put a temporary stop to the project. Louise and her Granny had always enjoyed a close relationship and so it became the clichd labour of love to complete this book in honour of both of them.

I thank them for inspiring me: writing the book was the perfect antidote to the grieving caused by this double bereavement.

Thanks also to my friends and family especially my husband, Ross, and our son, Tommy, who have supported me during the painstaking process of pulling the book together. And special thanks to Charlotte Blundy who transcribed the letters, cleverly deciphering my mothers difficult handwriting, and to Joanna Frank who gave me some excellent advice on an early draft.

Finally, thank you to Felicity Kendal for agreeing to write the foreword: I feel we share a bond via our two sets of eccentric parents. Felicity your empathy through these difficult times has been a great solace.

I t is no exaggeration to say that what we have in this volume is a treasure chest of letters.

They start with Sheila, as an innocent green girl, joining the WRNS at the beginning of World War Two. She writes home to her mother, begging for parcels to be sent, for silk stockings, nail polish, and her old fur coat. She seems from the start to be obsessed with dances, dates and young men, and is determined not to have her hair cut short. But as these letters, like a journal, continue through the war, we see her grow into the feisty, ambitious and independent woman she will become.

Assigned to the important work of monitoring via cyphers and signals the enemy and British fleets, she travels to Egypt, and in her words becomes an Invasion Addict. She is promoted to Cypher Officer and as such has the knowledge of planned invasions and attacks. Her details of so many now famous turning points of the war are intriguing.

She lives a giddy life full of romance, hard work and danger, yet never loses her almost childlike wonder and excitement of the day-to-day social scene, the work she is doing, and her wonder at the Exotic East.

This is a chronicle of a time gone by, when in the midst of death and destruction so many women like Sheila, passionately committed to serving King and Country, were nonetheless equally committed to the important job of securing a suitable husband.

Sheila seems oblivious to her beauty, but not to the staggering number of young men who constantly pursue her. Like a modern-day Emily Eden, she enthrals us with details of her journey and adventures:

Saturday

Dinner at the Mena Hotel. It was just perfect dining and dancing in the moonlight by the side of the swimming pool, all very gay At about midnight we decided to walk up a hill to see the Pyramids, it was rather glorious you walk out of the hotel garden up a hill which slopes round the foot of the Big Pyramid which I climbed and all in the bright moonlight beautifully cool!

Her letters chart the war almost weekly. By the end she has met unconventional Tom. He is the opposite of the social and gregarious Sheila, yet he seems to see off with ease any competition for her hand and heart. At the end of the war they plan to marry, as she writes to her mother:

Dear Ma,

Please dont make too much fuss about anything Tom hates it so we shall get married I expect in a Registry Office I honestly dont think Tom would survive a proper wedding with relatives and guests hed probably get up and say something awful or shocking hes quite liable to!! And please dont rush around telling everyone I am marrying a Czech!!

This is an extraordinary and detailed portrait of an intelligent and passionate woman, and a fascinating read.

Felicity Kendal CBE