The back of a photo postcard has two verses hand written on it. The first a Vera Lynn song, the second perhaps more personal?

Yours ’til the stars lose their glory
Yours ’til the birds fail to sing
Yours to the end of life’s journey* (original word was Story*)
This pledge to you dear, I bring

Yours in the grey of December
Here or on far distant shores

I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you
How could I, when I was born to be JUST YOURS

It’s hard sometimes to realise, that you are half the world away. When to you my thoughts are turning, at the closing of the day. When the tasks are laid aside, and quietness steals upon the heart You seem to stand beside me dear, so near that all my fears depart. Then I am strangely comforted, and life takes on a brighter hue.

In the secret world of dreams it seems I talk and walk with you. And this must suffice until the time when you and more come back to me When heartache turns to happiness, and dreaming, to reality. G

I like to think her husband Jim took this little postcard or its twin with him in his breast pocket when he went to war. But then he went missing. It is a story of 16 months heartache, Gladys not knowing where her husband was. The newspaper takes up the story. (All articles held by The British Library, accessed via Britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk February 2021). The Western Times on Friday 27 March 1942 tells us:

We next find in the Western Times on Friday 25 June 1943:

Whilst he is said to be in good health, we know many died in P.O.W.camps and all suffered hunger and many deprivations. What a relief must have been felt when an air mail arrived from Australia saying he was safe. Gladys will have been over-joyed. The Western Times – Friday 05 October 1945:

I wonder how many times Gladys had sat staring at her wedding photo during that long 16 months.

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