Chapter 13
Romance

Throughout my military service away from England I regularly received letters from my sister Mary who still lived in Newcastle. While in Sicily I received a letter from her telling me of a wonderful new friend she had made at the local cinema where she had just started working. Her new friend was called Rowena Lancaster. They both worked as sales girls at the flea pit. My sister asked me to write to her as Rowena had told Mary she wanted to have a pen friend. I wrote to Rowena telling her all about myself and as much as I could about what I was doing in the army as the censor would allow.

Two weeks later when the Battalion mail arrived I received a letter from Rowena thanking me for my letter and enclosing a picture of herself. Throughout the rest of 1943 I wrote to Rowena when ever I could and received dozens of letters from her. Bit by bit, through our letters to each other we got to find out allot about each other. She would tell me all about bombs and ration cards and I would tell her as much as I could about my life in Italy.

One night in a rain soaked trench in the middle of Italy I said to my best friend Hughie McGhie "You know this lass I've been writing to, well I think I'm going to marry her when I get home" Hughie looked at me for a while and then said "Good on you Sid, I will dance at your wedding" And he did. I wrote to Rowena the very next day and asked her if she would marry me. It may sound funny now to ask a women you've never met to marry you but I knew through her letters to me we were made for each other. She must have felt the same way because after waiting three long nail biting weeks I had a letter from Rowena with a answer to my request for her hand. The answer was a firm yes. The picture Rowena sent me in her first letter has stayed in my wallet since the day she sent it to me in 1943.