Letters from the suitcase : a wartime love story /
edited by Rosheen and Cal Finnigan.
- xvi, 463 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Prologue -- Introduction -- 'I have taken Auden to bed with me' -- A job in Whitehall -- A move to Bletchley Park -- Marriage in secret -- 'So it is war' -- David joins up; Mary returns to London -- A bitter winter in Skegness -- 'Every day is St Valentine's Day' -- Behind the barbed wire -- 'The kit bags are all packed' -- Portsmouth and a commission -- A child is born -- Shrapnel and baby socks -- Swansea -- A call from the Admiralty -- Combined operations -- Operation Ironclad -- Return to London -- Mission accomplished -- Passage to India -- The long silence -- Madagascar assault -- Tragedy strikes -- The 'doomed generation' -- Last posts -- Epilogue.
"Letters from the suitcase is the poignant and detailed wartime correspondence between David and Mary Francis from 1938 to 1943. Mary was originally from Dublin and only twenty-one when she met and fell in love with the privately educated, nineteen-year-old David Francis, a Christian Scientist. Their affair was passionate and in a swing of disgust at the growing rise of fascism and the Nazi party in Europe, they became active in North London left-wing circles. Against the wishes of their parents, they lived together in secret. These letters reveal their love and longing, their lives working as a secretary at Bletchley Park and as a young officer in action on the other side of the world, and later, Mary's experience of bringing up a small baby alone in London. David was to die in India, five years after their meeting, though his letters continued to reach Mary long after the event. At the heart, this is the story of a short but rewarding love. It is also the story of a father that Rosheen Finnigan never knew, and a fascinating social history"--Back cover.