Overview

In 1938, two young women, both born in 1915, met by chance in London. Meta was a student and from Estonia, whilst Phyllis came from Croydon and worked as a secretary. Despite the vast difference in their backgrounds, they quickly became close friends. Handwritten letters fed and nurtured this significant friendship once Meta returned home, letters that remarkably survived the following decades, kept safe in a treasured family archive. ""I had a terrible feeling – a feeling that the world may be wrecked”, Meta wrote to Phyllis; and, for Meta, the war did absolutely wreck her world. It was a time of fear and flight, as both Russians and Germans fought to take over Estonia. She movingly described her traumatic experiences in her letters. Phyllis, as the wife of a conscientious objector, also experienced painful challenges during the war years, though she felt that they were insignificant by contrast with Meta’s suffering. She tried to continue to support her friend, through the pages they wrote to each other with love. Despite their geographical distance and different experiences, Meta and Phyllis’s closeness endured across subsequent decades. And the connection was passed on to several generations of both their families, a line of friendship which continues to the present day.

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9781800422186

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Hazel Arnold was born in Dorset but brought up in suburban Surrey where, following university, she taught in schools of various kinds and married another teacher. Though her main subject was English, an interest in music, drama and art was particularly useful and pleasurable, especially when she finally taught in a junior school. As their two children reached late teens and disaffection with the education system grew, they moved to Dartmoor and opened a small guest house, catering for walkers and school parties. At that time, life was enlivened by two ponies, two cats and a rolling cast of chickens, and, of course, walks on Dartmoor. Hazel has played in a string quartet, sung in a local choir and belongs to an art group. She is an avid reader who sews, cooks and, more recently, much enjoys writing, thanks in part to an invitation to join a writers’ group – the Inkspots.

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