A shoebox full of love letters between a courting couple has been returned home after 70 years, thanks to well-wishers on Facebook, a romantic stranger, and a daughter fulfilling her mother's wishes.
Kim Rowe rediscovered the letters, sent in 1948 and 1949 between Norma Hall in Kent and Bob Beasley in the British Army overseas, while sorting her attic. Her mother, Cherry Vallance, had taken the letters 20 years earlier from a neighbour in Aldershot who planned to throw them away. Cherry kept them until her death in 2016, and Kim felt it important to find the couple.
Kim posted a picture of the envelopes on Facebook, asking for help. The post received 11,000 shares and 1,500 reactions. A friend discovered that the couple married in 1951 in Uxbridge. Kim sent a letter to the address, and Norma Beasley, now 88 and living in Lincoln, responded. Bob had died in December 2018, just months before.
Norma met Bob on the Woolwich Ferry in the 1940s. They married after his return from the Middle East and Egypt, had five children and six great-grandchildren. Norma admitted she cannot yet read the letters without Bob. She and Kim have exchanged numbers and plan to keep in touch.
