Letters to a Stranger: Absolutely heartbreaking wartime fiction about love and family secrets by Sarah Mitchell

Author:Sarah Mitchell [Mitchell, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781803149530
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2023-03-08T16:00:00+00:00

Your devoted brother

George

Diary of Miss Ruby Summers

1 June 1940

Dear Diary

I’m sitting at my desk overlooking the garden. My window is open, and the smell of the wisteria is as sweet and heady as the wine my father likes to serve with cheese. When I bend over the sill, I can see the big purple flower heads dazzling against the crumbling brick in a way that makes me think of an amethyst necklace thrown over an ageing ballgown.

I should be working – New Practical Chemistry is open at page forty-seven – instead I have put schoolbooks to one side and picked up my diary. Much as the combination of the glorious wisteria and May sunshine makes me want to lie my head on the table and close my eyes, neither the weather nor the garden is the problem.

Today, I received the most awful news from George. Luckily Mother was at the butcher’s when the postman arrived (these days the queues mean the errand takes the best part of the morning) because I can’t decide whether to tell her about the letter or not. The relief of knowing George was alive would soon give way to the horror of what is happening in France and the dreadful fear he may not make it home. Although the envelope is burrowed inside my bed (in case Mother comes into the room) every time I attempt to focus on the columns of the periodic table or the covalent bonding properties of carbon, George’s voice pierces through the sheets. Instead of the pages of Practical Chemistry, I see a burning hayloft, women and children diving into ditches, dead bodies, and injured animals, and I know the effect would be even worse on Mother, who would probably pack a bag, set off for Dover and go in search of George herself.

To depress matters further (if that’s possible), a few days ago the Home Office announced the police had been ordered to intern all Germans and Austrians living in the United Kingdom. The only ones to be spared were Jewish refugees who had managed to escape from the Nazis (since nobody could think that they pose a threat to the Allies). As I wasn’t completely sure what happens to people who are interned, I asked Father what it meant.

‘Locked up,’ he said from behind The Times. ‘Where they can’t do any harm.’ We were reading in the sitting room, while Mother cooked dinner. The government’s broadcast had only just finished.

I could hardly believe him. ‘You mean locked up in prison? With actual criminals?’

‘Not prisons, exactly. Special camps. A lot of them are being taken to the Isle of Man.’

It took me a moment to think where that was. In the Irish Sea, I remembered, somewhere between England and the coast of Ireland. ‘For how long?’

Father shrugged. ‘Until the war is over, I suppose. Or the risk of invasion has passed. Or’ – his mouth twisted – ‘the country has been overrun by the bloody Hun.’ After a second, he half-lowered his newspaper and said in more normal voice.

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