Joy Street: A Wartime Romance in Letters by Mirren Barford
This is a series of letters between 19-year-old Miriam (Mirren) Barford, an Oxford student, and Lieutenant John (Jock) Lewis, who had joined the Welsh Guards at the outbreak of war in 1939. Mirren had met Jock at the wedding of Jock's sister Elizabeth the previous year. Their developing love affair is chronicled in an affecting narrative that reaches a tragic conclusion when Jock is killed in action on 30th December 1941. Jock Lewis was one of the co-founders of the original SAS. Editor Michael Wise is Mirren Barford's son and the letters were found at the time of her death in February 1992.