Spare Time

Wynne wrote to him every single day. All her letters contained vivid descriptions about her life at home in Leytonstone, her aching-heart and her longing for him. But none of her letters ever reached him. Instead they were sent back unopened and unread - until recently that is.

More than half a century after the letters were first penned, Jenny Davis found them bundled together in a box hidden in the attic of her late aunt's house.

"My aunt had no children so it fell on my sisters and I to sort out her effects and it was while we were clearing out the attic that we stumbled across a sealed box which contained hundreds and hundreds of letters.

"Well we were just stunned at the beauty of these letters. They were so personal, intimate and emotional. Love letters written to her new husband and also a diary of what she'd been doing.

"It was incredibly moving to read the letters, particularly just to open them because none of them had ever been re-read. She'd received them back after the war and she just tied them up, put them in bundles in a box and presumably never looked at them again.

"They were absolutely fascinating to us because not only did we know nothing about it but the letters were just so moving to read. We just knew we had to do something with them."

Harold 'Mickey' Brooks

And that's exactly what Davis, a writer and director, did.

First, adapting her aunt's moving war-time love story into a book and then a play.

By happy coincidence her daughter, Rebecca, was also starting her theatre acting career so Jenny cast her and her fiancé, Stuart Halusz, as Wynne and Mickey in the production entitled 'Dear Heart'. The play was named after the endearing way Wynne addressed Mickey in her letters.

"This particular role is really poignant and it means a lot to me to perform a story based on part of my family history," says Rebecca Davis.

"A lot of her letters actually mention local place names – Wanstead, Walthamstow, Leytonstone – and it feels so emotional to me walking down the streets she probably walked down herself."

Wynne Curtis with Harold

Stuart agrees: "There's a certain completion to the story now," he says. "Playing here in the place where these people lived and breathed."

Wynne only ever heard from her husband twice while he was away. First a letter dated January 1942 posted in Durban, South Africa and then a postcard in October 1943, dated Christmas Day 1942, assuring her that he was well.

But by then Mickey had been taken prisoner by the Japanese following the fall of Singapore in February 1942. He never made it home alive.

A friend and fellow prisoner, Sid Curtis, promised Mickey he would contact Wynne if anything happened to him.

After the war ended Sid fulfilled his promise by arriving on Wynne's doorstep in Walthamstow with Mickey's wristwatch.

Found, wartime love letters Wynne Curtis

Years later Sid and Wynne married and lived a long and happy life. Wynne never spoke to her family about the tragedy of losing her first husband when she was alive but now their love has been forever immortalised on stage.

The play, 'Dear Heart' is on at the King's Head Theatre, Islington from Tuesday 4th November to Sunday 30th November. For tickets and more information please visit: www.kingsheadtheatre.org.uk or call 0844 412 2953.