David and Queenie York's World War Two

This is a story about my family in World War Two, told through letters to my grandmother. She was the daughter of a Royal Marine. She was born in Deal Barracks, as were many of her siblings. She was the oldest of 16, although they didn't all survive - they died of things like teething and coughing. They moved to the Medway Towns where she met her first husband. She had three children very close together in age. Her first husband was a sailor; he was killed at sea in January 1917. She was 23 and a widow with 3 small children.

In September 1918, first Annie and then Isabel died in the Spanish Flu Epidemic. She went to work in the Dockyard met her second husband - he was my grandfather. They went onto have 4 children. I have letters written by her husband and her children during the Second World War. They ask about each other. Her son (the oldest, George) died aged 25 in January 1941 at sea, just as his father had in the First World War.

As a mother, I can only imagine the heartbreak of holding onto the last letter I received from him.