[West Ender]

A few years ago I was in Cambridge with my late husband. He was on business there for a few days and I'd gone with him for a break.

I had to amuse myself during the day when he was working so I took the open-top tour bus that went round the city and ended up at the American War cemetry. I wandered around for a couple of hours - noting the inscribed Wall of Honour, dedicated to Americans who were missing but were never found; my musical "passion", Major Alton G Miller (Glenn Miller) is commemorated there.

There was a gardener/groundsman going round on a motorised mower while I was looking at the perfect ranks of crosses. I was very moved at some of the inscriptions, such as "A soldier, known only to God" and graves that contained 2 bodies, so badly burned and fused together that they couldn't be buried separately. I must have looked very sad and the gardener kept nodding at me and giving me looks of pure sympathy. I am quite sure he thought I was looking for the grave of my long-lost father.

N.B. My dad was English and spent the war years as an aircraft engine inspector at Bristol Aircraft Co., Accrington.