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The weather today reminds me of a day in England, wrote Alf Rogers from Australia. The date was the same, the year was 1947 and spring was come at last. The day was just as beautiful.
I went along the country hedgerows gathering primroses as my girlfriend, who was in hospital with peritonitis had asked for some. I became aware that it was too late. Sometime later that afternoon her father arrived at our house to let us know that she had died that morning.
Only a week before, I had visited her at the Royal Sea Bathing Hospital in Margate. The weather was so different then. Along the shore the sea was frozen - the only time that I ever saw that happen. Ridged ice extended outwards from the shore for several metres.
This was a strange year. Earlier, at my college half-term break I had travelled home from Winchester and snow was on the ground. At that time she was still staying at her grandmother's house in Cade Street where she was first taken ill, for no ambulance would risk the roads over such a distance.
When I returned to college I took my bicycle with me. Naturally I rode it from Victoria to Waterloo station only to discover the hazard of the central slot between the tram tracks over Westminster Bridge, particularly on the icy road.
Travelling down to Winchester was a slow process; as from Basingstoke onwards the engine driver and fireman had to check all the points for correct settings. A crowbar came into play on several occasions. There followed nights of a veritable fairyland.
There had been a slight thaw, but then the frost set in again so that every twig on every tree had its own dependant icicle. With a slight breeze blowing through them they twinkled as they reflected street lights at night, and there was a constant tinkling as they struck against each other like so many miniature bells.
A week or two later, the frosts were still with us. I was doing an art course as part of my teacher training and had been given an assignment to gather designs from the tiles in the cathedral.
Whilst I was there several groups of tourists came through and were conducted round by the verger or one of his assistants. I was there when someone asked what those bright spots were in the finials to some of the vaulting.
When they had departed, the verger obtained a very tall set of steps and climbed up to examine them more closely. The bright points were the faces of golden coins, nobles, set into the stonework. At that time there was no record of them, nor was it likely that anyone would have discovered them for many more years.
It was the unusual layer of snow on the ground, "not in living memory" had it been seen in the city itself, that reflected the light upwards into the vaulting. This was the second memorable occurrence on that day as one of that group of visiting Americans had suddenly been forced to realise that this was a church that he was visiting. His surprise gave vent to a loud query, "Gee, is this a God-box?"
To round off the unusual season, my return to college after Easter resulted in another student, an ex-serviceman, suggesting I should share my thoughts about the tragic events of the past month with others. He suggested a good starting point might be to have some pen-friends to write to, "for you're unlikely ever to meet them and so it will be a lot easier for you."
Well, four years later one of them, an Australian girl, decided that she was able to come over to England. We met at Tilbury docks, the primroses were out in the hedgerows, it snowed later that day and we slipped into a romance that has lasted for fifty years.
Alf Rogers, New South Wales, Australia, 2002
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