A Letter Delivered

The coincidence to which I refer happened to me when as a fourteen year old boy I lived in Plymouth and the incident occurred at one of the military defences constructed to the North of the City during the war with France in the early eighteenth century. At this time a chain of forts were constructed, each fort being linked to the others by a high defensive bank of earth. The incident of which I write occurred at a defensive bank close to the entrance of the fort known as Woodland Fort, which is located in the Plymouth district of Honicknowle, on the Crown Hill Road. At the time a section of the bank existed some 50 to a 100 metres long and some two metres plus high. It ran parallel to the tarmac carriageway with some 4 metres of rough unkempt land, between it and the carriageway. It was 1944 and as street cleaning was somewhat in abeyance in wartime Plymouth this wide road side verge was filled with wind blown paper debris of every kind, in those days there was no footpath on that side of the road. The Crown Hill Road was my rout home from school, and of course as children would do we often took the high rout and walked along the top of the bank. On the occasion to which I refer I was walking home along the bank top with my class mate Phillip who walked several metres in front of me. When some half way along the bank and at a point Phillip judged to be the highest, he turned and challenged me to jump off. The jump was well within my ability and I stepped up to the point he indicated and leapt off. I landed on the unkempt verge and finished quite safely on my hands and knees amongst all the wind blown paper debris, but lying amidst the debris and under my gaze lying face down was a clean and new white envelope. Clearly a lost and unopened letter, I picked it up, turned it over, and to my surprise it was addressed to me. The letter was from a school girl friend named Audrey; we had recently taken a liking to each other. Audrey’s father had been directed from London to work in Plymouth and so her family’s residence in Plymouth was temporary and without warning her father had apparently been redirected back. She had lost the letter on her way to school the day before and I had been absent on that day, the purpose of the letter was to provide me with her new address and to ask me to write to her. This I did and we corresponded for several years, our letter writing gradually petered out and finally stopped, I never saw Audrey again and after we stopped writing I never heard of her or from her again My name and address is Dennis Mosley, 7 Regal Court, Bythesea Road, Trowbridge, BA14 8HJ, Phone 01225 766617, I am now aged 82 and if required I can provide the surnames of Audrey and Phillip. When I was last in Plymouth I noticed that the bank still existed but only half its previous height and Crownhill Road is now a dual carriageway.