The uncertainty of life intensified relationships. When her pilot boyfriend, Tom Wheatley, proposed in late 1941 after less than a year’s courtship, Yvonne readily agreed. ‘Something told me, as young as I was, that I had to spend as much time as possible with Tom. The war itself made you hurry. Better to make a decision and do something because tomorrow you might be gone. It was a strange time for decision-making. In a way you didn’t really think you’d be spending your life with someone. Not when all around you people you knew were being killed. At one point, I’d gone to see a boy I knew at
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