Twenty-five-year-old Bob Keddie died on 16 May 1942 when his Catalina flying boat disappeared over the Norwegian Sea. He had been on a reconnaissance patrol for the protection of convoys carrying vital supplies to the Russians. No trace of him, his nine crew members, or his aircraft was ever found.
For Diana, his young wife who was four months pregnant, the disappearance brought an abrupt and agonising end to a two-year love story, innocent and intense, played out mostly in letters overflowing with tenderness and anticipation for a future free of war.
Diana Ladner, a beautiful aspiring actress of nineteen, had met the dashing Bob Keddie at a performance of The Beggar's Opera in London in March 1940, a year on from his formative winning streak at the Cresta Run in St Moritz. Bob wrote in his diary of ‘a fascinating face’, warning himself to ‘let her pass while you can ...’. They were married eight months later.
We've All Life Before Us: A Love Story of the Second World War is a collection of letters and diaries that, on the one hand, charts in fascinating detail Bob Keddie’s progression through every stage of RAF training to his fateful command of a Catalina at RAF Sullom Voe, and on the other, tells the complete, beautifully intimate and unguarded story of love between two young people, from shy, eager beginnings, keen to impress, to unbridled longing and rage at the war for keeping them apart.
Prologue: The last flight
Introduction
A silver cascade of notes hovers on the night air
Diana, only you can cure the ache in my heart
The whistle is almost due to go now
One face, one image, one thought
Diana, don't do anything 'dramatic'
Was it I, was it you, was it really true?
We must have yet a little patience
Diana loves me but will her father?
Can it really be true?
Alone, alone, when my love was away
Last night your voice, tonight your letter - so near, yet so far
There's a glorious moon - oh, why aren't you here?
Soon we shall be us
Little hope on the Cape of Good Hope
I shall be back soon
The burden of grief
I'm so sorry, sorry for you, for 'it', for us
No 'slice of love' tonight
Flying to the edge of the earth
Searching for the towers in Heaven
Epilogue
Editor's note
Caroline Cecil Bose grew up in Essex, moving to London after studying economics at Bristol University. She has spent her career in marketing and communications. She was on the board of a large communications company before setting up her own successful consultancy more than thirty years ago. She is a keen allotment gardener, walker and avid follower of tennis and showjumping. She lives in London with her husband, author Mihir Bose, whom she met at the Reform Club. Her uncle, a decorated pilot, first piqued her interest in the Second World War.
