PLEASE WRITE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 7, Issue 21, 5 November 1943, Page 2

PLEASE WRITE

LONELY AUSTRALIAN DIGGER NOW HAPPILY MAR REED' On February 16, 1940, a 23 year old Sydney girl saw in a newspaper the photograph of a Digger on a donkey in Palestine. She wrote to him, and is now Mrs Bar'ry E.va.ns, with a seven months old daughter. Mr and Mrs Evans corresponded for more than two years before they met. Private Evans, avlio returned to Australia with the Australian contingent some time ago, said he left for the Middle East with the first contingent, andj served as a gunner of the Forth Division A.1.F., in Greece, Crete and Libya. He sent his picture to the newspaper asking it to be printedi with the following caption: "Will some Australian girl please write to this soldier?" Mrs Evans, then a children's nurse, tossed with a fellow nurse to see who would answer this plea for mail. She won, and wrote him a friendly letter. So did 599 other women ! "But," said Mr Evans, "I got Enid's letter first; and first in first served. "Most of the letters 5/ received contained photographs, and they were all smiling faces, except my wife's. I said to myself 'Now there's a woman who would understand a man.' She didn't send kisses either, although most of the other girls did. "I exchanged friendly letters with Enid for a year, then wrote her a proposal for marriage. She cabled acceptance the same d,ay. I cabled; the money for our engagement ring. "Neither of us has for one moment regretted what must have seemed an unorthodox marriage."