Love and War

The moving story of a World War II veteran from Upper Island Cove, Newfoundland, and his war bride from Essex, England.

William Lundrigan of Upper Island Cove joined the British Royal Navy on January 8, 1940. For over 2,100 days he served in active theatres of war, including the Battle of the Atlantic, as well as in Russia, France (including Normandy Beach on D-Day), Italy, Malta, Belgium, the Netherlands, and North Africa.

Edith, from South Stifford in Essex, England, grew up in a working-class family and enjoyed a good life. She began working in an essential food factory in 1939, at age sixteen, where she was required to stay for the next six years. While anxiously awaiting news from her brother who was a POW of the Japanese working on the Death Railway, she spent much time with her co-workers or her parents in an air-raid shelter as a result of the Blitz carried out by the Nazi Luftwaffe.

Edith and William met in October 1944 and quickly fell in love. After a brief romance, they married in 1945 and lived in England until 1949. They then sailed on the RMS Newfoundland to start a new life in Canada’s newest province.

This book explores the impact of war, on their lives and mutual love, for the next sixty-one years. They raised a family and navigated living in the backdrop of financial hardship as well as the haunting tentacles of a long-ago and faraway war. Under these difficult circumstances, their spirits were tested but their heads remained unbowed.