An Airman's Wife Annotated edition

Aimee McHardy and William Bond enjoyed a racy and passionate life together long before they were married in January 1917. In her book she speaks of their pre-war vagabond existence, which included a flat in the Latin Quarter of Paris, a cottage on the Seine and winters at St. Moritz. But then war intervened and Bill went to serve as a fighter pilot on the Western Front, from where, to the ever present sound of gun fire, hardly a day went by without him writing to his sweetheart. They were letters of unconditional love which also described in minute detail his service life and experiences. And Aimee replied in kind. By now Bill was a Captain and an ace, and when, tragically, he was taken from her one June day, she wrote her book about their extraordinary love affair as a kind of catharsis to enable her to contain the pain of her loss. It was published in 1918, hailed as a minor classic and then disappeared without trace. It is, however, as readable, and moving today as it was then and Grub Street is proud to republish it, word for word, annotated and with an introduction by Barry Marsden, BA, MPhil.