Dear Delia,

Whatever makes you think I have a chap? Trixie is always bemoaning my lack of a boyfriend, but frankly I don't see much of an appeal. Perhaps it's the three years I worked on the male surgical ward (spending every day assisting in theatre during prostate surgery and giving opportunistically exhibitionist men bed baths is quite enough to put even the staunchest lover of masculinity off the idea), or simply the fact that my life and work are so very female centred now (and of course deals in intimate detail with the consequences of carelessness!), but I simply can't see having a boyfriend as the be all and end all. Even were I so inclined, I'm sure I wouldn't so much as pass the time of day with a man that didn't approve of you, let alone take one out dancing! I can't really speak for you of course, but I think you rather felt the same way. Your lack of a boyfriend had nothing to do with shyness or being excessively dutiful, it was a simple matter of preference. Should that preference ever change I have no doubt that you could have young men falling at your feet for your smile and your whimsical humour in a heartbeat. Of course they would have to be the very best mankind has to offer and make you deliriously happy if I wasn't to disapprove of them myself!

I wish I could make all of this make sense for you, but one thing I can say with complete certainty is that although you might not have your memories, you do have yourself. The Delia I knew in Poplar is exactly the same as the one who writes me letters every week – a bold, sunny darling of a girl who is wonderful fun and always knows how to make me smile. Mothers are marvellous creatures in many ways, but they are not all seeing and they certainly aren't all knowing. I think we often close off certain parts of ourselves from the people who care about us because rightly or wrongly we think it would hurt them to know everything, and perhaps you had good reason for neglecting to mention certain things to your mother (reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with being a criminal or a thug!).
This is really something that you would have been much better equipped to offer advice on than I am... but I think you should trust what you feel. You never were a fan of facades and this is no different. Your mother may be surprised to find that you are a real person and not some idealized cut out paper doll daughter, but who you are is beautiful and nothing to be ashamed of, so don't be afraid to let yourself be who you are.

Please do keep the photo! I only wish I had had a better one to send you, I'm afraid I look terribly stern and 'nurse Mount'-ish in that one. Although perhaps it would help to know that while I might look serene enough, barely a second after I sat down for the photographer that day I realized that there was a particularly large spider crawling up my leg under the hem of my skirt. Now I am not one to take fright at insects as a rule, but there are certain places one simply does not want to find creepy crawlies, and inside one's brand new uniform is one of them (especially when the discovery is made whilst wearing said uniform!). The only thing that kept me from jumping up and shaking the little beast out before it could reach the top of my stocking was the fear that I would forever be known as the nurse whose staff photo showed a monstrous grimace and more leg than would be seemly (they had been rather strict about do-overs and the girl before me in the queue was caught just at the beginning of a sneeze. The poor thing spent 3 years with a photograph with her eyes scrunched up and her mouth hanging open, and I had no desire to join her for the sake of a spider!), so what you are really seeing in that picture is the face of someone sitting still through unbearable tickling and trying very hard not to squeal like a child!

As to your questions, my full name is Patience Elizabeth Mount, and as you have probably deduced from my earlier comments, I was not always a midwife. I trained as a nurse as soon as I left school, but I have worked in various different sectors. The three years on the male surgical ward I have already mentioned, but I did a year in psychiatrics too (so I can tell you with some authority that you, Delia Busby, are perfectly sane). I am not a born Londoner. In fact, I only came here when I started my nurse's training (because I was told The London was the place to be for anyone wanting to get ahead in nursing). I was actually born in Shanghai, although I spent many of my formative years in a terribly English catholic boarding school (I'm not catholic myself and… this bit is a secret… I am still a little nervous of catholic nuns; they were so terribly forbidding and make me feel instantly like a school girl in disgrace even now). Now what else can I tell you? I prefer haddock over cod with my chips, I can write as well with my left hand as my right and I once did a dozen cartwheels in a row without stopping (alas that is a skill that rather loses its usefulness once the days of school gymnastics are behind one).

You asked for stories of Poplar. Well, we have all been feeling a little dull here recently thanks to the constant rain (nothing quite matches the feeling of putting on cold, wet shoes because they simply haven't had a chance to dry since the last time they were soaked by puddles). We might have had a week of early nights and hot water bottles with no japes at all to speak of if it hadn't been for Barbara and her clever ideas. I don't know what made her think to do it, but Trixie and I arrived back in our room after a particularly exhausting delivery of triplets (triplets! I feel for the poor parents trying to care for three newborns all at once, with only two hands apiece!) to discover that it had been turned into a tropical paradise. Barbara had dug out some yellow and blue fabric from the scrap bags and draped it artfully around the room to look like sea and sand, then somehow managed to haul three deckchairs up the stairs and arranged them in the space between our beds. The moment we walked in the door we were greeted by 'oh I do like to be beside the seaside' on the record player, a decorative collection of shells and beach pebbles arranged on every surface and Barbara looking a little sheepish and dressed in beachwear (including the most enormous straw hat and what looked like a smudge of sunscreen on her nose).

For a moment or two Trixie and I couldn't do anything but stare - it felt rather as though we had just fallen through the looking glass into Wonderland! But after the initial shock it didn't take us long to get on board and within minutes we were all stretched out in deck chairs with our feel paddling in basins of warm water (pretending we were bathing them in a tropical ocean, of course), slathering sunscreen on our arms and cheeks (I was confused about that at first too, but as Barbara put it: 'it makes it smell like summer if you're wearing sunscreen, and what's the good in pretending if it still smells like our bedroom in winter instead of the beach in the height of summer?').

Somehow Barbara had gotten hold of three strawberry splits (where on earth does one buy ice creams in the middle of December?), so rather than bournvita and crumpets we drank warm orange squash with little paper umbrellas in and ate ice creams in our swimsuits (and cardigans, as there is only so far pretence can take one from the frozen fog outside). We had almost forgotten that it was really a winter night in London and not a summer afternoon at the seaside when Nurse Crane poked her head round the door to ask to borrow my dictionary. Oh Deels, you should have seen her face! She was so shocked she just stood in the doorway and opened and closed her mouth for nearly a full minute without saying a word, as though she was trying to figure out if she was really awake or not. I half wanted to ask her if she'd like to bring her beach towel and join us, but Nurse Crane is rather formidable and terribly proper so I can't imagine her wanting to play games with us foolish young things. Eventually she said something about the boundless energy and bizarre imaginations of youth and left without the dictionary. It certainly cured our winter blues and Trixie says she feels it almost gave her a tan!

I do so hope you are well and happy this week, and that somehow you are enjoying stolen summer days as well!

Love,

Patsy

... ... ...

Dearest Delia,

Writing to you is getting dangerous. I have to read and reread every line to make sure I'm not saying too much, and even so I am afraid that my hints are too strong. You sound so much like your old self that I keep forgetting that you don't know what we shared. Part of me (perhaps most of me) wants to simply tell you everything and hang the consequences. Do you know in my last letter I started to do just that half a dozen times or more: "the reason I don't have a boyfriend is because I have something better. I am in love with YOU Delia, and until a car took your memories you loved me as well" or "I am what you were hiding from your mother in your letters. You weren't a criminal or a saint, just a bright, brave, wonderful girl who loved in a way that the world won't accept". I hope what I wrote instead will give you enough reassurance that you are someone worth remembering. It breaks my heart that you think there's something wrong with who you are.

If our places were reversed, would you tell me? I feel you might. But you have always been so much braver than I am. You are the girl who would tell a man boldly to leave us alone because we don't like 'cake' (part of me still can't believe you said that) and who lets her hand linger for a heart pounding moment longer than strictly necessary on my shoulder as you pass my chair in a cafe. You are the girl who dreamt of changing a world that refused to give us space to be ourselves in it rather than allowing yourself to be crushed into a shape it thought proper.

You told me that I deal better with facades than you do, but the truth is Delia that I was just too afraid of losing you completely to let my feelings show. I have spent so much of my life pretending to be normal and cheerful and unaffected by everything around me that trying to simply be myself feels like going into battle without armour. And yet now here I am pouring my heart out in a way I couldn't have imagined even as much as a year ago (and to be frank might well have looked on with a little scorn, for I was ever the practical minded nurse before all else). Maybe if I told you the truth it really would be alright, your own letter held enough hints that you might still have feelings for me that it isn't a completely futile hope (you think me pretty and keep my picture by your bed!). But how can I risk what we do have on a selfish wish for more? I would rather be in your life as a friend than lose you altogether. It would kill me if you were disgusted by my feelings, and how could I make you lose this one link to your life before by turning it into something that may now seem ugly to you? Oh Delia, I can't bear that thought. What if our love seems sordid and unnatural to you now?

You write that you are afraid. Well Deels, here's a secret (and these are words I haven't freely acknowledged about myself since I was nine years old). I am afraid too. So afraid. Please don't hate me, if you work it out. Please.

All my love,

Patsy