The wartime story of Peggy Wilkinson – an evacuee school ma’am in love
In June 1940 a group of twelve evacuees from industrial Wallsend arrived at the remote and beautiful village of Blanchland accompanied by their young teacher, Peggy Wilkinson.
THE BLANCHLAND LETTERS is a story formed by the love letters between Peggy and her husband-to-be Alex Dunn.
Peggy’s canny and witty observations shine through her eloquent words allowing the readers to enter the heart of a resiliant rural community during the Second Word War.
This remarkable record captures the warmth and eccentricity of village life, the danger and tension of Peggy’s weekly commute amid the air raids on Tyneside and most vividly of all, her sheer joy of life with the bairns in the countryside around Blanchland.
Edited by Alison Dunn
Published February 2026
ISBN 9781739746537
Soft back with laminated cover
112 pages with over 60 illustrations and photographs (including 8 in colour)
210mm high, 148mm width
£10.00 (plus £2.95 p & p)
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‘You have created a fascinating and moving book which brings to life, not just a wartime romance, but a whole way of life which has now passed into history, but is of inestimable importance to younger generations. The stoicism, delight in small pleasures, sense of fun when days were harsh, strong values and belief in the future…all that and more is contained in the story of Peggy Wilkinson and Alex Dunn, and I (who had the privilege of knowing them in my teenage years ) feel all the better for reading it.’
BEL MOONEY
AUTHOR AND DAILY MAIL COLUMNIST