Frances Woodsford — Dear Mr Bigelow: A Transatlantic Friendship

Chatto & Windus 2009 Hardback 382 Lively and vibrant, Frances Woodsford’s letters to America from austerity Bournemouth have recently come to light, to be enjoyed by a new generation of readersDear Mr Bigelow is an enchanting collection of weekly ‘pen-pal’ letters written between 1949 and 1961 from an unmarried woman working at the Public Baths in Bournemouth, to a wealthy American widower, living on Long Island, New York. Frances Woodsford and Commodore Paul Bigelow never met, and there was no romance – she was in her forties when he died aged ninety-eight – yet their epistolary friendship was her lifeline. The ‘Saturday Specials’ as Frances dubbed them, are brilliantly-packed missives, sparked with comic genius, from post-war England. DJ. Good