... my late first wife would've been 71 today, HAD she lived! She was born on the very day that the THEN Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain declared war on Germany ... September 3, 1939 ... which happened to be a Sunday.

Shortly before her wedding to me, she started collecting old family photos ... and continued this task unstintingly throughout the twenty-four years of our marriage ... right up until about a week before her premature death from Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma on 18 December, 1991 at the age of just 52.

One of her earliest entries reads: 3/9/39 ... "the day War - and Me - broke out!". Naturally enough, her collection of albums rank among my most-prized possessions. Truly a time for reflection!