A WEYMOUTH woman has kept a special letter for 70 years after its author went to fight on the beaches of Normandy.

Pamela Garrett was aged 10 or 11 when US troops moved in to the town ahead of the D-Day landings.

She became friends with one of the soldiers who drank at the Golden Lion in St Edmund Street and wrote to him after his regiment left for Normandy.

Pamela, now aged 82, said: “A lot of ships left from Weymouth and the American troops moved in beforehand.

“There were some at the Golden Lion having a drink and I lived opposite in St Mary Street and I used to sit on the ledge outside my bedroom and watch everything going on.

“The troops saw me there and this one came across and spoke to my mother and me.”

Pamela had one letter from the soldier, Jimmy Turner, dated June 18 – but when she replied she heard nothing from him again.

She believes this indicates he died shortly after writing to her. The Echo has found one entry for a Jimmy Turner on the US National WWII Memorial and it states he was killed in action.

In the letter to Pamela, Jimmy described how he ‘had a tough job on my hands’ and was feeling ‘blue and depressed’ before looking up at the window and seeing her.

He continues: ‘And the sun started to shine again. You made a picture, a beautiful picture, that I shall carry forever engraved in my heart.’