A Soldier's Wife

Margaret Ford lived a long and inspirational life. From humble beginnings in a terraced house in Blackburn in the 1920s, she has witnessed nine decades of change and challenge in contemporary Britain. She has also travelled the world and been part of an era that is now gone: army life in Britain’s colonies, the end of a mighty empire, and the tensions of the Cold War. After a chance meeting in Blackburn, a whirlwind romance and an avalanche of impassioned letters, Margaret married Jim Ford in 1947. Jim was a British Army veteran of one of the Second World War’s most ferocious campaigns, against the Japanese in Burma, and fought at the legendary Battle of Imphal. For six decades, Margaret became an army wife in Africa, Asia, and Europe. But she also forged her own career in finance and voluntary service. Their marriage was full of fun and frolics but ended in sadness when Jim came back from service in Northern Ireland a broken man.