After Adlestrop

Edward Thomas composed a memorable poem about the express train that he was travelling on in June 1914 which made an unscheduled stop at a remote Oxfordshire station called Adlestrop. He wrote that 'no one came and no-one went' but, unbeknownst to him, a girl called Diana Pink, who was on her way to stay with a relative whom she hated, took the opportunity to get off and go in search of another life. Seventy years later, knowing that she is dying, she writes an account of the extraordinary life she was able to lead having taken that fateful step - a life that encompassed a friendship with an aristocratic family, service with the FANY in France during World War 1, marriage to a Frenchman, whose children she bore, widowhood, a love affair with a Battle of Britain pilot and work with SOE. In the process she killed two men - one who was attacking her closest friend, the other the man who betrayed her daughter to the Gestapo. She was a remarkable woman - brave, passionate and blessed with extraordinary good luck. Her story is exciting, moving and uplifting.