This is Sussex --A CRAWLEY author has written her first book, based on letters her father sent her mother during the Second World War.
Jenny Hall, 66, of Fisher Close in Southgate, spent seven years writing the book about her father, Ray Harris.
Mr Harris was a soldier in the 7th Armoured Division – the celebrated Desert Rats who fought in North Africa – and stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day.
Aside from his obvious courage and bravery, Mr Harris was also a performer and producer, who during the war exchanged letters with the famous comedian Max Miller.
Jenny's parents met before the war, when Mr Harris was performing in a travelling circus.
He and Jenny's mother, Doreen Sellman, were initially pen friends, but their relationship strengthened as the war raged on.
Jenny said: "I found 200 letters that my father sent my mother in a chocolate box in the bottom of my mother's wardrobe after she passed away in 2005.
"I didn't know there were so many. I found them so engaging and so beautifully worded. They made a story within themselves."
Jenny, who was a teacher at St Wilfrid's School and taught English as a foreign language at Langley Green Primary, started to read the letters on evenings after work.
In them Mr Harris was not allowed to reveal his location, so Jenny endeavoured to track her father's journey across Europe and Africa.
She said: "I started to put the letters in order and between them and books from the library I worked out where my father had been."
Mr Harris lifted his comrades' spirits by telling jokes and singing songs in the Sahara and at the Garrison Opera House in Cairo, Egypt.
He also worked with the Entertainment National Service Association and Jasper Maskelyne, a magician and conjuror whose skills the Army used to create dummy tanks and other optical illusions.
As well as her father's letters, Jenny used photographs and theatre memorabilia such as ticket stubs to map his military and performing career.
Jenny and her husband Leon, who was an international high jumper, settled in Crawley in 1973, after living in Oxford, France and Sweden.
One of the reasons she moved here was to be close to her parents, who lived in Brighton, where her father, who died in 2001, was from.
Jenny's book, A Desert Rat Entertains, is a tribute to her multi-talented father, her parents' relationship, and the Desert Rats, with this year marking the 70th anniversary of the end of the North African campaign.
Jenny said: "It is a tribute to a man who did a lot more than having a funny disposition.
"His favourite song was Spread A Little Happiness, so if the book lightens people's hearts and spreads happiness, that is my dad's spirit continuing."
Pen Press, an independent publisher in Brighton, published the book, priced at £9.99, last Wednesday and it can be purchased on Amazon and in local bookshops. Reported by This is 8 hours ago.