A WARTIME ROMANCE
The war in Burma was a savagely fought part of WWII. British-led Allied forces waged a desperate campaign in Burmese jungles to prevent Imperial Japan from entering India. But in this unforgiving environment love was able to blossom. In 1944 Madge Graves was a nurse in the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) while Basil Lambert was an Indian Army officer seconded to the Royal Engineers for logistics work. Both were stationed in Chittagong, which was a frontline town in the Southeast Asia theatre. Chittagong was a vital base for Allied forces and close to battle zones against Japanese forces.
It was in this fraught atmosphere that Madge and Basil met and began a romance in 1944. Although Basil was posted to Rangoon in early 1945 and later to Saigon, the couple stayed in touch and were reunited in England in 1947. They married the following year and have been together ever since.
Now approaching their 70th wedding anniversary, Madge has co-authored Some Sunny Day with journalist Robert Blair about her wartime romance. Both Lamberts tell the story of how they met and their individual experiences in the ‘forgotten war’.
MADGE LAMBERT
How did Some Sunny Day come to be written?
We had been to Whitehall and had tea in Westminster Abbey gardens as members of
