Bradford-born Dorothy Monkman (nee Hill) emigrated to New Zealand in the late 1920s with her husband Frank - but she kept her lifelong best friend Winifred Walmsley up-to-date with her adventures Down Under through a series of entertaining letters. Both have now passed away, but Kate Wadsworth discovered that the letters live on - for Dorothy's daughter Gillian Hirst, from Ilkley, has just published them in a book.

THE CHANCE of a job in New Zealand with travel expenses paid was too good an opportunity to miss for adventurous newlyweds Frank and Dorothy Monkman in the late 1920s.

Frank's prospect of finding work in his line as a dyer looked bleak in Bradford which was suffering the brunt of the Depression and Dorothy, a talented seamstress, had always harboured a dream to travel.

But while the couple set up home thousands of miles away in Auckland, started a family and made new friends, Dorothy never forgot her old pals and family in Bradford.

A prolific letter writer, she kept in touch with scores of people, but the one that stood out most was her lifelong best friend Winifred Walmsley. The two women had met while living next door to each other above shops in Girlington Road, Bradford. They loved to chat about the latest fashions, yearned to mingle in what they supposed was a 'higher society' than their own and dreamed about living in large houses.

Dorothy lived in Auckland between 1928 and 1936 after Frank spotted an advertisement for a job at a Kiwi textile firm in the Telegraph & Argus.

Throughout that period she kept in touch with Win, penning regular letters, often spanning 17 or 18 pages, giving a unique insight into both her own personal trials and tribulations and life down under.

The letters from Dorothy - more than 90 - were kept in a box under Win's sideboard for years and only surfaced again following her death in 1960.

Dorothy, who had been given the letters back following her friend's death, in turn passed the rich legacy to her daughter, Gillian Hirst, who now lives in Ilkley. Gillian realised the correspondence provided a fascinating glimpse of the past, and following her mother's death at 85 in 1989, she began sorting through and editing the collection.

Nine years later Gillian's hard work has paid off and she has now privately published a book containing her mother's letters, entitled poignantly To Win...With Love.

"I am really proud of the book, which I feel is a testament to my mother and father, two remarkable people," said Gillian, 68, who was actually born in New Zealand and lived there until she was six.

"My mother loved New Zealand and in one way couldn't bear to leave, but she also couldn't bear the thought of not seeing her friends and family in England again.

"I love the letters, they are full of pathos and details of her day-to-day life in New Zealand. My parents were very hard up, but my mother liked to keep up appearances and no one ever guessed they were short of money. After my mother returned to England, she often made trips back to New Zealand, her last being when she was 81, when she was really not fit enough to travel."

Gillian says she first read the correspondence following Win's death, but around six letters were missing when the collection eventually came into her possession.

"She destroyed the letters describing the events which were disturbing to her, such as the time she suffered from post-natal depression. I read them, but didn't want anyone else to read them."

Gillian and her parents returned to Bradford in 1936 because Frank believed he could make more money in England than New Zealand.

He went on to found what is now known as Monkman's Hair Merchants in Bradford and Dorothy designed the family home in Ilkley and renewed her friendship with Win.

Gillian has now given the original letters to the national archive library in New Zealand. Researchers were thrilled to receive them because apparently there is a shortage of personal accounts from that period telling what life was really like.

Dear Win...

October 5 1928

Many things are different here - for instance, most girls go without a hat in the evenings. The bread is never buttered prior to a meal, each person doing their own; all the shops have verandahs to provide shade from the sun; it is always called 'half a pint of milk' - never a 'gill'; yeast can only be bought costing ninepence for two oz. at two shops in town, so people do not bake bread. The grocer, greengrocer, baker, fish dealer and milkman all call daily or as often as required. Square tubs fastened to the wall are where the washing is done on any day of the week. If it rains no one bothers to bring the clothes in.

People air everything off outside so that mattresses, pillows and bedding are all hung over the verandah any time it is thought fit to do so. All the prams here are either wicker ones and have bigger wheels. Another thing which amuses me is that whether it is morning or afternoon, when you call at a house, tea and cakes are always produced. I never saw such a place for tea, often five times a day!

By the way if you don't send me some stockings before long I shall have to paint my legs. I laddered my second-best pair last night and when I took my white ones to be dyed gold last week they came back a peculiar shade.

Love, Dorothy

To Win with Love is available, priced £9, from W H Smiths, Kirkgate centre, Waterstones, Bradford and Ilkley Library.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.