The wartime romance of Charlie and Edna Ganfield is still going strong nearly 70 years after they first met while both serving at RAF Carew Cheriton. The couple, who celebrated their Diamond Wedding Anniversary this summer, returned to the Control Tower museum at the former airbase for the third time in recent years in the hope of finding a lost love token Charlie had made for Edna. A few months into their courtship Charlie, a blacksmith by trade, used his skills to fashion a bracelet from silver threepenny bits for Edna who was a fabric worker repairing and camouflaging the Oxford and Anson aircraft as they returned from patrols. Proud of the gift from Charlie, Edna showed off the piece of jewellery to her friends. However, with death and serious wounds commonplace at airbases like Carew Cheriton during the Second World War, Edna’s friends told her it was unlucky to accept such a gift so, much to Charlie’s disgust, she threw it into a nearby pond hoping to break the superstition. Over the years much has changed at the former airbase and despite the couple studying old plans of the area with volunteers at the museum they have been unable to locate the likely site of the pond. Metal detectors have also been used in the hope of finding the bracelet for the couple but it remains lost. Continuing to make the long car journey from Surrey back to Carew Cheriton where their wartime romance began shows how much the bracelet means to the 90 year-old couple.
