SIR - I am trying to find out whether a woman officer I knew in the REME in the 1940s is still alive.

The Royal British Legion has advised me that having a mention put in the local paper is sometimes picked up by other newspapers and yields results.

I was a staff sergeant working with this officer on a gun site, and I must say we made a very good team. After a time I was moved to Scotland and later to Nigeria, where I ended the war.

My home was in Bromsgrove and my parents died there. I collected a lot of papers, but did not feel like sorting them at the time. More than 40 years later, I decided I must do a clear- out, and discovered an unopened letter from this officer. It would appear that it arrived in Bromsgrove after I had gone to Nigeria and my parents, who were then elderly, did not know how to send it on, kept it for my return and forgot all about it. It was a nice newsy letter and I feel she must have often wondered why she never had a reply.

I sent a letter to the present occupier of the address given, in Cheshire, who would have liked to be helpful but the house had changed hands several times in 60 odd years and nobody remembered the family.

E PRICE,

12 Coronation Road,

Malvern

WR14 1BA