Love letters to Kim

Earlier this year, a letter arrived on our editor’s desk, written by a reader, Carol Flanagan, about her much-loved elderly neighbour, Kim, and her correspondence with servicemen during the Second World War. We were so moved by Kim’s love letters and Carol’s reflections we decided to share them in full.

- Carol Flanagan

I found the letters on the floor. I could easily have missed them, for the floor was deep in paper as though a burglar had visited (though a burglar might well have been more careful than the officers of the New South Wales Trustee and Guardian who were responsible for Kim’s affairs at the time).

They had sifted through the contents of her home with so much haste, or so little attention, that they had also missed an envelope full of cash, obviously Kim’s emergency funds, and Kim’s original advance care directive, both of which lay hidden amongst the years-old receipts and correspondence.

There was a dusty letter from Don Chipp, the former Liberal Cabinet Minister who had left Federal Parliament and founded a new political party, the Australian Democrats, in 1977.

Kim had evidently written to him and he had written back to thank her:

Dear Kim, What a beautiful person you must be …

He wasn’t wrong. Nor was he alone. Also consigned to the floor, were photos of Kim dining at a number of glamorous restaurants with a celebrated ABC newsreader of her time. She was exquisitely dressed in each. Her wardrobe was carefully stored in the front room of her Manly cottage – an entire clothes rack for long-sleeved silk blouses; another for sleeveless silk. She wore pearls and cashmere and kid gloves soft as satin. I only learned later that St Vincent de Paul was her boutique of choice.