In 2020, following the deaths of her parents, Phyllida Shrimpton and her sister found a trunk containing postwar RAF letters sent by her father Peter. These letters, that he had sent from Italy, Egypt, and Kenya while he was a serving officer, transformed Phyllida's understanding of her father - a man of few words.
They enabled her to discover a side of her father she hadn’t known existed - his letters are long and expressive and he wrote as a happy, passionate young man. The last dated letter discloses why he became a man with so little to say in the years that followed; accompanied by a telegram, the final letter reveals how a near fatal road accident and injury in Cairo ended his dreams and plans for the future.
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All of this revealed a side to her father she hadn’t known existed, strengthening her relationship to him from beyond the grave and inspired author Phyllida, 58, to write Every Shade of Happy.
The book celebrates intergenerational understanding and follows main protagonists 97-year-old Algernon and his 15-year-old granddaughter Anna.
The pair, inspired by Peter and Phyllida's daughter, gradually start to realise they may more in common than they initially realised.
Discovering these letters prompted Phyllida to write the book - and it gave her dad "a voice that we didn't know we had. We knew something existed, but it was a shock to find this trunk," Phyllida told the Mirror.
"He was quite closed off, he very difficult to have a conversation with I just kind of put it down to how a lot of older people don't want to talk about the war and all the rest of it.
"So we didn't grill him and he didn't volunteer it. We knew bits and pieces, obviously he was our father. But his passion for life became apparent in the letters, we just thought he was a grumpy old man.
"He kind of let my mum do everything, and I fed that into my book.He worked as an engineer, not a pilot
But he talks about his love of flying and the countries that he visited and how much he missed our mother while while he was away. We couldn't believe it."
Phyllida's father served in the RAF during the war - spending time at a US naval station in Pensacola, Florida, before becoming a pilot during the Second World War.
Towards the end of the war, he flew dignitaries around and carried on in the RAF afterwards - until a terrible accident took away this life.
He was travelling in a military truck that crashed with an Egyptian bus and he was impaled by a block of wood.
Doctors didn't expect him to live - but he did recover, and travelled back to the UK, as he exited the RAF.
Looking back now, Phyllida suspects her dad had PTSD - which wasn't hugely recognised then. "He left this life and dreams in the past. We think he had undiagnosed PTSD, we didn't realise that until we found this information.
"He had been a vibrant man with a passion for life before this accident, and he let it stop him in his tracks.
"We knew he had visible scars, but we didn't know about the emotional ones. And that's what I took from this - don't leave things too late.
"It's too easy to do."
"We found a telegram, warning that he was expected to die. I completely understand why he became a grumpy old man, but I wish he'd had an opportunity to transform - have some therapy maybe.
"There was a lot that we misunderstood about each other - and our relationship grew and blossomed from finding these letters. We have a great understanding of our family and each other.
"We now feel like we've been able to talk to him from the other side. I just wanted to honour him, and let him know I understood by writing my book. In writing this story I felt like I was letting him know that he could be part of the man that he wanted to be."
Phyllida Shrimpton's book Every Shade of Happy was published in hardback for £20 by Aria on August 18.
