Margaret Hope Flint was born in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire in 1915, the daughter of a doctor. But she hated the name Margaret and so was always called Hope. She studied medicine at Leeds Medical School but decided not to continue her studies when she got engaged to Paul Maltby Robinson a solicitor from Ilkeston, Derbyshire.
The couple married in 1936 and she gave birth to a daughter, Penny, in 1937. The family kept a comfortable house in Wharncliffe Road, Ilkeston, with help from their housekeeper, Becky Cooper.
Paul was an officer in a Territorial Army battalion, the 1/5th Sherwood Foresters. At outbreak of World War 2 in September 1939, he was immediately called up to his regiment and fought in the Battle of France in the Summer of 1940. He and his company was able to escape from France in June 1940.
From home, Hope sent Paul carbon-copies of her diaries, a record of the daily home-life that he missed, in particular the adventures of their growing young daughter. In 1942, Paul and the 1/5th Sherwood Foresters were sent to Singapore. Two weeks after their arrival, Singapore fell to the Japanese Army and Paul, along with 50,000 other British and Empire troops became Prisoners of War.
Although Hope could no longer send her carbon copies to him, she continued to write her diary.
The diary pages are a window onto life on the Ilkeston Home Front but, in the winter of 1944, they record something remarkable and unique: a series of events which led up to the publishing of a pamphlet which was to bring solace and hope to thousands of other POW families.
The pamphlet was shared, lent, borrowed and read avidly all across the country and sparked the writing of thousands of letters to Hope’s home in Ilkeston.
Over two thousand of these letters have survived to this day. they are from families who, like Hope, had loved-ones held in captivity in the Far East.
This web site tells of this remarkable woman and her decisions that led to this extraordinary collection of letters.
The site also celebrates the exhibition “Letters of Hope” held at Erewash Museum in Ilkeston from November 2019.