// BBC UK NEWS — CRONACA
'My darling girl, you are everything to me' - auctioned letters reveal WWI love story
Gunner Willie Webber sent his new wife Gladys more than 100 letters from the Western Front over 10 months
Those words were written by Gunner Willie Webber to his wife Gladys from the battlefields of World War One.
The newly-weds, who were married at St Edward's Church in Knighton, Powys, in December 1917, had very little time together as Willie - a gunner with the Royal Garrison Artillery's 297th Siege Battery - was serving on the Western Front. He was killed just weeks before the Armistice in 1918.
More than a century later, Willie's letters have inspired an extraordinary act of remembrance by the community - thanks to the efforts of two strangers who refused to let the couple's love story be forgotten.
The inscription on the memorial bench at St Edward's Church in Knighton
The bundle of 100 letters, dated from December 1917 to October 1918, chart a love story unfolding against the backdrop of war.
After briefly returning home injured and marrying Gladys in late 1917, Willie went back to the front line in France.
He sent his new wife pressed flowers and affectionate messages, signing off: "Your own true hubby & loving sweetheart. Willie."
Willie wrote regularly and his letters are filled with hopes and dreams for the future.
Just four weeks before the Armistice, in October 1918, the young soldier was killed in an accident when his gun backfired. He was 25 years old.