Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Family Stories. This is the show written by you, our listeners.

Each week we go through all your correspondence and choose half a dozen stories to share with the rest of the We Have Ways community.

Sometimes these tales are extraordinary, recounting terrifying adventures in Europe or Africa or in the far east.

Sometimes they tell of the small details back home that all add up to the greatest narrative event of the 20th century.

We hope you enjoy this week's selection.

We start this week with something truly extraordinary. Mike Atkinson got in touch to tell us about his mother, Molly Fox, and her friendship with a young pre-war Douglas Bada.

I'll let Mike take up the tale. My mother, Molly Fox, used to go dancing with Douglas Bada when they were quite young.

She lived with her family at Hallbank in Barnsley, and her dad was the owner of a brewery.

I'm not sure how the family knew Douglas Bada, but he did aerobatics in his plane over Hallbank.

He gave Molly a photograph of himself, signed with love from Douglas, as well as his mother's gold locket with the word Ms. Par in Boston Cross it.

Ms. Par Jewelry was generally given to a loved one during a period of long separation such as military service. It was given as a forget me not.

In 1931, Douglas had his flying accident and lost both legs. He wrote to Molly's father from the hospital suggesting he might be looking for work if he was unable to fly again.

Here's the personal letter. Douglas wrote to my grandfather.

Dear sir, thank you very much for your letter, which was very welcome. I am afraid they have cut off both of my legs, but they have to do more than that to stop me flying.

If they will not let me fly, I am coming out of the RAF. I shall have to get someone to give me an opening in business and start again because I am only 21 and my brain is not too sluggish.

I think I could be alright in business if I can get the chance. I rather gather I shall be alright with artificial legs, as my left one has been cut off below the knee, leaving me the knee joint all right, the right is just above.

So I shall only want a very short piece on my left one. I have got to have another operation on my right stump, which is annoying, as I have just recovered from two amputations, and they are very painful operations.

I am no more of a coward than anyone else, but I don't particularly want any more pain.

However, I shall get over it all right. They gave up hope twice over me at the beginning and I beat them to it, so I am not losing now.

The two surgeons who saw me when I was brought in after the crash said that they could do nothing for me, it was hopeless.

Fortunately, the sister who was there took pity on me and fetched the senior surgeon, a Harley-Street man.

He put me on the table at once and removed my right leg, which was only on by a thread. Anyhow, he could not save it.

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