James Longman is a foreign correspondent for ABC. He also happens to have an incredible family history. His grandparents love story is beautiful. It's a tale about long distance love through wartime, and the details seem made for Hollywood. The young lovers couldn't even speak the same language when they met. It's such an amazing tale that someone at a NZ National library decided to keep an old photo album and some letters in the archives. James had no idea until someone on Twitter showed him.
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He wanted to research it more, but was positive that work would keep him too busy. His job working for ABC meant he had to travel the world, sometimes at a moment's notice. Amazingly, he didn't have to wait very long before that job sent him to New Zealand. James was asked to cover Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan as they made their way through the country. He took the opportunity to visit that library and the things he found were kind of amazing.
Marc, the Twitter user who initially reached out, is the grandson of that friend/orderly we mentioned earlier. Several years ago, he was going through his grandfather's old letters, and took note of another friend mentioned repeatedly. The letters spoke so fondly of him that Marc had to know more. That young man was Major Harold Claridge, James's grandfather. It's amazing to think that these two wartime friends could bond so deeply that it would bring their grandsons together from across the world.
It did, and James ended up with a beautiful look into the past. He got to see images of his grandparents falling in love, a glimpse at parts of his mother's childhood that he had never known about, and more. His updates had people entranced.
The story is really making people smile.
We all need a story like this once in a while!
@jaketapoer/Bluesky
@BillAckman/Twitter