WARTIME sweethearts Ron and Daphne Canning were able to keep in touch when thousands of miles apart thanks to a very early form of “social networking”.

Ron was farming with his uncle Sid in Deddington when war broke out.

This was a reserved occupation, meaning he was exempt from military service, but Ron forged a letter in his uncle’s name saying he was willing to release him and Ron was accepted by the RAF as a wireless operator.

Daphne Tucker was a London girl who also joined the RAF in 1942. She did her six months’ initial training as a high-speed Morse code operator at Compton Bassett Radio School in Wiltshire and then worked in London where she escaped, wearing just her pyjamas, when her digs were hit by a German V1 flying bomb.

Ron and Daphne met just before he was posted to the Far East, at RAF Chicksands, an outpost of Bletchley Park – home of the Enigma code-breakers.

Ron ended up working in the signal centre in Delhi, India, which contained a secret high-speed radio teleprinter, linked to RAF Chicksands.

In order to test the service and keep the line open, so that other units did not steal the frequency, continuous transmission was needed.

Ron recognised an opportunity and he and Daphne spent many hours talking, quite illegally, through the night, instead of running the transmission tape.