A SERIES of post Second World War love letters from a married woman to her Polish sweetheart have been discovered in an outbuilding in Darlington.

Sheila DeBoos wrote letters to a man named Franck, or Franek, between October and December 1945 after he moved away from London, where he had been giving her chess lessons in the evenings.

Despite being newly married to airman William DeBoos in early 1945, Sheila speaks of her heart bleeding for her lover, and of thinking about him all the time.

Gerald Beer, of Bowman Street, Darlington, found the letters about ten years ago sticking out between floorboards in his outbuilding. He forgot about the letters until a few weeks ago when he was tidying up and found them again.

Since then his brother, Terry, has been researching Mrs DeBoos on family tree websites and found out more about the mysterious woman in the letters, who was so in love with her chess tutor.

However, little is known about Franck, not even his second name, why he kept the letters, and how they ended up under floorboards in Darlington. Sheila wrote the letters to him from Edinburgh, Lincolnshire – where she is understand to have been stationed at RAF Coningsby – and London, but he is believed to have been based in the Scottish Borders at that time.

The letters describe plans to meet up several times – and then on one occasion, her waiting for Franck all afternoon, but he did not arrive.

Around Christmas 1945 Sheila emigrated to Australia, and her last letter to Franck on December 20 talks of him hearing from his family in Poland, and she advises him to return to them.

The couple had said a personal goodbye to each other in Melrose just days before.

In one letter she describes her life as being “very dull and uneventful”, and then says: “I am very lonely in London and miss you very much.”

She then talks about thinking about their first kiss, but crosses this part out before saying: “Sometimes at night I cannot sleep for thinking about you.

“My heart bleeds so for you.

“I was thrilled to receive your photographs but of course you know I carry always your image in my heart.

“I have put them near my bed and every evening and morning I can say “goodnight” and “good morning my darling” to you.”

Mr Beer has discovered that Sheila, originally believed to be from Scotland, later sailed to Australia and is on the passenger lists of the Waiwera boat which went from Australia to London in December 1945.

Her marriage took place in the first three months of 1945, and she honeymooned in Stratford-on-Avon and in the Cotswolds, just months before the end of the war in August that year.

She is understood to have lived in Sydney and the wider New South Wales area and gone on to have a family with her husband William – known as Bill.

Mr Beer said: “I’d really like to find out more about this couple and how the letters ended up in Darlington. We’d love to know more about Franek, who he was, and what happened to him.

“I’m going to have another look under all the floorboards to see if I can find anything else. It’s a mystery but they obviously loved each other.”