A PENSIONER has been re-united with letters sent to her by her brother during the Second World War.

Captain John Oldfield, who spent three years as a POW in Italy and Germany, collected mementoes from fellow soldiers after his release, for safe-keeping at the regimental museum.

Among Capt Oldfield's own donations were letters he wrote to his sister at home in England, which have remained under lock and key until recently.

An exhibition about the captured men is on show at the Green Howard's Museum in Richmond, and Capt Oldfield's correspondence is among the items on display.

Although she is now in her late eighties, Jean Radcliffe made the long journey to Richmond from her home in Romsey, Hampshire, to read her brother's letters for the first time in 60 years.

Museum curator Major Roger Chapman said: "It was very moving to see Mrs Radcliffe reading the letters from her brother after such a long time. The Behind Barbed Wire exhibition shows the conditions Capt Oldfield and his fellow prisoners endured in the war, and Mrs Radcliffe was determined to visit it and see how the regiment remembers her brother."

After the war, Capt Oldfield rose to Brigadier with the Green Howards and served as Colonel of the regiment. He died in 1998.