This is what a stiff upper lip looks like

Hidden in an old cereal box, a cache of perfectly preserved letters from a British POW held during WWII in Italian and German camps:

‘I want to say, my darling [wife], there is no need for you to worry.

‘The shock of course was great, but I am not alone in this, as all of us are here. Please, darling, do not worry as all is well, and soon our day will come.’

It wasn’t, thank goodness, a Nazi death camp, but George King, who wasn’t overweight to begin with, managed to lose about 60 pounds during his four year long ordeal. Even at the end, though, he kept that stiff upper lip. Because the Germans stuck to the Geneva conventions for non-Jewish, non-Gypsy, non-priest, non-Communist POWs, King not only wrote letters, but received them too. Apparently a tiff with his wife was more than offset by the joy of D-Day, news of which had clearly filtered through to the prisoners:

‘As you may guess, I think about you so very much these days, and I think too of our happy day which is now in view,’ he wrote. ‘I suppose you are not quite so browned off now dear. What a wonderful day it will be.’