Defying barriers of family and convention, these postcards tell the extraordinary story of a love affair that, despite all expectations, would not be thwarted.

In 1900, aged twenty and travelling from Havana to Europe, Margarita Johnson met and fell in love with the dashing gold prospector Charles Lumb. Her father disapproved, and after three years of secret postcards, the couple eloped to London. Cut out of her father's will, Margarita was never welcomed again in Havana.

Margarita treasured her postcards from Charles, her family and friends, who wrote from England America and Europe. They remained with her until she died in 1959. Years later they were found by her granddaughter, tucked away in a cubby hole, and are here seen for the first time.