Picture postcards are a window on the way we were and today we thank those who have sent in cards to help others - and remember the brave wartime firemen of Norwich.

Evening News readers have now raised �16,556.34p to help deaf children in Norwich and across Norfolk.

The money has been collected over the years thanks to you handing over your old picture postcards.

I pass them on to Michael and Sylvia Porter, who sell them to raise money for the Norfolk Deaf Children's Society.

Your cards alone made �215.56 at the Norfolk Postcard Club Fair at St Andrew's Hall in October and then another �132.58 at a more recent fair.

'Readers of your page in the Evening News have been very kind and generous.

'We really do appreciate all their support,' said Michael and Sylvia Porter, who have raised tens of thousands of pounds to buy a range of equipment to help deaf children in the city and county over the years.

But they couldn't do it without your support.

Just the other day someone, who didn't leave their name, came into our office with a huge number of old picture postcards which the Porters are now sorting through for their customers all over this country – and abroad.

Thank you again and please those cards coming in.

It doesn't matter if they are old or new and what the subject is – someone, somewhere will want them.

You can either drop them off at our Prospect House reception at the top of Rouen Road, or give me a call and I will arrange for them to be collected.

This collection of postcards illustrate how they were a window on our world when we were fighting for our lives and are precious memories (for Christine Pinfold) of a brave father with his colleagues in Norwich during the Second World War. His name was Fred Fox and he is featured in this collection of postcards taken and issued by Jerome Ltd. The idea was to highlight the brave work undertaken by members of the Auxiliary Fire Service who volunteered to become firefighters during the conflict. And they ended up risking their own lives – on the front line as the city burned during the 1942 blitz which claimed hundreds of lives and destroyed parts of Norwich. Fred worked at the big Steward & Patteson Pockthorpe Brewery as an engineer and the family lived at Paragon Place. The firemen had an impossible task trying to fight the fires which ripped the heart out of so many residential streets, often claiming the lives of whole families. We often overlook the work done by those on the home front – no-one will ever know how many lives they saved.