Calcutta, Dec. 8 :    Calcutta, Dec. 8:  She, 73, a lonely widow in Corby, Northamptonshire, desperately seeking somebody she 'went to school with', or 'some cousins' back in Calcutta. He, 53, a father of two from Desborough, Northamptonshire, trying to put to rest a chapter of his past with a Calcutta connection he didn't know he had. And while he, her messenger, has found his peace - his uncle's grave at the Bhowanipore Cemetery - she may never pick up the pieces of a childhood long buried in colonial past. Born in Calcutta in 1927, 'Bunty', or Beulah Mary Burnett, lived with father Dr F.M.B. Burnett, mother, two sisters and brother at 47, Police Hospital Road. She was 'christened and confirmed at St James Church, Lower Circular Road'; educated at St James' College and at Pratt Memorial Girls School, 'next door'. She then married an Air Force man, stationed at Ballygunge, becoming Beulah Mary Stroud. The next year, they sailed to England on the S.S. Canton. That was 1946. Today, Bunty is leafing through the memories pressed between the pages of her mind. Two weeks ago, when she saw an article in The Evening Telegraph, about a man coming to Calcutta 'to find his roots', she saw a chance she just could not let pass. Tracking down Paul's phone number, Bunty gave him a call. Unable to reach him the first few times, she didn't give up. She finally caught up with him, and sent him a letter with her biographical details and photographs. Her messenger had a mission of his own. Paul M. Smith was travelling to Calcutta to lay a wreath on his uncle's grave. A grave that no one has visited since Alfred Smith came down with cholera and died in 1945, on the way to war in Burma. It has been an 'extremely emotional trip' for Paul, who arrived in the city last Sunday. 'I knew that I would not have the time to go door-to-door in search of Bunty's relatives, but I definitely want to help her,' Paul explained on Friday. 'She sounded like an ordinary, English housewife,' recalled Paul, 'a little lonely perhaps, and trying to find links with her past.' A public servant, who lives eight miles away, in Desborough, he has never met Bunty. 'She cannot come back to Calcutta to meet them, but she wanted me to pass on her address to her old friends so they could contact her, and visit her if they were ever in England.' This is not her first attempt to find old friends. 'I wrote to the Salvation Army, but it did not get me anywhere,' wrote Bunty. Paul fully appreciates the role 'luck' has to play to 'bring things together'. In 1996, while he was the head of the Public Health Department in Kettering, Northamptonshire, someone asked him how they could find out where a British soldier was buried. After he contacted the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, he 'decided to put them through a little test'. He threw out 'the most common name in England' - Smith - Alfred T. Smith. In response, what he heard 'nearly gave him a heart attack'. The Commission told him they had records of a man by that name and the next of kin listed were none other than Paul's grandparents! 'All we knew until then is that Al was buried somewhere in India,' said Paul. But the information from the Commission helped narrow it down. The Bhowanipore Cemetery, Calcutta, India, was where Alfred Smith was buried. After retiring from service last year, Paul had the time to piece together history. A member of the Rotary Club in Kettering, he got in touch with Rotarians in Bhowanipore. 'They sent a picture of the grave to my father. That's when I realised how much it would mean to my father if someone from the family would go and pay their respects.' That's exactly what he did soon after landing in Calcutta. 'I was overwhelmed... I cried... I wrote something in the visitor's book that I don't remember,' said Paul. Enjoying his week in Calcutta, meeting people, seeing the sights, 'or just walking on the Maidan watching the cricket', Paul is scheduled to return to England on Sunday. Happy at having 'completed something that needed to be done', he will get in touch with Bunty as soon as he is back. 'I just hope that I have some good news for her before Christmas.' For Bunty remembers it all. Her South African headmaster, known for amateur dramatics, the Robertson family, who lived in front of them, 'Merle, Horace, Charlie, Doris and Ronnie.' And of course, her 'schoolmate Sheila and her sister Cynthia... Her father was the history master at St James.' Later, 'nursing at Presidency General Hospital in 1945,' where she 'got malaria'. Then, 'the course in stenography at the YWCA on Park Street...'. Bunty's search for those who share her past is not a cursory one. As emotional as Paul was when he laid the 'silk wreath of poppies' on his uncle's grave, she wrote to him: 'I have tried to put into words what I wanted to get across to you. I only hope I have succeeded'.