- Contributed by听
- studiouschristineann
- People in story:听
- Charles Stanley Tozer, Vera Violet Tozer, Christine Ann Tozer, Anthony Robin Tozer, Alfred Henry Lock, Joceylin Lock nee Scaddan
- Location of story:听
- Portsmouth, Hampshire and Redhill, Surrey
- Background to story:听
- Army
- Article ID:听
- A6101506
- Contributed on:听
- 11 October 2005
When the war started my father, Charles Stanley Tozer was already in the Army based in Portsmouth with R.A.O.C. My mother Vera lived in rented rooms in Cosham with him and was very pregnant with me. I believe I was due to be born at the end of October, but Dad was moved almost immediately and Mum didn't know where he had been sent for a while.
Her sister Jo was living in Redhill, Surrey and as she and her husband Alf had a car they collected Mum to stay with them. Probably due to all this upheaval I was born early, on 6th October 1939. I think Dad did get to see me before he was sent to France.
From what Dad told me in later years, he was involved in evacuation from Dunkirk during which he drove, for the only time in his life.
My brother Tony was born in June 1941 while Mum and I were still living with her sister. Apparently the thought of another child in the house didn't go down well.
Dad was then sent to Egypt and was gone until after the war ended, so my brother and I didn't know him when he came home.
Dad stayed in the Army until 1951 and we lived in Clarence Barracks in Portsmouth until then. Tony and I attended the Garrison School nearby.
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