大象传媒

This is an account of the events leading to the marriage of my mother, Gertrude Glenn of Magherafelt, Co. Londonderry, Northern Ireland in the fall of 1939. There are no family members alive today who can corroberate the facts as I write them down, so this story is from my memory to paper as best as I can recall from family accounts throughout my childhood.
My father, Samuel Black of Omagh, Co. Tyrone, Northern Ireland, was in Bermuda with the British Admiralty where he worked in communications. I do not know if he was commissioned by the Admiralty or if he was simply contracted by them. He went out there in early 1938, and prior to leaving, proposed to my mother who was a girl from a nearby town and whom he did not know especially well. Mother was older than dad, her birthdate being 1/11/11 and his 11/07/15. I suppose she considered herself a candidate for spinsterhood, but enjoyed a very full life, having graduated from Queens University in Belfast. She taught school and in her spare time, excelled at field hockey and tennis, two of her greatest passions. At 30, I suspect marriage and the prospects of sunny Bermuda held great promise and so during 1938, she planned and prepared her trousseau, furnishings etc. for the impending wedding set for September 1939.
As September approached, my grandmother became very anxious. The gathering clouds of war provided her the facts she needed to dissuade my mother from making the risky Atlantic voyage. But mother would not pay heed. She set out from Northern Ireland to Liverpool on the cross-channel steamer with all her worldly goods and with the fresh innocence and idealism of a happy bride-to-be. Dad had arranged passage for her on the Athenia, due to sail on September 3, 1939. Upon arrival in Liverpool, mother transferred her goods and furnishings from the steamer to the Athenia and prepared for the 11pm sailing.
According to our family story, the Athenia was to sail in a 'blackout' accompanied by an air and sea convoy. I have always reflected on the courage and fortitude of my mother and all the passengers on the Athenia that night. Mother was traveling to a new life and had no idea what Fate had in store for her future.
At 6pm, a knock on her cabin door brought the Purser with a telegram from Magherafelt. My grandmother wrote, "Emergency at home. Come at once." Communications being severely restricted that week due to the breakout of the war, mother could not simply call from the ship to her village to clarify the emergency and grandmother did not have a phone. The Athenia was due to sail in a few hours. A hasty plan took shape. Through the Purser, mother organized her furnishings and goods to be delivered to Samuel Black in Hamilton, Bermuda while she disembarked and made her way back to Northern Ireland that night. Her intention was to satisfy my grandmother's request, then take the next possible transportation to Bermuda to be married.
Upon arrival in Magherafelt the next morning, mother was advised by my grandmother that the Athenia was sunk by the Nazis and that everyone and everthing was lost at sea.
This fact has now been corrected by Ken Williams of Australia who informed me that there were many survivors of the Athenia and that they were taken to Galway. All these years, Ken Williams and I believed that all passengers were lost and only recently have we come to realize that this was not the case. I hope to learn more about the survivors and their stories.
When asked about the family emergency that called her home to Ireland at the 11th hour, my grandmother explained that it was 'fey'; that she had had no choice but to make the appeal because she knew instinctively that something untoward was about to happen.
Mother, though grateful, was undaunted and within the week had organized passage on a cargo vessel as one of about 12 passengers who made the reputedly wretched passage to Bermuda.
When the Athenia went down, dad initially thought the worst. Thankfully, he was advised via family and through the Admiralty communications that mother had not sailed on the ship. They were married in Bermuda on 9/20/39 and my family has a lovely photo of them both in white linen suits, standing in the famous Moongate at the old Bermudiana Hotel, which is now, I believe, the famous Princess Hotel in Hamilton.
These are the facts as I know them, gleaned from my parents during my young years and no doubt coloured by the romance and adventure of the times. The facts are supported by timely documents I have such as pay records, housing receipts, photographs of their days in Bermuda and other historical data. It is a captivating story about two people who began their life together at the beginning of WWII with a sense of courage and a spirit of adventure that remained with them throughout their lives.

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