大象传媒

I remember sitting on the kitchen table and looking around thinking what a large kitchen this is. The room looked big or even bigger than our two rooms put together that we had moved from.

Before I was born, my mother (to be) had been bombed out from her home. The house belonged to her parents. It was becoming dangerous to continue to live in London with all the bombing going on around them. With her job she was able to get a transfer to Shrewsbury. This was near to where my father was stationed with the RAF. The two top floor rooms she had found were far better to live in than risking her life staying in London. As a married woman my mother had been asked to return to work as a civil servant for the National Assistance Board.

I was not born in London, like my mother, or her parents, (my grandparents and great-grandparents from both sides) but at Shrewsbury in 1942. Then my brother was born fifteen months later than me in 1943. There was no father figure, but there must have been one somewhere, for us to have been born at this time.

My mother was finding motherhood difficult as a service wife on her own, caring for and carrying two small infants up and down the uneven stairs made from solid oak that led off from the ground floor of a greengrocery shop. The house was built in the Tudor period near the English Bridge which the River Severn flows under.

It was summer 1944 when we moved from our two rooms at 27 Wyle Cop Shrewsbury.
Where, we were both born, to our new address Fore Street Bakery Castle Cary Somerset leaving many friends my mother had made behind.

My father鈥檚 uncle Arthur, know as Mr Real, and his wife went to move into a smaller house. The house he bought was just past Squibb鈥檚 garage in Station Road making room for us three. My mother鈥檚 10 shillings (50p) weekly rent allowance from the RAF went a lot further than it did before. The house had a large garden and a yard with a black working water pump in it.

My great uncle and aunt were now our new landlords. They were a wonderful loving couple, who made a lot of fuss of me and I grew to be very fond of them. My great uncle was middle aged, and dressed in civvies, like most men of his age, not in uniform as the younger men were. He had served in the Boer War and I think in the Great World War.

One day my mother took the unusual step of giving my brother and me a wash and brush up after having had our dinner. All toys and books had to be put away, and the kitchen tidy. Now we were spick and span, she told us to sit on the laundry basket, which was opposite the door that led to outside, 鈥淎nd you will see Daddy. He is coming home.鈥� We waited. It seemed a very long wait.

As we were waiting my brother asked me, 鈥淲ho is Daddy?鈥� As his big sister I had to give him the impression that I knew every thing. But I didn鈥檛, so I walked across the kitchen to ask my mother, 鈥淲ho is he?鈥� She told me, 鈥淵ou remember Daddy.鈥� I asked her 鈥淲hy is he taking a long time coming?鈥� My mother told me he had to find somewhere to land his aeroplane.

Suddenly, the door flew open but we saw no aeroplane. He was dressed in a blue uniform. As I tried to wriggle off the large laundry basket to greet him he walked past us, as if we weren鈥檛 there, and headed towards my mother, who was ironing. They both stood close to each other. We stood watching them. I thought, 鈥淲hat are they doing?鈥� Their behaviour towards each other seemed odd, and it went on for a long time.

Eventually, they both came down to earth. He then noticed us, and came over and said 鈥淗ello you kids鈥�. I felt under valued at being ignored by him at this so called grand arrival we had been waiting for for so long.

I don鈥檛 know why but I wasn鈥檛 expecting him to wear uniform and I hadn鈥檛 remembered him from before. I was surprised he had no hair on his head (bald headed). I asked my mother 鈥淲hy does he have no hair?鈥� He heard me, and told me, 鈥淲hen your mother first came along she blew it off.鈥� My mother denied it. I was confused. Had my mother known Daddy from a long time ago?

He would come and go in and out of our young lives. Sometime when he would come home he would pick me up and throw me up in the air. I was always frightened of hitting my head against the ceiling and scared that he would miss catching me. He would repeat this a few times in the house we were now living in, with its high ceiling. I never liked it.

He was very impatient. I remember getting up out of my bed one morning and my mother told me to go down stairs. I did on my own. I was shocked to find him at home in our kitchen. My egg was already in an egg cup and I found it difficult to eat. All of a sudden, as I was eating my egg not out of a dish but from the shell, he shouted at me, telling me to hurry up. I looked at him in silence, and thought, 鈥淚t鈥檚 my Mummy who tells me to hurry up. Not you.鈥�

Daddy was home again! I can鈥檛 remember what it was all about but he became annoyed and was cross with me. He went on to tell me in a firm strong voice, 鈥淚 knew your mother before you did.鈥� I knew he was telling lies, as he had just come on the scene. I looked at my mother expecting her to tell him off for telling lies, but she didn鈥檛. Telling lies was not allowed in our house. It was sin. I felt disappointed that she had not supported me over this. I felt rules at home were being broken. Having him in our home was getting difficult.

I always knew when his leave came to an end and he would be going soon, because he would get my mother鈥檚 iron and ironing board out and plug her electric iron into the electric light adapter, with the ironing board below so the flex reached. He would do his ironing a bit differently from how my mother would do hers. He always found a piece of linen which he would make wet under the tap. The wet cloth he would then put over his uniform trousers which he would have already put on the ironing board and make steam come out of the hot iron. It looked dangerous to me, and I would get told off for yelling. Why would he need to do that before he went? Was it to frighten us?

My father would be standing up in his uniform with his narrow forage cap on his shiny head, making sure he had tucked the photo of my mother in his breast pocket, his long tall kit bag full to the top, with his RAF number marked down the side, and ready to go.

I never liked going to the station with him because I knew my pushchair would be folded up and I had to walk back with my mother, who would be pushing my younger brother in his pushchair. It was a long way for a two to three year old like me. My mother鈥檚 mood would change and she would get annoyed with me for not keeping up with her walking pace all the way home. Her legs were much longer than my little short ones. Crying most of the way back would make me thirsty.

My mother would give us her instructions as we stood on the station platform. 鈥淲ave to Daddy.鈥� He would be leaning out of the carriage window as the steam train pulled out of Castle Cary Railway Station waving back at us. I used to think 鈥淭hank goodness he鈥檚 gone. Our lives can now get back to normal.鈥�

鈥淏ut what was normal?鈥� I now ask sixty plus years later. I was three years old when the War actually ended. Lots of new things were happening as we were coming into peace time. My father was coming home it seemed more often and staying longer. I felt he was beginning to take over our house and life. We were not even allowed to join our mother in her bed when we woke up in the mornings.

He stopped wearing uniform, and it looked as if he was in Civvy Street as he was now wearing a new sports jacket and grey flannels (trousers). I felt he was beginning to get too settled with us. One day he had to go out, and while he was out I took the opportunity to ask my mother, 鈥淲hen is he going?鈥�

My mother was a little puzzled at my question and said; 鈥淲hat do you mean? 鈥榃hen is he going?鈥� Going where!鈥� she asked me. I was a little vague and said, 鈥淲ell. I don鈥檛 know, but where he goes to, to be with his aeroplanes.鈥� My mother then realised what I meant and told me 鈥淒addy is never going to leave us again.鈥� I thought, oh dear, I must try and get him to like me.

When war broke out my father (to be) was 25 years old and newly married, leaving his 19 year old bride behind, and we (his children) didn鈥檛 exist. When the war ended, he returned to his own ready made family.

My father was demobbed in 1946 a few weeks before my fourth Birthday. We had lived together as a family unit up until I left home 11 years later. I never came to the realisation until I was about fourteen years old that my father was an equal to my mother. I felt I had never bonded with him.

Written by K E Foulger (Mrs)

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