大象传媒

My grandmother, Gladys Van Halle, nee Alvin, originally from Yorkshire, had married a Belgian with an English mother and was living in Malo les Bains, her husband George, was in the shipbuilding industry.
When war broke out, she had my mother who was 8 years old and her son, only two weeks old. George wanted them to be safe and sent them back to the UK on the last Ferry to leave Dunkirk. He stayed beyind thinking he would be called up in the Belgian army. He never was. She had no news of him for nearly six years and when she returned at the end of the war, she did not know whether he was even alive. He had survived and as an engineer he was valuable to the Germans who had made him work for them in the ship building yards.

My grand mother's house in Malo was abandonned, the Germans lived in it and when she returned there was nothing left.

During the war she returned to her roots and worked in a nursing home in Pocklington in Yorkshire. She had to support herself and two young children.

My grandfather survived because he was an engineer and also because he spoke English. He told her of how they tried to sabotage the work they were doing but always had to tread a careful balance between working and not being seen as sabotaging - in order to stay alive.

My mother often told me of how devastated Dunkirk was when they returned. Their home was damaged and empty. The beach was still strewn with abandonned vehicles and the centre of the town was unrecognisable. Their house was still standing however and they were grateful for that. My grandfather also was still alive and they started a new life which ended three years later in 1949 when he died of meningitis.

Dunkirk remains part of my family history because my mother went out to work when her father died and she met my English father also in the shipping industry in Dunkirk. He eventually became the British Vice Consul and was present at all the events celebrating the evacuation. I was born in Dunkirk and attended many functions with my parents. I saw the veterans return year after year, the little ships filling the harbour, the generals, the warships which accompanied the little ships and heard many first hand accounts of the evacuation. Even as a child I realised the importance of Dunkirk - the irony of the success within a failure.

I now live in London, but I have taken my own children many times and told them about Dunkirk during the war as did my grandmother and my mother and father. They are now all dead and either buried in Dunkirk or have had
their ashes scattered there.

My father was Robert Phillips MBE.

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