大象传媒

During WW2 my late mother was a Cook in the Naffi. She was only in her Teens to her early 20's and she worked on many bases feeding the soldiers and airmen. She said that they called her Cookie. (Maybe all the cooks were called Cookie.) She would try her best in the canteen to make good home cooked foods for the 'lads'. I remember her saying that she was at Northhampton and she was at Dishforth; I wish now that I had taken more notice of her many stories.

She often told us of when she was suddenly posted to a secret camp in the countryside and was unable to tell her family and friends were she was in the country.

For 3 months she cooked for the 'lads'.
She was aware that something big was going to happen but she did not know what it was.

No one was allowed out of the camp but they became fed up of the loss of freedom. So some of the 'lads and lasses' began to sneak out through a gap in a fence and walk down to the nearby village Pub. It was pitch dark and they would have been in major trouble if found out.

One night she was nearly caught on her way back through the fence to the camp.

Then the order came and the 'lads' went off. She heared later that the operation was D Day.
Many times she thought of all those young men who she made meals for, joked with, and then watched them go off on combat duties.
It made her so sad throughout her life.

From 1938 and during WW2 my mother wrote to a young Coldstream Guard, Jim Gregory, who was posted to Pallistine at the same time as her brother Tom. Jim and Tom joined the Coldstream Guards for adventure but instead they were caught up in WW2 and fought all over the Middle East.

My mother became engaged by letter without ever meeting Jim. They swapped photo's (which I now have).
When he did return home they arranged to meet on a train station platform and she says that he was so tall, tanned and such a handsome Coldstream Guard that she knew he was the one for her. They married in March 1945 and went on to have 4 children. I am their daughter.

She and Dad however struggled to cope with married life. They had to manage through rationing; living 'in' with her parents; housing shortages; and poor wages; not to mention finally really getting to know each other.

Also my father, had been sent by the army to 'harden up to the English weather again' (on his return from the Middle East) by 'tatty picking' in the autumn weather!!! This left him very ill, painfully thin and frail with Double Pneomonia which took him years to fully recover from.
He later went to work in Coal Mining from around 1946.

Dad suffered nightmares from his time fighting in the Middle East. I can remember, as a child in the 50's and 60's, hearing my father screaming out with night terror's.
(Dads story is entered on this site too).

Mam and Dad lost their youth and struggled to cope in post war year's. They never had much. Dad said once that after the war all he wanted was peace and quiet. Mam thought him boring. I don't think that either really recovered from WW2. I feel now that their lives seemed 'spent' by 1945 and they only marked time after that.

Mam died 7 years ago this Christmas Day and Dad is in a care home since he has Dementia illness.
Do we, in the free world, really honour and care for those who gave up so much for us?? Do we value our freedom and the sacrifices that were made for us??

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