大象传媒

My Father, youngest of 3 brothers lived in the village of Edwalton in Notts before the War. He got very bored degending the beaches of East Anglia with only disguised telegraph poles for guns, and as an active restless man asked if he could do any other more worthwhile work. He was then allowed to join a new unit and studied maths to a higher level in order to go help develop radar in America. My mother already had one son, born in 1939, when my father left and was then expecting her 2nd child. She said she could hear in her mind my father's footsteps ringing out as he left her during the night, to go to catch the boat for America, during all the years he was away. But before he left, he said goodbye to his Mohter, telling her he was off to America. She in her country born innocence said 'Oh, you will be able to go and visit out relatives over there'. Oh no, said Dad, America is a vast country and I will be nearer to you than I will be to them.

My Granny was very fortunate as all her three sons came home safely, but as they were not supposed to tell where exactly they were going, it would have been very worrying - except for a strange co-incidence when she went to the cinema and saw her second son Harold embraking a ship for France - on the Pathe News! At a later date Harold was evacuated from Dunkirk. Later in the war he met up with his elder brother Eric, who was out in the desert regions and they almost managed Christmas lunch together except that harold was moved just before the day itself.

(Collected by SMC Museums)

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