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My father, Tom Cope, had to leave his teaching post at Josiah Mason鈥檚 Orphanage in Birmingham when he was called-up to join the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. I have some insight into his experiences through the letters, passed by the censor, which he sent to his sister Flora.

At one stage at the beginning of the war he was stationed in Scotland, where he became pianist for an entertainment group. They had hopes of remaining in Scotland to help maintain morale with their entertainment, but no such luck. They were posted overseas and my father joined the Cyprus Regiment and spent some time in Palestine and Egypt. He did not have much time to enjoy his music, although one Christmas he found himself playing organ in a church in Bethlehem.

He attained the rank of Captain and his most stressful time seems to have been while he was 鈥淎cting Major鈥� while waiting for a replacement for the Major who had returned to England.

One of the problems with which he had to deal was of thefts from the camp by local Arabs. 鈥淟ast night, in spite of our guard and Arab watchmen, some Arabs stripped the whole roof off a shed 鈥� corrugated sheets. No one heard anything! Tents have been known to go from round sleeping men.鈥�

The troops were allowed to send a short recorded message to their families. Sadly this small record, about three or four inches in diameter, was lost in a house move but I remember that the message for me was to 鈥渂e a good girlie for Daddy.鈥�

I have a very early memory of my mother with a bowl of hot water bathing horrible boils on his arms 鈥� a result of months of stress and poor diet.

As a result of the war and the bombing of Birmingham, my mother moved back to her home town of Bilston and so we lived with my Grandma, to whom I was very close and loved dearly.

Happily my father survived the war and was able to return to the teaching profession that he loved. An interesting comment in one of his letters towards the end of the war, referring to the fact that non-officer teachers would be out before officer teachers 鈥� 鈥淚t really is too bad and I thought the Labour government would have pushed for getting Education going properly again as fast as possible.鈥� In spite of wars, some things don鈥檛 change.

This story was submitted to the People's War Web Site by John Baines of the 大象传媒 Radio Shropshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of Jenny Johnson and has been added to the site with her permission. THe author fully understands the site's terms & conditions

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