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This story was submitted to the People’s War Site by Three Counties Action, for Mark Barker, and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

MIRIAM CHAPMAN'S STORY. (EPILOGUE BY OLAF'S WIFE)

When Olaf joined the army and left home I felt I couldn't stay alone with the two babies. In 1940 it really was wartime Britain, what with fighting going on all over Europe and the Battle of Britain starting over here. So, I went to live with my parents in East Finchley.

Our little girls were very fortunate because I had a lovely mother and three lovely brothers, and they put the twins before everything. They'd give them a lot of their rations and always saw that the twins got any extras that were going. If I'd been on my own with our twins I think we would have had a very hard time. It wasn't easy, but we were happy, if you could call it that.

We were never bombed out, or evacuated into the country. During the blitz crowds of people used to shelter in the deep underground tube stations. I took the twins down Highgate Underground once. It was the deepest Underground in London, but it was horrible for children, dirty and smelly. I thought it was unhygienic. I wouldn't take them back down there! I'd rather risk the bombs.

In 1942 we were told that Olaf was missing after the fall of Singapore. Of course we hoped that he was a prisoner, but as the Japanese refused to divulge the names of their prisoners we were left, like thousands of others, not knowing if he was dead or alive and possibly wounded. I wrote to him - we used to write, his mother as well - as often as we could. We found out afterwards that the Japanese used to burn their letters in front them. They never got their Red Cross parcels either. The Japanese took all the medical stuff and everything.

The authorities said he was more than likely dead, so I should take a widow's pension. Well, several of us mothers - there was a group of us in Finchley - and several of them said we'd got to accept it, and I said 'I don't accept it. Olaf's not dead!' They said, 'How do you know?' and I said, 'I just know!' I wouldn't take the Widow's Pension. There were two or three of us who wouldn't take it. You can't accept these things.

It was three an a half years before we knew he was a Prisoner of War. Well, of course it was nearly the end then. Then we got one or two little cards —

'I AM WELL. HOPE YOU ARE WELL. LOVE, OLAF.'

It was nice to get them. When Olaf came home and knocked on the door I was out - probably getting something to make the dinner - I can't think what it was - whale meat perhaps - Oh no! That was horrible! We couldn't stomach that, we really couldn't. We tried all ways! I wasn't there when Olaf arrived, but the children were there. I don't know what their reaction was. It's all a blur to me. That's why I really didn't want to go back - I mean they were thirteen months old when he left, and then they were seven years old when he came home. Olaf was a stranger to them. They objected to Daddy. He was in my bed.

After the war it took a long, long time for Olaf to settle down. He lost all self confidence. If he came shopping with me he would sing as soon as he got in the shop - he still does it occasionally. He was never the same - never the same.

For years afterwards he had bouts of malaria, when you get all hot and wet, then cold. He used to get it quite often, for a long time. He was never the same man. Well, you could understand it couldn't you? It's so unnatural for a man to leave his home to go and fight another man. It's not natural, is it?

I think I was more disappointed in our government than anything, to think that these boys... Olaf volunteered, he wasn't made to go. He volunteered and he was older than a lot of them. He wouldn't have been called up for a long time, yet when they came back what thanks did he get? That's what upset us so much. We went all those years when he should have had a pension and the care that some of the other men had.

He went to the R.A.F. hospital in Ely at one time, to see if he'd got strongaloids, a horrible parasite, a worm. He stayed there for a week. A lot of people had them and there was no cure for them then. He had a lovely little flat there - a fridge full of beer! He was happy there - and they found out that he didn't have strongaloids after all.

I think they could have looked into his records and seen how he had suffered and should have given him a pension then. But Olaf's never been one to put himself forward. It was very difficult. Like lots of people at that time, you brought your children up; you didn't owe any money; you made sure that you paid what was due - and what was left you lived on. It wasn't easy, but I was able to make all their clothes, Olaf's shirts and the children's clothes.

It was our choice, although it wasn't our choice that we had five children. Olaf said we should make do with three, but I wanted four you see, like my mother had four, but instead of four we got five. We married in 1937 (things were different in those days you see) and the twins, Elizabeth and Sheila, were born in 1939. Then when Olaf came back Ray was born, in 1946. We were very fortunate to have Ray because they said more than likely these men would be sterile, so they wouldn't have children. But we confounded them, because eleven months after Olaf came back Ray was born.

And then I did want another baby - I love babies - and Olaf said no, we really had got enough. We didn't rely on anybody to pay for us to bring them up or anything like that. So, I pressurised him and we did have another one, but we got another one as well. We had twins, Collin and Debbie and never regretted it. I suppose I am biased, but our children have been wonderful, they really have been wonderful children. I mean they've got into mischief, but not like some do today...

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