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Immediately after my birth on the 6th March 1942 I was named Hilda after my Father’s sister and Edith after his Mother. My Mother gave birth in my Grandparents’ home, Station House, Alton. It was a huge, grey stone building with a magnificent garden. The only water supply was a pump in the garden and all cooking etc. was done on a primus stove. My Father, Raymond Willis was on his way to Singapore. His request to stay in this country until I was born had been refused. As the soldiers were travelling overseas to Singapore it fell to the Japanese so they were redirected to India.
As most young men of that time my Father was called up when he was twenty one. Initially he was sent to Aldershot and then to Yeovil. As he had been working in a wireless shop before the war started he was placed in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineering corp. He was then sent to the north of England for further training. One day my Father thought he heard his senior officer requesting volunteers to go to Brighton. He thought this was a bit silly as he had just been sent North, but was delighted to have an opportunity to return South. However, he was very surprised when they arrived at New Brighton in Cheshire. He didn’t have a clue where he was initially. I don’t think he had ever been out of Hampshire.
They were posted on the guns by the River Mersey to defend against invasion. So this is where he met his wife, Molly Furber. She was walking along the sea front with a friend and they were both chatted up by Dad and one of his mates. Their first date was for a cup of tea at the cafe in the New Brighton swimming baths where her Mother worked. My Mother worked for the football pools company, Littlewoods in Liverpool. My Father also had an unexpected visitor on Merseyside one afternoon. It was his brother in law, Jim Woolgar who was a sailor on HMS Barham which was anchored outside Liverpool. Dad collected a few beers for Jim and his mate which they drank sitting on the sands along the Mersey. He also paid Jim a return visit on the Barham before Jim’s departure. So my Father was the last member of the family to see him alive before he perished when the Barham was sunk by German gunfire. My parents were married in Wallasey in November 1940 and set off immediately for a brief honeymoon in Alton enduring a hazardous train journey through the Blitz and across London. They managed to climb into a taxi which was so crowded and dark that they weren’t sure whether they were both in it!
During his posting in India my Father became a Sergeant and radar expert. He was awarded several medals including the Burma Star. He said he could not believe it when he walked off the gang plank at Southampton Docks in August 1945. He had been away for over three years. He was very weak for some time and spent some time recovering in Chester Hospital.. We were so lucky that he survived the war. I had the chance to get to know my Father, unlike my cousins, Jimmy and Sheila Woolgar and many of my school friends.
My Mother stayed with my Father’s family for about a year after my birth. At one point she went to work at the bomb factory near Woking, but the thought of being killed by explosions at any time was too harrowing for her. Because she missed her family she decided to return to Wallasey where we lived with her Mother, brothers and sisters until my Father’s return. Mum found a job with the post office which entailed deliveries in the pitch black of early mornings. This must have taken a lot of courage. Another example of her plucky determination was when her brothers and sisters were evacuated to Wales soon after war had been declared and she suspected that the girls were being mistreated so she fetched them back home again.
My Father was born in June, 1918 and is now 85 yearsold. Sadly Mum died just after their 60th Wedding Anniversary so he’s been on his own almost three years. He is still fit enough to grow vegetables in the back garden and has learnt to cook since her death. Occasionally he says something in Indian which takes us and him by surprise. My parents had another daughter and son, four grandchildren and three great grandsons. I cannot remember my Father talking about the war when I was a young, but now it totally dominates his thinking and conversations. He often wonders what happened to some of the soldiers he served with.
These days, thanks to mobile phones, e-mail and the media folks at home are so much better informed about events concerning their loved ones involved in conflict in foreign countries. I cannot imagine how unbearable it must have been during the last two world wars when communication was so restricted. I think it is amazing that my parents were separated for so long, remained loyal and their marriage survived despite how they must have both changed during those years.

Hilda Phillips
Well Cottage
Cliddesden,Hants
RG25 2JD

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