大象传媒

I was three years old when the war broke out. Not too many men in our village were called up as many of them worked on the land but my Dad, Reginald George Brundle, was a builder so he had to go. I so clearly remember the day he was called up. We lived down a short lane in Thorndon,a very small Suffolk village, and I remember screaming to my mother, Winifred Brundle, to put a hurdle across the lane so that Dad couldn't go, and the Army couldn't get him. Dad went to Crookham in Hampshire. Mum said that when he was enrolled into the Army he said that he couldn't stand the sight of blood and he was put into the Medical Corp. I clearly remember him coming home on embarkation leave, we had tea before he had to go away and I can remember to this day Dad crying at the table because he had to go. When he had to go back we all went to Haughley station to say goodbye, Mum was very very upset, the worst part was not knowing where Dad was going to, I can remember him saying to Mum 'I might only go to Ireland' in an effort I suppose to make it a bit easier for her. We found out after a time that he was in Nigeria, I had no idea at four years old where Nigeria was, but Mum said it was very very hot - she called it the 'white mans grave'. We wrote every week to Dad, I always drew a pigeon at the end of every letter to make sure it got safely to him - when he died in 1976 Mum found a letter with one on my pigeons in his wallet. He sent us coconuts from Nigeria with our address painted on the hard outside shell, and our neighbour Henry Andrews broke them open for us, he also sent some lovely very pretty silk materials which Mum had made into dresses for us - I assume these all came by post, goodness knows how long they took to arrive. A really big day for us was when Dad spoke to us from Lagos on Two Way Family Favourites, Mum and I sat close to the wireless on the sideboard so that we shouldn't miss a word - Mum had made sure we had a new accumulator in the wireless so that we didn't miss Dad. We lived in Suffolk surrounded by RAF and USA airodromes and got used to the planes flying over all the time. Mum made sure we didn't go without too much, she had an allotment and we used to go down there regularly and she grew many of our vegetables, I believe we also had hens for eggs. Strangely although I remember so clearly Dad going away I don't remember him coming home after the war - I was eight years old by then. We had had no word from Dad that he was coming home, but entirely by coincidence another man from our village came home (from somewhere else, not Nigeria) and saw Dad come down the gangplank from his ship I believe in Liverpool - I believe a ship called the Rangitiki or Rangitata. This man came home to our village before Dad and told Mum what he had seen, so Mum had a little notice that Dad was on his way - but as I say I cannot remember him actually arriving back home. The war to me - as a young child - was a very long period or worrying about Dad, where he was. what he was doing, and would he be alright. It was five long years without my Dad, I was so lucky to have had a Mum who looked after me so well, but wars like this which split up families for years on end are terrible, I didn't have my Dad for a very large part of my childhood and I feel very sad about that.

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