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In 1940 my father went away to serve in the army on the anti-aircraft guns in Africa, and was later transferred to the Medical Corps in India. I was only four at the time and I remember standing on the platform of Maidstone East and crying as he left on the train. We were living in Langley just outside of Maidstone.

I remember one afternoon after VJ day in 1946, I was sitting in the kitchen having a meal when the door opened and there was a stranger standing there in his uniform. We hadn’t seen each other in 6 years. My mother went to greet him but it didn’t register with me and it took a few minutes of explaining before I knew who he was. It was really really strange, and for a long time after that it felt like having a stranger in the house. We’d gotten so used to living together without him, just me and my mother who I was always reliant on, she even took me to work with her. I remembered feeling like I was the one who was suffering, with no sweets and things like that! But I realise now how hard it must have been for my parents, being so far apart and not knowing if the other would survive. It must have been a shock for my father as well, to see me having grown up so much in six years! My father had been away for the formative years of my life, and I’d been without a role model for all that time. Our relationship grew slowly over the next few years, and we got more used to doing things together, collecting wood and doing the housework for example. Years later he started taking me to football games in Gillingham, we had to catch the bus because we didn’t have a car, and then we even started going to the pub together.

At eighteen I left for my national service and was sent to Korea, but was called back because my father was dying. We only had eight years together, but I’m glad we had that time to get to know each other again.

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by James Barton from Westree Learning Centre and has been added to the website on behalf of Edward Smith with his/her permission and they fully understand the site’s terms and conditions.

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