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A LAWLESS LIFE!!

Pat Lawless, nee Hurley, was a small girl of three years old, living in Beirut, when war was declared in 1939. Her Dad was in a reserved job working for a company called Socony Vacuum which was involved in the oil industry.
Beirut became occupied by the Italians who were fighting on the side of the Germans in the early part of the war years. It was decided that Pat and her Mum should leave Beirut and try to get to Alexandria in Egypt. All the serviceable transport had been commandeered by the Italians, so the only way to leave was on the back of a very old lorry. No one knew if the vehicle was capable of making the journey but it was considered worth the risk to try.

Luckily Pat and her Mum did make it to Alexandria, but mean while things were getting pretty dangerous for her Dad. He had been instrumental in setting up a food supply chain to help all the Ex Patriots who were held prisoner on ships in the bay. Obviously, because of his job in the oil industry the Italians allowed him a certain amount of freedom as oil was a precious commodity to them, but by 1940 his personal safety was becoming compromised.
A local Arab Sheik offered to help him escape. The plan was to dress as a woman and to be transported with the rest of the Sheik’s wives in the harem car. The Arab underground movement helped him get to their first outpost, but from then on he was on his own and he eventually walked the rest of the way to Alexandria where he was re-united with Pat and her Mum.

Family life did not remain stable for long. Dad was still managing to work for Socony Vacuum but eventually Alexandria was badly bombed and again Pat and her Mum were evacuated to Cape Town in South Africa. The journey was by boat and by train and Pat remembers the train being halted so that the railway men could sweep the rails — a plague of locusts had settled on the ground and the railway lines and it was feared that the train would be derailed. The locusts had formed a thick carpet of squirming insects.

It was not until late 1942/early 1943 when Pat and her Mum were reunited with Dad again and by 1944 the family were living in Haifa in Palestine when the war ended.

During these war years Pat had attended a number of different schools - a Roman Catholic school (Loretta) in South Africa, a school for Ex Pats in Sudan and Mount Carmel High School for English Girls in Haifa. By the time the family returned to England in 1946, Pat was ten years old and her formal education had been decidedly patchy, so she was packed off to a Methodist boarding school to finish her education.

Pat eventually became a teacher and a priest. She went to Ghana to teach for a while and met her husband there. Officially Pat is now a retired priest but still does officiate at the odd wedding, funeral or service if a priest ill or on holiday.

Story told by Pat Lawless, nee Hurley.
Written and submitted by Paula Phillips.

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