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At the outbreak of the War in 1939 my father Moray Mair was in Naraingunge, in north-east India, working in the jute business for R. Sim and Co. He was also in the territorial army and had been so since at least 1936, and was very keen to join up in the regular army. In July 1940, he was finally accepted for officer training in Belgaum in the Bombay Presidency. His military training, which included Urdu language classes, lasted until late October 1940, when he was posted as a second lieutenant to the 2/2nd Punjab Regiment. In January 1941, he was posted to the Bhopal Sultania Infantry as a Special Service Officer (SSO). Now a captain, his monthly salary with allowances was 640 rupees, out of which he paid 35 rupees as a lodging allowance and 30 rupees to his batman. Apparently in war time, SSOs in the India Army played an advisory or supportive role only. However, in this battalion, they were exceptionally vested with executive authority at the insistence of the Nawab of Bhopal himself — the Nawab had raised the battalion at his own expense - for whom Moray had considerable respect. With this new posting, Moray was transferred to Southern India and from there he embarked for Egypt. Initial duties saw him guarding Italian prisoners of war but there were to be later periods when the battalion was simply undergoing training in preparation for its deployment against the enemy. At one time, Moray found himself as an instructor, when he had to fall back on his Urdu. Amongst other things, he was also for a time in charge of motor transport and had to train up drivers. By the end of 1941, he reported to his sister that he was 12st-12lbs, 2 stone lighter than he had been when he joined the army eighteen months before. However, life was certainly not all gloom and there are constant reports of bathing, dining, dancing, parties and sore heads.

During the whole of this period i.e. June1940 — March 1942, there is a reasonable record of Moray's military service through the letters he wrote to his sister, Peggy. After, March 1942, our sources for the remainder of Moray's wartime service are patchy. In January 1943, Moray was promoted to the rank of temporary major — at which rank he was to retire from military service at the end of the War - and his monthly income then rose by 425 to 1065 rupees. From anecdotal evidence, we know that apart from Egypt and the Sudan, he also seems to have served in Cyprus and was in the party of officers that accepted the surrender of Rhodes from the Germans. He also served in Italy.

It was in Egypt that Moray met his future Irish wife, Dorothy Kenny ("Billie"), then in the QAs. In fact, he appears to have fallen in love with her very shortly after reaching Egypt in mid-February 1941, as by 17th April, he was reporting to Peggy, that his battalion was on the move again and that he would "be leaving my Irish girl friend in the hospital next door — she's rather nice". For the next twelve months, as Moray moved around Egypt and spent time in the Sudan, Billie is mentioned in nearly every letter. In May, for example, he tells Peggy that he had taken her to Cairo where they "had a pretty hectic 24 hours including visiting the Pyramids by moonlight" ! From the Sudan in November 1941, he had this to say, "Sad parting from Billy. After this fracas is over, you'll see a lot of her, I hope. She doesn't agree with me but I say it is not fair to her to get married or even engaged with no immediate prospect of seeing each other again until the end of the war."

Billie had trained as a nurse in the Royal Infirmary in Manchester. Appointed a Staff Nurse in the Territorial Army Nursing Service in 1940, she embarked for service in the Middle East in June of that year as an officer in Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service. She was accompanied by her older sister, Jane, who was also a nursing officer. Billie saw initial service in Egypt, where she appears to have been at post in a hospital in Gineifa. In August 1942, she left Egypt and was posted initially to Zahle in the Lebanon before moving on to Aleppo in Syria. In March 1944, she embarked for Italy and remained there until returning to Britain in February 1945, where she served for a short time in the Royal Hospital in Bangor before being released from military service on 28 April 1946. Two days later, she and Moray married, and settled in Sligo, in the west of Ireland.

That, at least, is the bare bones of their story, filled out in some cases by letters that are still extant and that are also sometimes fascinating. But it’s very sketchy, and so if anybody reading this can add any further information that might help to cast more light on these experiences, it would be wonderful to hear from them.

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