大象传媒

My husband Douglas was serving in the Royal Navy as ground crew & was stationed at Seaforth, Liverpool. I was at home in Ipswich with my 2 yr old daughter Valerie. I received a telegram to say that Doug was very ill & on the danger list and that I should travel at once to the Isle of Man where he had been taken to hospital. My sister May looked after Valerie while I & my sister-in-law Sylvia went by train to Liverpool where we stayed overnight. Next day we got a ferry to I.O.M. I remember it was bitterly cold, we were so hungry that we bought custard tarts because that was all we could afford. We found a place to stay which I realised afterwards was run by ( shall we say ) ladies of the night. Sylvia was more worldly than me & said " We're not staying here, it's a brothel"!. We managed to find another place run by Gus & Ada Morris who became lifelong friends.
The journey across to I.O.M. was awful ,we were all seasick. On arrival at the hospital we found Dougie had pneumonia & was close to death. It was a very worrying time. Ada had 3 Naval men lodging as well as us and I was scared that they would come back drunk at night, so we kept in our room most of the time. When Dougie got a little better we went home, but he took a turn for the worst so I had to go a second time.I took Val with me this time & another sister of Doug , Eva. As soon as I sat Val on Doug's bed for him to see her, he seemed to perk up, and really , I feel that it gave him the will to live.
On the way home our luggage went missing. We didn't have much but there was a beautifully crocheted dress that Eva had made for Val, & I was most upset about that.We later read in the' News Of The World'that there had been gangs robbing the shipping lines at the Docks.
Although it was a traumatic time in my life, my sisters-in-law & I had some laughs along the way and Dougie pulled through O.K.

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