大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War Site by Joan Smith from Three Counties Action on Behalf of Rosemary Barrett, a visitor to the Bedfordshire County Show on 9th July 2005. It has been added to the site with her permission, and the author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was born in June 1939. My father was in the Royal Navy in submarines. He'd left when he married my mother but went back every year for two weeks' training. He should have been away on training when I was expected, but he stayed at home until I was born. He then went for training and was on a submarine in the North Sea when war was declared. The submarine didn't have the right code signals and they were torpedoed by a British ship, HMS Triton, on 19th September 1939 and my father died. It was perhaps kept quiet and only in the last few years has more information become available. My father's name is now on four war memorials in different places. He was the first war casualty from Luton where he had worked at Vauxhall. My brother was thirteen months old and I was nine weeks old when he died. My mother just got on with life and both my brother and I did well. There was no self-pity. It was only later in life that I realised how hard it had been for my mother at the time.

We had an Anderson shelter inside our house. Sometimes I was carried into a neighbour's shelter in a washing basket. I remember standing on London Road in Luton and watching a long stream of tanks go by. I was five when the war finished but I realised the effect of subconscious memories when on one occasion much later I saw searchlights and a strange feeling overwhelmed me.

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