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As we approach the eleventh day of the eleventh month it is time to remember those who have gone before and who have given us sixty years of peace in Europe. For me, born six days after D Day, and for my children who were born in the 1970s, it has meant health and security. Not so for my father’s generation.

He was born on the 2nd May, 1921, the fourth of seven children, in small town Alberta. He and his family had to cope with the Depression years. Times were hard. The Dunphy boys would pick for coal on the local mine tips and if successful would have to haul their treasure the three quarters of a mile to their wooden home. Water was carried from the creek. As many vegetables and fruits were grown and stored during the short Canadian summers, for October brought the first snows of an extensive winter. Lighting was by oil lamp and at night you could hear the wolves crying as they approached the house, scavenging for food.

When my father, Hester Walter , was eleven they moved from the coal branch to the town of Edson, a settlement of 1233 souls. It had been built as late as 1911 at the end of track of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, before it got up enough steam to complete its journey through the Rockies and reach Vancouver and the ‘Great Ocean’.
Lumber and coal were Edson’s main interests. The Dunphy family was poor, living in rooms above the picture house. Father’s father, Frederick Leigh, suffered from poor health, having been badly gassed in the trenches in the first world war. He subsequently found it difficult to keep a job, for he was often ill.

With the outbreak of war Dad volunteered at the Edson recruiting office, but was turned away on no less than four occasions as he had bad varicose veins. Undeterred he got on a bus for Calgarry, a day’s ride away, rested his legs and was accepted at the city’s recruiting office. The date was the 6th April, 1940 and Dad was still 18. He had joined the 1st Battalion The Calgarry Highlanders, and was sent across Canada for training, to the huge tented Camp Shilo in Manitoba.

One of the original 923 men, Private M11678 Hester Walter Dunphy, sailed on the 27th August 1940, from Halifax on board the French liner, SS Pasteur. By the 3rd September the convoy was met by a large British flotilla. Later that night the alarms were sounded as men were ordered to their boat stations and as destroyers crisscrossed the surface, dropping depth charges. On the 4th the Pasteur anchored off Gourock and the men disembarked to board trains for Aldershot. Further training was to take place at Worth Priory and at East Grinstead.

For Christmas 1940 my maternal Grandparents, staunch Primitive Methodists, invited, despite the shortages, a soldier from far away into their home. From this meeting of Dorothy Wilkes, my mother, and the man from Alberta, romance was to blossom. They were married at Beckminster Methodist Church on the 6th September, 1941, my father having to get permission from his commanding officer, as he was still under 21. We were fortunate that he was not part of the ill fated Dieppe raid of August, 1942, for if he had been it is unlikely that either my elder brother, James [Jock], or I, would have entered this world. Late in 1943 Dad was shipped to Augusta in Sicily, where his battalion was attached to a tank regiment. He was to spend his next two years pushing north up through Italy, before being shipped from Livorno [Leghorn], for France, Belgium, Holland and Germany.

Being married with two small children he was returned to Britain in September, 1945. Subsequently he sailed for Canada and the family followed as soon as a berth was available. [Cunarder Scythia- bad weather ,ten day crossing].We were to spend seven or eight months in Canada, returning because of my maternal Grandmother’s failing health and the need for my mother to look after her.

Dad’s war was no different to that of hundreds of thousands of others and not as difficult as that of my uncle. Born a son of Poland, Antoni Nalborczyk, fought the Germans when they invaded in 1939, was subsequently forced to fight for the Germans against the Russians, was captured and sent to Siberia. He was eventually repatriated, joining the British for the North African campaign. After a full life and having raised four sons he lies at rest in Penn Churchyard, with a Polish eagle watching over him.

Dad gave up 5 1/2 years of his life for another country, with no guarantees of survival and with promised hardship. Hester and Dorothy had the faith to begin a family in the hope that he would return. His own father, a first world war veteran, had equal faith, when he wrote in the, ‘Messages for our troops overseas,-‘ I hope to be up and well and have the brass band out to meet you boys on your return home. Wishing you every success and a sure victory.’

We owe all, who fought for our freedom, a huge debt of gratitude.

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