大象传媒

" This story was submitted to the people's war website by the 大象传媒 Peoples War Team in the East Midlands, with Ruth Thompson's permission. The Author fully understands the sites terms and conditions".

This story contains extracts of an interview with a member of the 大象传媒 People's War East Midlands Team.

鈥淢y husband was in the territorial, he was in the 2/5th Leicester鈥檚. There were known as the Tigers, because years ago they fought in India.

I lived in a London Suburb when the war broke out.

I remember it, because even though it was a Sunday, I was on my way to work, as I worked in the Hounds low Town Clarks office, in the department that dealt with Air Raid precautions.

We moved away from that part of the country, chiefly because the house that we lived in was requisitioned by the army, we didn鈥檛 realise that it had been a requisition from the First World War! It was a shock to be turned out at three weeks notice. We then went into temporary accommodation. My father was a solicitor, and he teamed up with another firm of solicitors from Ashford, Kent.

In Ashford Kent, I met my future husband.

The town was a Garrison town with all sorts of nationalities there. I was waiting for a fellow in the Odeon Caf茅 one evening for a date but he didn鈥檛 turn up. That was Ok in those days, you never really felt stood up because you knew that men might be called up at any time and at very short notice. I remember that the only snack that you could have was dried egg, so I finished that and was having a coffee.

At the other side of the caf茅, a fellow was looking at me, and he said, 鈥渃an I come and sit at your table?鈥�, Which he did. I realised that the caf茅 was going to shut soon, and being that it was a Garrison town, a girl would not be able to walk home on her own. She would get escorted whether she liked it or not. I had seen this chaps face in the light, so I let him escort me home. This was quite satisfactory, and also he did not kiss me on the doorstep, which I also thought was quite satisfactory. I thought that a kiss to was something that we treasured. He asked me what I was doing the next Sunday and it turns out that we went to the same Catholic Church.

We met that Sunday. Then we had a big snow storm in the town, and we went to play snowball. After that day, I had the flu. Dickie was stationed not far away, at a place called Wye, so he used to phone me up everyday. This started in January, and we became engaged in March 1942, and were married in August. On New Years Eve 1943, was the last time that we were together before he embarked for North Africa. He had actually been through Dunkirk before. We were writing to each other a lot, and I was working for the Kent County Constabulary.

In their infinite wisdom, they decided that they were not going to call me up for the armed forces, so they called me up to work in the local police station. This was quite a good experience. I moved away from Ashford, because I had the opportunity to go and work at Kent Headquarters in Maidstone. One morning a policeman came to the door with a telegram, to tell me that my husband was quite seriously injured. He did not offer much more information. So I thought to myself that I would have to take a day off work to let the family know, because they didn鈥檛 have things like a telephone there you see. Dickie had got a big head injury, whilst going through the leg of Italy, he had been with the 8th Army and he had been travelling along North Africa. I hadn鈥檛 received a letter from him, and I couldn鈥檛 think why; I had received a letter from one of his friends saying that he couldn鈥檛 write.

My husband was actually unconscious for over a month. I also got a letter from the war office that my husband was back in England. And so I thought that actually I want to go and see him. It seemed that the authorities didn鈥檛 want me to do that, but I wasn鈥檛 having that. I was told that he was in a hospital in Bristol, and they warned me that if I went there, I might not be able to find him because they were sending him to the head hospital in Oxford. So I said, if my husband wasn鈥檛 there at the hospital, I will just go wherever he is.

That was an American Hospital, and they had the best of everything there. He actually spent a birthday there, and the staff gave him a birthday party on the 17th January. I went and stayed there for a while, and then he went and got his discharge which was the 1st April1944.

The boys in hospital, used to wear blue suits, and you had to be kitted up to leave the hospital. They were not really on the ball, as all they would give him was a suit and boots. They would not give him a great coat even though it was snowing. But according to the army on the April 1st, no matter what was happening, this day was the first day of summer. I insisted that he had a great coat, because we had a long way to travel. There was only one through train, by the time that I had gone to the welfare officer and begged in for a coat, we had missed that train.

We had a difficult journey with so many changes, we were so exhausted. We got as far as Northampton. We decided that we would get off the train and get a Bed and Breakfast. The people who were expecting us would need to now that change of plan, he mother etc. So we had to ask the local police to let them know that we couldn鈥檛 make it and that we were due the next day.

It took us six years to have our first boy, and my husband said that we wanted him to be called Peter, as the surgeon who operated on him was called Peter鈥�.

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