大象传媒

THE DAY THE TELEGRAM CAME

I remember the day when the telegram came to tell us that Daddy had been killed. I was 6, almost 7, and it was Easter 1945 鈥� he was killed in the Reichswald Forest in Germany on Good Friday 1945, having gone all through the War from when he was called up in 1940.

What I mostly remember was my Mum鈥檚 distress. I was very close to her and couldn鈥檛 bear to see her so upset. I remember being in the front hallway 鈥� it must have been minutes after the telegram arrived 鈥� and saying something like 鈥淚鈥檓 really upset too鈥� and my Auntie Phyllis saying 鈥淚 should think you would be!鈥� but my Dad was not really real to me 鈥� he had been away for so long. And I have no clear memories from him 鈥� just a sense of excitement in the house which I think must have been the times when he came home on leave. The worst thing was that we were so near the end of the War and my Mum had found us a house in Palmers Green in North London and moved us back from Yorkshire to be ready for his return 鈥� it simply had not occurred to her that this could happen now.

I was the oldest 鈥� my brother John would have been coming up to 4 and my sister just 15 months old. We all suffered from the loss in different ways 鈥� John grew up in an all- female household and my sister grieved all her life for 鈥渢he father I never knew鈥� 鈥� she wrote those words in the memorial book at the Reichswald Forest War Cemetery when we visited on the 50th anniversary of his death. I was always desperately anxious that my Mum would not go too. I used to run home from junior school to check she was still alive.

I remember VE Day and the street party in Grenoble Gardens quite well 鈥� my Mum was in black and we had black armbands and it was not a happy day

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