大象传媒

My name is Jenni Randall and I am a volunteer with the 大象传媒 WW2 People鈥檚 War Project. I wanted to record some of my memories as a child about the impact of the War on my family. Sadly both my parents are dead and I cannot record their version of these stories.

I was never in any doubt about the significance of the War to my father. When I was quite young he would take me to the War Memorial in Stanford-le-Hope, Essex on Remembrance Sunday. Later I would go on parade with the Guides. Every year he would stand at the Memorial and cry silently in a private grief that he could not find adequate words to explain at other times although he could talk for England on most other subjects. I knew then how huge this event had been in his life.

I discovered later in life that its influence had affected my mother too changing the whole pattern of her life. Before the outbreak of the war she had an ambition to train as a nurse. She obtained a place to train at a London Hospital and even had a date to report to the matron of the Hospital. After War was declared she found she could not take up her place as she was in a reserved occupation working for the Post Office. After she died I found the letter from the hospital telling her when to report for duty kept carefully in her bedside cabinet. It was together with the letters from my Dad written while on active service. After the war she could not become a nurse as she was married. So she never achieved her ambition to become a nurse and the war lost her the dream. She would have made such a good nurse.

The war made a fundamental change to my life too. My Dad was Roman Catholic and my Mother had changed her religion to marry. I would have been christened into the Catholic church had it not been for the local priest telling Dad that his friend Joe couldn鈥檛 be my godfather as he was not Catholic. My Dad and Joe had been through the war together and Dad was furious at this and as he said 鈥渢old the priest a thing or two about friendship and loyalty and then went down the road and joined the other side!鈥� So I was christened into the Church of England, Mum went back to her original church and how proud am I for Dad standing up for his mate. Not a bad lesson for a child growing up.

But Dad鈥檚 wounds were a tale that as a child I wanted to hear time and time again, and we all laughed every time. On reflection it was not a bit funny but very uncomfortable and embarrassing! Dad had been wounded arriving home on his front with his bottom sprinkled with shrapnel. He made a great joke of diving into a foxhole with his bottom being the last bit to take cover! I remember many a conversation about the splinters gradually working their way to the surface over the years...whether it all worked its way out I will never know!

The other well worn family story is best left as it is the tale of the black market activities of my Gran, who was a greengrocer in East London, and some very close encounters with the authorities!

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