大象传媒

My father, Bertie Miller Logan, was simply not expecting my mother Jean to arrive in Kenya in 1942 - even though he had not seen her since shortly after their marriage in May 1939. His reaction was not at all what she expected, and became an often-quoted part of my family history, much to my father's embarrassment.

When war was declared in September 1939, my father was en route by ship back to his job in the Forestry Department of the Gold Coast - now Ghana in West Africa. He joined the Gold Coast Regiment and was posted to Kenya, based in Nairobi and serving also in Ethiopia.

My mother remained with her parents in England, working as a land girl, but in 1942 she somehow managed to get a passage by ship to Kenya via Cape Town. She could not, of course, let my father know that she was coming, let alone when she might arrive.

Eventually, two ships later, she landed in Mombasa on the Kenya coast. Somehow, she managed to ring the Regiment's base in Nairobi and asked for my father.

He picked up the phone, to hear a female voice say: "Darling, it's Jean."

"Jean who?" was his unforgettable response, at which my mother burst into tears.

However, all was duly forgiven, and the following year I was born in Nairobi. By early 1945, she was able to arrange to travel back to England with me via Cape Town.

It must have been a long and arduous voyage, a three-week journey, with the threat of submarines ever present. I was not yet two years old, but my mother said she never once left my side, day or night, lest something should happen to the ship. She must have been utterly exhausted when she arrived home in England.

The marriage survived the long initial separation - nearly three years - and all the dreadful uncertainties of war. It was a strong and happy marriage, only ending when my mother died in 1997 at the age of 85; my father died just two years ago, on Remembrance Sunday. The courage and loyalty of my parents to each other in their marriage in circumstances that my generation finds hard to imagine has always been a source of wonder and amazement to me.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.