´óÏó´«Ã½

Wartime dances at Rushton Hall

Whilst in the Land Army I attended parties and dances at Rushton Hall, near Kettering, Northamptonshire, which was a British Army Officers training establishment. The British Officers invited the US Air Force personnel from the USA base in Harrington and a few other bases in the area to social events at the Hall. The work at Harrington was quite secret; I think they airlifted spies behind the enemy lines. The people working there were known as Carpet Baggers, I’m not too sure why!

One evening I met an American serviceman called Elmer and we struck up a friendship, it was one week before Christmas so I invited him to spend Christmas with my family in Kettering, we became good friends and he continued to visit my home. I thought he was coming to see me but after a while I discovered that he was actually coming to see my elder sister Betty.

Betty was married to Dick who had joined the Territorial Army before the war started and as he had TA training he was drafted right from the start of the war. He joined the Royal Norfolk Regiment and first of all went to a camp in Scotland. After that he went to Singapore was captured and imprisoned in the notorious Changi prison and for many years nothing was heard either from him or about him. He did eventually come home and I took Betty to meet him off the train, I can still see him, he was in a terrible state and very emaciated.

After a while Betty and Dick decided to divorce — I remember the day Betty told mother she was going to get divorced, at this time divorce was quite rare and mother fainted clean away on hearing the news! Betty went on to marry Elmer and Dick married her best friend, a romance we knew nothing about so it came as a bit of a surprise. Betty moved to live in Portland Oregon with Elmer her new husband and stayed there until 20 years ago when she returned to Kettering to live after Elmer died. Whilst in the USA Betty was a founder member of the Daughters of the British Empire, which was created to help war brides — many of whom had difficulty adjusting to a completely new country and a completely different way of life, often arrangements had to made to get them back to the UK. Had Betty stayed in America she would’ve been the National President of the Daughters of the British Empire.

This story was submitted to the People’s War website by Diana Wilkinson of the CSV Action Desk at ´óÏó´«Ã½ Hereford and Worcester and has been added to the site with Mrs Hakewill’s permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions

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