大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by a volunteer of the Stoke CSV Action Desk on behalf of Hilda Daley and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

My father was a very unassuming man and on his return he would never talk about the war and where he'd been!

I remember where the Bethesdaer church was in Hanley. The recuiting office was behind there and I went with him to sign up. These men were queuing up with him behind the chapel where they had to join up. He was given a rough, old looking uniform and a few days later they were all gone. I don't know where he went to.

I remember watching my dad walk up the street with a sausage kit bag and a tin hat and that was it!

He was nearly 40 when he went in and he had to work with 18 - 20 year olds.

I don't know if he was called up by initials as he was a B or if it was his occupation - all the other men in the office went to work at the Munitions factories at Radway Green and Swynnerton and they didn't have to go. Many younger men weren't called up because they went into reserved occupations.

We must have had letters, while he was away, because he used to save his chocolate ration and send it home. When it arrived it smelt of Blanco, a cleaning product used to clean their belts. I guess they didn't have much room to store things so when this chocolate got back we couldn't eat it because of the smell.

I don't remember seeing the letters, I only remember the chocolate. I would have been 8 when he went - that could be why I'm still a chocoholic.

I do know that he was driving petrol lorries through Belgium and Holland and that kind of thing. He didn't have a licence when he went and didn't have one when he came back. He must have told me that. When he didn't have a licence when he came back he tried to get one and didn't pass so didn't bother again. You would have thought that having to spend 5 years driving round Europe he would haved passed a test.

I remember going to see him in Dorking - he had some kind of operation whilst in the army - his gall bladder or something. We stayed near the hospital so we could visit him. He hadn't been out two weeks and he had to do all the PT and everything and the activity opened up the wound again - and he would have been 42 - 42. You would have thought he would be excused the activity. He didn't grumble or complain.

He was an ill man when he came back from the war, he had stomach ulcers and things like that - he was never ill before.

My father never told us anything about his exploits. My mother died within a few months of him coming home - maybe that's why we didn't know that much more.

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