My Family History

My mother's Uncle Arthur (aka 'Dick') after the war " Arthur is back from internment but we cannot convey to each other what the past years were like " (1946). The people who want to celebrate "victories" in wars are rarely those who fought in them - because those who do the actual fighting are left with the memories that they'd rather forget about what war is really like.  That was certainly true of my family, not least my Uncle Bert who fought through North Africa and Italy, and my Uncle Noel who did the same before also being parachuted into Greece in 1944. They both knew only too well what it's like to take part in modern warfare - and that's also why both said very little about what they had been through. My own Mum - who worked on the radar stations on the south coast looking out for the rockets that could be landing on her family back in London - also rarely discussed a war which had brought her too much grief and stress. It was only a...

I still have memories of the dull car rides we used to take across London in the 1970s to visit my Mum’s sister, Auntie Gwen Snelgrove, and their mother Eleanor, my grandma, in Ealing. I can remember we’d sometimes pass the spectacular old factories on the Great West Road and stop somewhere to buy some sweets and a packet of cigarettes for grandma – ‘Guards’ if I remember rightly.  I remember the house in Woodfield Road, W5, as being dark and old-fashioned. It had a garden that had a back gate out onto the road behind but not a lot to keep me and my sister entertained while the ‘grown-ups’ talked. One of the things we’d be given to play with would be a jar of old buttons – but that was apparently entertaining enough for a small child! Grandma would be in a wheelchair and her skin could look uncomfortable. I later found out she suffered badly from psoriasis. We sometimes bought her coal tar soap for Christmas. In turn, we’d be given a Xmas gift of a box of Harrods chocolates – incl...

My mother Eileen joined the Women's Land Army in June 1940. Her writings – public and private – give an insight into what life was like for a nineteen-year-old Londoner thrown into farm work in Somerset. An article by Eileen was carried in the December 1941 edition of "The Land Girl" Her article in "The Land Girl" painted a generally happy picture of her time but her later reminiscences revealed the loneliness of the city girl neither accepted by the farm workers or the farmers themselves – especially when she was placed on a farm in Street, where she commented “I worked for a bully”. I have put together the following from notes in an old exercise book that I found when clearing her house about her first month’s “training” in Erdington, Somerset: Everything was old and in need of repair at "Burnt House Farm". A disaster had struck it long ago and the present tenant, Mr Yatton, seemed content to include himself in the farm's ill fortune. Mild, ...

My Mum left a series of poems and prose about her wartime life.  In one album she writes, "my life as a mechanic is isolated. At RAF Pevensey in 1945, I am discovered by Jerry Ford".  Her poem says much more: Pevensey Blues An ignorant girl Stood in a swamp and stared. A black man on a bicycle saw the girl in the middle of the marsh and stopped. Hi! The girl believed she was invisible and did not hear. Hi! Nonchalant, admiring, he waited. Caltha palustris, shining, glabrous, held her in thrall. She learned words like this from a little book. She always carried a book to help her in her ignorance. She stared at the king-cup, golden-eyed, unwinking. Hi!      He approached. Being a polite sort of girl she went to enquire if  something was the matter And thus began a conversation. At Eastbourne, sprawled at ease on a bed of pebbles He potted seagulls Laughed uproariously when she remonstrated. At home, he said, they ate little birds, Killed them with stones, An...

Eileen’s brother, my Uncle Bert, joined the RAF, leaving Auntie Gwen to run the flower shop in West London. After initial training, Bert was told he wasn’t fit to fly but became a radio operator and was posted to North Africa. A chirpy Londoner, Bert sent a series of letters and cards as his units travelled across North Africa and then through Italy. 26/10/43 Rome June 1945 (Bert on left) Dear Eileen It's been a long time since I've been able to write to you but I expect the folk at home have given you news of my movements. I had an enjoyable time in Sicily attached to a Yank squadron and saw quite a bit of the East side of the island ... We were there when the first autumn rains fell, about three days of terrific thunderstorms and torrential rain. After this there was a fine period and the peasants started ploughing the ground that had been dry and cracked a week before. The ploughs are poor wooden efforts that merely scratch the top of the soil .....