about my mother
With the approach of the annual Remembrance Sunday and having quite often written about my father and his mémoirs, I thought to create this post about my mother. Let's call her May, her second name and used by my father because she really disliked her first name, Gladys.
I've always loved this photo of her in a country lane near home at No 20, The Street, Claydon, a sleepy village in the county of Suffolk. She lived there with her parents and three brothers. I wonder where she was off to, dressed so elegantly, her beret at a jaunty angle. Nobody left to ask now....
May and Bert met as teenagers at school and were married in March 1941: Bert, already a conscript - Sept '39 aged 20 - wore his army uniform on the day; May was in traditional white with a large trailing bouquet of red carnations, the custom at the time.
Just 4 months after their wedding day, Bert was despatched to war, sailing on the New Zealand troopship, the Rangitiki, to the Middle East. May became a 'land girl' working in the Women's Land Army (WLA) on farms in her native Suffolk - and waiting for news. Looking at the photo, you can see her on the left in the first row at harvest time with her 'gang' wearing their dungarees and picking apples.
Of course May features in my dad's mémoirs but any communication between a wife at home and her husband in a PoW camp was spasmodic and limited. The last photo in my collage is one May sent to Bert. He, in his careful and methodical way, wrote on the back of the photo: Sent 21-2-43. Recd 1-7-43
Some time in June 1942, May received notification that Bert was missing and it must have been such a relief to her to learn 6 weeks later that he was alive, albeit in a PoW camp in Benghazi.
At last, in spring 1945, Bert returned home to May and their cottage in Paper Mill Lane, Claydon.
And the rest is history, some of it mine, I'm happy to say!
thank you for all your visits
about my mother
With the approach of the annual Remembrance Sunday and having quite often written about my father and his mémoirs, I thought to create this post about my mother. Let's call her May, her second name and used by my father because she really disliked her first name, Gladys.
I've always loved this photo of her in a country lane near home at No 20, The Street, Claydon, a sleepy village in the county of Suffolk. She lived there with her parents and three brothers. I wonder where she was off to, dressed so elegantly, her beret at a jaunty angle. Nobody left to ask now....
May and Bert met as teenagers at school and were married in March 1941: Bert, already a conscript - Sept '39 aged 20 - wore his army uniform on the day; May was in traditional white with a large trailing bouquet of red carnations, the custom at the time.
Just 4 months after their wedding day, Bert was despatched to war, sailing on the New Zealand troopship, the Rangitiki, to the Middle East. May became a 'land girl' working in the Women's Land Army (WLA) on farms in her native Suffolk - and waiting for news. Looking at the photo, you can see her on the left in the first row at harvest time with her 'gang' wearing their dungarees and picking apples.
Of course May features in my dad's mémoirs but any communication between a wife at home and her husband in a PoW camp was spasmodic and limited. The last photo in my collage is one May sent to Bert. He, in his careful and methodical way, wrote on the back of the photo: Sent 21-2-43. Recd 1-7-43
Some time in June 1942, May received notification that Bert was missing and it must have been such a relief to her to learn 6 weeks later that he was alive, albeit in a PoW camp in Benghazi.
At last, in spring 1945, Bert returned home to May and their cottage in Paper Mill Lane, Claydon.
And the rest is history, some of it mine, I'm happy to say!
thank you for all your visits