My dad died over thirty years ago, I was only 6 when he became ill so there were many things that I wish I had been able to ask him but didn't have time to. I knew that he had been in the army during the latter years of the war, I even had a few pictures from that time but I wished I knew more about what he did and where he went. It was just one of the many things that I thought I would never know. Then completely out of the blue I was contacted by someone who told me that during the war the Post Office in Northampton produced a monthly newsletter called Northampton News sharing letters home from post office workers in the forces or doing war work. My dad had been a Post Office messenger before going into the army and his letters home were among those published in Northampton News.
The newsletters have been made available as scans, it is hard to read some of them, but I have picked through them and found the ones showing letters from dad, they start in 1943 when he was 17 and go on to 1945. It is a little glimpse of his army service in his own words so it tells us much more than his service record would show.
"On receiving the 'News' yesterday with the first mail I have had for a few days, it woke me to the fact that beside not getting any mail I hadn't had much chance of writing. We have bags of work now with our lads advancing so fast and have very little time to ourselves. I am now in Germany although I am glad to say that much of my work takes me into Holland. It seems to me that there won't be much left of Germany to occupy after the bashing it's had. I thought Caen (Normandy) was bad but it is nothing compared with some German towns. In some towns there is not one civilian left and not a house standing. Not just one or two places like this, but town after town.
Yesterday I got into camp at 4 o'clock after a week on the road and took my truck into 'shops'. I collected it at 10.30pm. Then first thing this morning I was off again and this letter is being written in one of my few breaks on the road. That's keeping the wagon rolling isn't it?" (early 1945)
The editors of Northampton news must have made a very big difference to to all those people so far from home, but they could not possibly have known what a difference their hard work has made to me so many years later. They have given my dad a voice over thirty years after his death and they have made it possible for him to tell me about himself in his own words. I wish I could thank them, but of course it is far to late for that. I would like to thank David who realised the value of the old copies of Northampton News and not only took the time to scan them, but also made an effort to share them with relatives of the letter writers. It has helped me to understand my dad a little better and I think I have a better understanding of how worried my grandma must have felt. When he joined the army at 17 my dad was only a few months older than my son is now, that is scarily young, she must have been so frightened for him.
'Letters are among the most significant memorial a person can leave behind them.' Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Our holiday in Norfolk had been planned long before our recent woes and despite the huge black cloud of worry hanging over us we decided to go and make the most of the peace and freedom that we always find in Norfolk. These things never work out as planned and before we could pack and get ready for our holiday we had to address the pressing issues that were crowding into our week. Robbie had important deadlines to meet at work, but he also needed to see the GP urgently, and just to confuse matters further he had to take time out of a very busy week to deal with three totally intelligible letters sent by CMEC/CSA which no one dealing with his case could explain. They couldn’t even tell who had sent the letters or why, I in these days of austerity I can’t help wondering why a government agency would send out three different letters to the same person on the same day in three different envelopes and then waste hours of staff time responding to frantic phone calls from intelligent people who are totally baffled by the correspondence. What I wonder has happened to plain English and what on earth has happened to customer service?
Robbie arrived home from work at 11pm on Friday evening; I was tired, frustrated and still packing. Robbie was so tired that he was like a zombie and so challenging that if I hadn’t sent him upstairs to sort his clothes out I might have harmed him! It was heading towards 3am when I went to bed and Robbie was even later because he was dealing with final bits and bobs of work that had to be done before we could go on holiday. I knew that would fall asleep but I was too tired to wait for him, in the past Meg would have woken him up and sent him to bed when she got sick of his snoring, but now he had a stark choice, find his own way to bed or stay put.
The alarm woke us at 6am and ‘sleeping beauty’ reluctantly plodded off to make a cup of tea. Within half an hour I was up, washed, dressed and packing the car. I wanted to be on the road by 8am, but Robbie trotted around in a state of undress and showed a marked reluctance to get himself organised. He still had to finish off some bits and bobs at work and this was delayed further by computer problems. The clock ticked on, 8 o’clock came and went and by 10 o’clock a near naked Robbie was still messing around with work matters and I was finding it increasingly difficult to keep my temper. I finally chased him off to get ready and at 10.50am I went to sit in the car to wait for him, at least I could listen to the radio while I waited. At 11.30am he came out to announce that he was on his way before scuttling back in to do a few last minute jobs. At 12.OO I was parked outside Marks and Spencer’s waiting for Robbie to buy himself a coffee and a breakfast baguette. Then at long last we were on our way.
Considering the late start we had a reasonable journey and made good time. Before we had even left Northampton Robbie did his usual trick of squealing with delight at something that he had seen from the car. This time it was not a train, it was two traction engines in the car park of the rugby club, he was very disappointed that I refused to stop for him to take a closer look. One day he will cause an accident by shouting out like that. I got my own back on him later when I told him that I had caught him out in a bit of mischief (yet again), it is one of the few occasions that I can recall Robbie being completely speechless. He should know by now that I don’t miss much!
We arrived at about 3pm and began the exhausting process of unpacking and putting everything away. I was exhausted and all I really wanted to do was to make the bed and crawl into it, but suddenly we were thrown into panic mode – it seems I had forgotten to pack the coffee! Robbie was very good, he managed not to stamp his feet, but the arms were folded and the bottom lip was sticking out as if he was a sulky toddler. So, before the unpacking was completed we had to get back into the car and head for Tesco in order to find the correct brand of coffee. By then I was far too tired to contemplate cooking, in fact I wasn’t even sure I was awake enough to eat anything, but Robbie’s rumbling tummy led us to the fish and chip shop. I found that I was hungry after all and I managed to clear my plate before sleep finally caught up with me.
