It’s Remembrance Day today and I would like to remember my Mum.
After the Second World War, my Mum had a very difficult time. She had returned from Australia with my two brothers, George and John, to a very wet, rainy and cold Liverpool in June 1945.
From what I understand, there was very little support from the Government or the Army for Mum’s return. I believe she, first of all, went to South Wales to her relations. My brother George recounts the experience – they were put up by an Uncle and Aunt on a run-down farm near Abertridwr in a Welsh mining valley near Caerphilly. I haven’t got any recollections from John, but clearly, immediately after the ending of the war in 1945, before the war had formally ended, it was a very difficult time for Mum, on her own, with a husband still in a Japanese POW camp. They were only in Wales a few weeks, and they soon took a train to Granny’s place in West London at Hanworth, near Hounslow. Here we are in a completely different situation. I remember Granny in the early 1950s, she was a warm and friendly person, and I’m sure, she was very welcoming to Mum and my brothers in 1945. My brother George remembers life at Hanworth fondly. He recounts the story of his cousin Roddy, who was in the RAF during the war, taking him off canoeing on the River Thames at Isleworth, where the canoe was towed on a trolley by a bicycle. Both George and John went to school in Hounslow.
George had his eighth birthday as they came through the Panama Canal on the steamship Dominion Monarch. John was 11 as they arrived in England. Unfortunately, the army could not give Mum army quarters until my father had returned, even though it was known by then he was a survivor of the prisoner of war camp from at least September 1945.
Mum had had a very pleasant time in Australia, although it must have been very difficult for all of the wives who were evacuated there from places like Hong Kong with their concerns as to whether their husbands had survived or not during the conflict or imprisonment, but now the post-war reality was kicking in. Dad returned home to Southampton in November 1945. Ironically, on the same ship which my mother had come home on in June 1945, the Dominion Monarch docked at Southampton. My Dad, with other servicemen, mostly former POWs disembarked, but they couldn’t go home. Dad was billeted in a bed and breakfast house in Southampton. Mum said it was in a terrace of houses in of the suburbs of Southampton itself. Mum visited there, but she wasn’t allowed in the B&B accommodation. The landlady flatly refused to allow her to go in as men and women weren’t allowed to enter and share the house with a man, even though she was his wife! How terrible.
After five years of separation, Mum had to stand at the garden gate of this property to see my father. It must have been heartbreaking. By November 1945 the population of the UK had forgotten about the hero’s return. There was no hero’s return for my father at Southampton. It was a rainy, wet November day when he returned.
Eventually, at some point in early 1946, Dad was allocated army quarters in Aldershot at No 1 Nicholson Terrace, which was where I was born on the 9th of September 1946. The terrace is not here now. From the description which both my brother George and John gave it had an outside toilet, no bathroom, and I was bathed in a metal tub in front of the stove in the parlour, which passed for both a kitchen and a sitting room. Early in 1946 Dad was posted to Yorkshire for military training. He wasn’t a national serviceman, so his career would normally continue in the army. In their rather ironic wisdom, the Army authorities thought that these ex-POWs needed to get back into the discipline of the way in which the army worked. This training consisted of marching up and down on the parade ground. There was no psychological rehabilitation or any other help. It was just army drill, day after day. Some men became completely fed up with this. My brother, John, said that Dad simply just walked off the parade ground and went to the commanding officer’s offices and asked to be demobbed there and then.
Ultimately, this decision led to Dad and the family having to leave the army quarters in Aldershot and apply for housing with the local Aldershot Borough Council. That is how the family came to live at 111 Gloucester Road where I grew up.
Dad had quite a lot of money after the war because he had years of back pay. Unfortunately, he spent most of this money showering presents on his mother and on other relations in the family. This quickly left us with little or no funds. Very unwise, but also understandable, since he felt he was free and wanted to give to others whom he loved. However, this meant Mum, my brothers, and I had less money to live on, and those first years after the war were quite hard years. Dad applied for and got a job with the Post Office Engineering Department, but not as a manager or senior engineer, which was more or less his rank in the army, but as a labourer. In the winter of 1947, he was in almost in a worse situation than he was as a POW. The winter of 1946–1947 was one of the harshest ones on record – freezing temperatures and massive snowdrifts. The Post Office Engineers were trying to re-erect the overhead cables and wires that served both the local area and also served national communications. It was a disastrous winter. Dad was in freezing conditions and on the pay of a labourer.
By the time we get to 1948 and Gloucester Road, the family had very little income, but we had a house! Brother John worked every morning for Stays Dairy before he went to school, delivering milk through the streets of Aldershot. I fondly remember Mr. Stay and John calling in at the house on Saturdays for a nice, hot, steaming cup of tea during the milk round and sitting in our kitchen with a nice hot stove to warm them up. Outside, the milk float, which was pulled by a horse, was tethered to a tree and the horse munched hay from his nosebag.
When I was not quite four years old, John at 15, joined the Army Boy Service. His career is another story, but safe to say, this was a major boost to the family’s finances, because it was one less mouth to feed. The Army were going to feed and clothe John. Two years later, George joined the army. He joined the Army Apprenticeship Corps. As John left, the Aldershot Borough Council were encouraging families to take in lodgers to help with the family finances and give homeless people somewhere to live. We had Helen and David living with us for a number of years. This was a major help to Mum, who needed to go out to work to supplement the family income. Her friend Steve, ‘Auntie Steve’ to me, found her a job at Mrs. Brigham’s kitchen restaurant in North Camp Farnborough.
Both women worked there for many years. It was a tough thing working in that restaurant. The journey to and fro was time-consuming. Firstly, they had to walk from our house to a bus stop, which was about half a mile away from the Heron pub. They then got the No 24 bus into Aldershot bus station, where they changed buses for North Camp. So, the return journey was the same – an extended day after being on her feet all day at the cafe. Auntie Steve worked in the kitchen, and Mum was a waitress. Auntie Steve, later on in life, died of an ulcer in her leg. I put this down to standing up all day, every day, working in that kitchen. And Mum ended up with very serious varicose veins, and that I also put down to standing up all day. However, one can’t say this was all a horrible experience.
I can remember going to North Camp as a young boy being welcomed by the benign, rather large, round Mrs. Brigham. Although she’d been in England a long time, Mrs. Brigham still had that twang of a Dutch accent. Every time, I enjoyed a large plate full of food which Auntie Steve provided for me. It was a great cafe, and everybody was so friendly.
In those days, the cafe restaurant at North Camp was, like many others, providing breakfast, lunch and early dinner. This was quite common in those days. It provided wholesome English meals right throughout the day for soldiers, travelling salesmen, local people and workman. Mum worked there for many years, and thankfully, Helen was around to look after me as I came home from school. I called her Auntie Helen, which was the customary thing in those days. Mum did the early shift, so she was home by about 4pm but, my goodness me, wasn’t that hard work? Five days a week. Eventually, Mum was able to get a job as housekeeper for the Queen Alexander’s Royal Army Nursing Corps, in Aldershot. This was much better for her, and hours were shorter. She had a starting time of 6:30am every morning, she cleaned and made the beds for in the nurses’ hostel. She didn’t have to cook the meals, but I remember talking to one of the nurses there and saying that my Mum was heavenly, in the sense that if any of them had any troubles, they would come into the nice, warm kitchen that was Mum’s ‘HQ’, if you like, and she would sit there and have a cup of tea and talk over any problems the nurses had. She was very well liked in that job. Fortunately, after many, many years, Mum was able to retire with a pension.
Life did get easier as we went through the latter part of the 50s, but those early years were really tough for Mum. We didn’t have a washing machine or a fridge. Mum did all of the washing, including Dad’s dirty clothes from his labouring work outside on the Post Office gangs, with a boiler and a mangle to ring the clothes out. There were lots and lots of times I saw her working away in the kitchen or in the outside brick shed where the mangle was kept. The resulting effect of all this home laundry work was that we were always smartly turned out with beautifully ironed shirts and lovely crisp sheets to sleep in. Mum was tireless with her cooking at home. Sunday breakfast and dinners were a particular pleasure, especially if my brothers were at home on leave. In that tiny kitchen in Gloucester Road, we’d all sit round and have eggs, bacon. Dad would have just come in from the garden or the allotment. The stove in the corner would be hot and toasty to keep us warm in the winter, Mum would spend the whole of the morning on Sunday preparing a wonderful Sunday lunch. Her cooking was ‘par excellence’. There were quiet times mid-morning on a Sunday morning, when Auntie Steve would pop round and have a chat with Mum. Auntie Steve was a large busty woman. She always wore her apron cross-folded across her breasts, which accentuated their size. She would stand in the kitchen with her arms crossed, Mum talking to Mum in a quiet, consultative way. All I heard was, ‘oh yes’ or ‘well you never!’ every now and again. Mum would make Auntie Steve a milky coffee Mum would have a black coffee. She never took milk ever. It probably contributed to osteoporosis later on in life.
All in all, Gloucester Road was a very happy household, but by golly, Mum did work hard to hold things together. That’s not to say that my Dad didn’t do his fair share. He did work very hard. For instance, he even took on extra work around Christmas time, driving a lorry to take Christmas parcels to army camps in the area. This meant he not only worked in his free time leading up to Christmas, but also worked on many Christmas mornings in those early years after the war, delivering the last load of parcels.
Life did get better for both Mum and Dad. We eventually got a fridge, and we did get a television, but that wasn’t until the early 60s. Dad did get promotion, and he eventually did become a manager for the Post Office Engineering Department based at the area headquarters at Guildford.
Mum asked very little or nothing from life and gave much comfort and love to all of those around her.
Vic Ient 