It has been said many times that a picture paints a thousand words and so it is with these few which eloquently detail the lives of my parents both during the 2nd World War and its immediate post war period.
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| Mother |
They also reveal how their lives converged due to their service to the country.
My father served in the Royal Navy mostly in minesweepers and here are his mother’s “next of kin” card and the amulet he wore during his war time service including his participation in the D-Day landings in June 1944.
My mother spent her war years in the centre of Chorlton close to several sites of the fatal bombing incidents of the Christmas Blitz of 1940 and of later raids.
In 1947 my mother, who at the time was working as a shorthand typist for a textile company in Manchester, answered the call for women to join the Land Army to make up the agricultural workforce depleted by casualties of war and continuing military service.
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| Dad |
She was sent to a farm near Preston, Lancashire were she was to meet my father who had, by then, been “de-mobbed” and was working for the soon to be nationalised British Railways.(1)
At this time the rail network was an essential service to the country as it battled to rebuild its economy.
This was particularly true at the time my parents first met as the winter of 1946/7 had been a particularly severe one.
© Tony Goulding, 2020
Pictures;
from the collection of Tony Goulding
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| Mother's ration card |
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| Land Army certificates |
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| Casualty Card |
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| Dad's amulet |
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| Dad's railway picture |
NOTES
1) The rail network comprising the 4 major companies London Midland (L.M.R.), London North Eastern (L.N.E.R.), Great Western (G.W.R.), and Southern (S.R.), together with several minor railways were nationalised on 1st January, 1948
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