Description
Object description
Ts memoir (63pp, written c.1995) covering his childhood in Birkenhead, anecdotes, getting to know watchmen working on the electrification of the neighbourhood, truancy as he went on ships in the docks, a brief evacuation to Oswestry (September 1939), being chosen by a well-off couple, hostility to the evacuees, returning home, bombing, air raid shelters, gas masks, being in a friend's house when a tree crashed through after being knocked over by a bomb blast, leaving school at 14, working in various jobs, including Joseph Lucas Ltd manufacturing electrical components for the aircraft industry, renting a room in Burnley, and looking after himself at 14, returning to his family now living outside Birkenhead, working as an apprentice carpenter with Brown Brothers, Wirral, joining the Army aged 17, infantry training in Scotland, Artillery training in Salisbury plain, joining a Field Artillery Battery attached to the 3rd Regiment Royal Horse Artillery (RHA) (7th Armoured Division), and 43rd Search Light Regiment, as a Driver / Wireless Operator, landing on Gold Beach at Arromanches on D-Day (6 June 1944), very brief details of the moving through North West Europe, whistling at a German girl near Horst, passing through Kiel to Berlin, taking over filthy barracks from Russian troops, returning to the UK, seeing begging Germans on the way, no triumphant welcome on his return, his unit being disbanded and guarding SS prisoners in Brussels, posting to Horst and tracking down the German girl, Paula Koll, again, details of her family, moving to Wilhelmshaven but going to Horst to see her, proposing to her and failing to circumnavigate the Army rules on marrying German citizens, his application being postponed but Paula falling pregnant, his parents' anger at him marrying a German, the birth of their daughter, Helen (December 1946), getting permission to marry and organising a wedding in Hamburg (August 1947), married quarters in Gluckstadt, being posted back to the UK and his family having to wait in a transit camp for clearance, the trouble trying to cut through red tape, his wife and child eventually moving in with his parents and brother, moving to Parkgate and expecting another child (1948), working at Storeton Railway Station, Wirral, then as a delivery driver, before joining the Atomic Energy plant at Capenhurst, moving to a glass plant in Harlow, Essex, hating the job and working again as a delivery driver, both his parents dying within ten days (December 1954), getting sick and losing his van, installing TV aerials, emigrating to Canada, flying out and working in a car dealership, then as a salesman in a bakery in Hamilton, Ontario, his family joining in May 1958, moving to a chemical plant owned by Cyanamid (December 1958), Paula dying from cancer, meeting and marrying Muriel, and joining their teenage families, and having another daughter (1971). Together with photocopies of nine pages of annotated photographs and postcards showing people and views of places mentioned in the memoir.
Content description
Ts memoir (63pp, written c.1995) covering his childhood in Birkenhead, anecdotes, getting to know watchmen working on the electrification of the neighbourhood, truancy as he went on ships in the docks, a brief evacuation to Oswestry (September 1939), being chosen by a well-off couple, hostility to the evacuees, returning home, bombing, air raid shelters, gas masks, being in a friend's house when a tree crashed through after being knocked over by a bomb blast, leaving school at 14, working in various jobs, including Joseph Lucas Ltd manufacturing electrical components for the aircraft industry, renting a room in Burnley, and looking after himself at 14, returning to his family now living outside Birkenhead, working as an apprentice carpenter with Brown Brothers, Wirral, joining the Army aged 17, infantry training in Scotland, Artillery training in Salisbury plain, joining a Field Artillery Battery attached to the 3rd Regiment Royal Horse Artillery (RHA) (7th Armoured Division), and 43rd Search Light Regiment, as a Driver / Wireless Operator, landing on Gold Beach at Arromanches on D-Day (6 June 1944), very brief details of the moving through North West Europe, whistling at a German girl near Horst, passing through Kiel to Berlin, taking over filthy barracks from Russian troops, returning to the UK, seeing begging Germans on the way, no triumphant welcome on his return, his unit being disbanded and guarding SS prisoners in Brussels, posting to Horst and tracking down the German girl, Paula Koll, again, details of her family, moving to Wilhelmshaven but going to Horst to see her, proposing to her and failing to circumnavigate the Army rules on marrying German citizens, his application being postponed but Paula falling pregnant, his parents' anger at him marrying a German, the birth of their daughter, Helen (December 1946), getting permission to marry and organising a wedding in Hamburg (August 1947), married quarters in Gluckstadt, being posted back to the UK and his family having to wait in a transit camp for clearance, the trouble trying to cut through red tape, his wife and child eventually moving in with his parents and brother, moving to Parkgate and expecting another child (1948), working at Storeton Railway Station, Wirral, then as a delivery driver, before joining the Atomic Energy plant at Capenhurst, moving to a glass plant in Harlow, Essex, hating the job and working again as a delivery driver, both his parents dying within ten days (December 1954), getting sick and losing his van, installing TV aerials, emigrating to Canada, flying out and working in a car dealership, then as a salesman in a bakery in Hamilton, Ontario, his family joining in May 1958, moving to a chemical plant owned by Cyanamid (December 1958), Paula dying from cancer, meeting and marrying Muriel, and joining their teenage families, and having another daughter (1971). Together with photocopies of nine pages of annotated photographs and postcards showing people and views of places mentioned in the memoir.
History note
Cataloguer SJO
