George Clouston and his Family's Tragedies

George Clouston was born on the 31st of October 1917 and he was in the Royal Signals during the Second World War, he served in Sicily, Italy, and Africa. He spent the majority of his time with the cherry pickers (11th Hussars). He thought that the officers didn't consider their men very worthy. He didn't like the experience and he did not talk about it very much.George's family suffered a lot of personal tragedy during the war his daughter Ann relates:

"They lived in Laburnum Grove in Jarrow and his mother lived there and then she was a widow. Her eldest son John, my father's older brother, was killed during the war in Caen. Her daughter age 21 had just died with tuberculosis. So she decided to move from Jarrow and she went to West Wickham in Kent. The house that she'd moved to was bombed three weeks after she'd moved there and the only thing that was left standing were the gate posts. Her daughter, Doris, my father's sister, was killed and his youngest brother, Ronald, age 17, lost his leg. My grandmother survived all of that, was very deaf and used an ear trumpet, to hear better. She moved away from Jarrow because she thought that there was a lot of activity with bombing and obviously felt that it was going to be safer living in West Wickham, Kent. But what a tragic story."

"My mother was in the ATS, she did her recruit training at Fenham Barracks, Newcastle. My mam was posted to Whitby, she said that she made the soldiers happy and that's because she was the pay clerk!"

"They got married at St. Paul's, St. John's Church in Jarrow and got married in uniform during the war, which obviously saved a lot of money because things were on ration so it became difficult."

Audio and transcription attached