God Before Country

My father was an orphan. His father was a conscientious objector in the First World War and died from Spanish Flu when Dad was only 1 year old. He revered his father's memory and when the second war came along, even though he was in exempt employment, he registered as a conscientious objector. He was a Christadelphian like his father and as such could claim exemption. Christadelphians had gained this status during the American Civil War and this had gained official status in the first war.

When his well-paid engineering job as a machine tool fitter turned to involvement in the manufacture of bombs, he felt he could not continue and went before a tribunal where his case was accepted. He had to accept work as a boot repairer paying only 1/3 of his earnings as an engineer. He was contracted to repair army boots and squared his conscience by trying to make sure the boots were properly repaired.

To make ends meet my mother worked in the evenings when no one could see her. He wasn't demobbed until the early 50s and by that time didn't want to go back to engineering as he had become so used to working alongside Mum in the business they now owned.