Letter to Barry's Dad about Home Guard

This letter was sent to my Father-in-Law, James Garfield, and is very polite. This may be because he was working full-time as an electrician for the MOD, involving work at the Royal Radar Establishment, also fire-watching at the local railway station. He was also involved in the preparation of Madresfield Court in Malvern in case the Royal Family had to leave London to escape the invasion of Britain. (James' work in Malvern was I believe an Official Secret until relatively recently, so he would not have shared very much about it, even with his Son and Daughter).

It must have been a tough life to keep all these strands going at the same time. He did of course join the Home Guard.

James Garfield was born in 1918 and died in 2006. Unfortunately, I do not have much context for the letter, as we only found this after he died. My late husband Barry, and his sister, gave me some information from the stories they had been told. My Mother-in-law Rose was working at the Terry Springs factory in Redditch during the war, making parts for armaments.

Regarding my own family, My Dad, David Marsh, was still a boy during WW2 and was evacuated from Smethwick to Kidderminster! He and his friend used to cycle home at weekends. Unfortunately, my Grandad, George Marsh, was killed in Birmingham where he was fire-watching during the blitz. My Grandmother Florentacia (aka Floss), struggled to bring up two girls and a boy on her Widow's pension, and took in washing to make ends meet. She had another daughter, Joy, who was working as a nurse during the War at Birmingham General Hospital.