My grandfather returning home for Christmas in 1945

This family story is about my auntie on my mother's side, Jill Martin, who was about 3-and-a-half years old at the time. During the war, my grandfather signed up in 1940 and joined the Royal Artillery. All of his time was spent in the tropics - Kenya and Burma, and I know that he departed from Bombay on 19 November 1945. He came home to 99 Kitchener Road, Strood, at Christmas 1945 and he didn't have to knock on the door as my grandmother heard his big kit bag drop on the floor outside. The story goes that they weren't going to be allowed home for Christmas, but my granddad was a Sergeant, and he became aware that there was a lot of unrest because they weren't being granted leave. Something happened and they were officially allowed to come home for Christmas.

In the morning, my Auntie Jill went into her mother's bedroom and found the man in her mother's bed. She didn't recognise her father because he was heavily tanned from spending time in the tropics, although she said goodnight to his photograph every night when she went to bed. My granddad sat up in bed and said hello. Jill was scared and hid behind the bedroom door. Her mother told Jill that it was her daddy, and she said, 'that's not my daddy - that's a black man'.

He brought lots of sweets home that he got in the NAAFI and asked one of the older children to get them from downstairs, which encouraged Jill to come out from behind the bedroom door. Granddad went back to his barracks after Christmas, before being demobbed in April 1946.