Thomas Paxton - The After Effects of War

Thomas "Tucker" Paxton lived at 342 South Frederick Street, South Shields. He was captured in the early stages of the war when he was in a tank that was blown up, resulting in a broken leg. He was sent first to Stalag 20B at Marienburg, Poland, then to Stalag 8A, just south of the town of Görlitz on the Polish border. He sent many letters from the POW camp to his parents.

When he returned from the war, his niece Lynn Wilson was told by her father: "He was very unsettled. He couldn't stay in one job. He couldn't settle into a job or a life. He got married quickly to a relative's sister-in-law. The marriage didn't last. He went to Canada to try and find work. He wasn't there long. He'd come back. He couldn't settle down into anything, but eventually he did. He moved to Hastings and worked in Hastings and stayed there and married again and settled down there and that was it. He never once spoke about the war, ever."

When he returned, he was extremely emaciated, and his mother died shortly after his return, which made it difficult for him to adjust to post-war life.

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