Three Family stories about World War II

Three Family Stories about World War II:

I am lucky to have some real memorabilia that was handed from my grandad to my dad as part of our family history. I shared it with my classmates in the past, but it is only now that I felt more curious about it. I called my grandad to gather more information about the medals, the photos, and the army books called "Soldier's Service and Pay Book" preciously kept in a box of memories downstairs in the back room.

Grandad Ian is my dad's dad, and he lives in Devon, and I normally speak to him on Sundays. I am very curious and have lots of questions for him, but he explains to me that people who went to the war did not normally want to talk about their experiences. My great-grandad Charles France was one of the British soldiers to go to fight in Germany. According to his book, he was enlisted as a Gunsmith Labourer on 2 July 1942. The details in the book surprised me. It detailed his height, weight, hair, eyes, and complexion colour and distinctive marks such as a mole on the left side of his stomach and another mole on his right shoulder. Luckily, they never needed to identify him. He was part of the tank crew and he survived. This was almost a miracle as the life expectancy of a tank crew was six weeks. Understandably, he never spoke too much about his experience in Germany, which had been traumatic. All we know is that tanks were very important in the Second World War as they became manoeuvre warfare assets. Life as a tank crew in WW2 was not easy. It was smelly, oily, noisy, and very hot inside the tanks - they were badly equipped and unreliable compared with the German tanks. Sleeping was hard and with no toilets in the tank, they had to come up with ideas to make going to the toilet as safe as possible. My great-grandad made it - he was a war hero. His wife also took part. She was a student nurse who enlisted at Plymouth on 7 March 1945. The handwriting on the books is hard to read but it details courses, exams, privilege leave times, inoculations, etc. She worked as a nurse and an ambulance driver during World War II, servicing around Cornwall. It is nice to see how important the role of women during the war was.

On my dad's mum's side, Grannie Mary had a very interesting story to tell. She could stay with her family in Bristol, but three of her siblings were evacuated to Australia. Two of them were sent to Perth and one ended up in Sydney. They lost contact for a few years but managed to get back in touch by letter and later, phone calls. Grannie Mary did not meet her younger sister, who was totally split off from the rest, until she was in her 70s. This was a sad story as they could not grow older together, but it brought opportunities to travel down under, and nobody was physically hurt due to the war.

The last story involves my house. We did not know that this house had been used to host evacuee children until I was born. My mum was on maternity leave when a 65-year-old man knocked at the door with his wife, asking if we still had "the pear tree" in the garden. Apparently, he had come to Hastings many times and always knocked at the door, but sadly nobody opened until that day. This man was once one of the evacuee children who lived in my house during WW2. He had very fond memories about his stay in Hastings. He explained that it was scary boarding the train from London Victoria with a big group of children, many of whom had never seen the sea. It was more dangerous in London, so his parents agreed to send them to Hastings. He was so happy to see the pear tree in the garden. He told my mum that he and his other three friends used to climb it and eat the pears at the end of the summer. He explained how the house was back then, and how they were never allowed downstairs. The kitchen was different, it was just an alley kitchen with a dining room next door, hence the partition line on the ceiling. He was very pleased to go downstairs to the semi-basement and never understood why that was forbidden territory during the war. This was a very interesting day and after that, my parents discovered many hidden features in the house as they started to renovate it.