As Dad didn't return from WW II our Mam became my hero 2026 4 13
He was an idealist: WW II against Hitler's Germany was his second war. He had wanted to fight for the Spanish against General Franko in 1938 the year my elder brother was born, when Alice our mother told him: That's alright Jim but don't come back here which, apparently, changed his mind.
In 1941 with his second son arrived already 26th November 1939 Hitler's war in Germany was different, for he volunteered as a Royal Marine Engineer/Commando, and was despatched to Scotland to build listening huts for the WRENS on the island of Bencula in the Outer Hebrides in 1943. This was shortly after our sister Marion was conceived, when his family of 3 visited him in Oban, in the January, to be born on leave in the October, on the 14th, when I accompanied him to visit his mother and sister in Fallowfield, Manchester where I was born.
From his letters home I still have in my possession, to a lesser or greater extent, after our mother edited some of them out, he died 4th August 1945 and thereby ending his family life of 7 years and approximately 9 months, since his eldest son was born 28th July 1938.
Subsequently when the War Office in Westminster, London advised our Mam that regrettably he had died of natural causes which meant she and her 3 young children would have to subsist with 7s 6d/week National Assistance money she was not of a mind to take this news lying down and so spent the next 2 years and 3 months fighting her own war against the British Establishment when she at last, with the help of a Mr Abbot of the now Royal British Legion, won her case against the Crown to be awarded a full War Widow's Pension (35s/week for herself and one child plus 2 x 11 s/week for each subsequent of two more children, making 57s or £2.17s, a sizeable increase from the miserly 7s6d first given as National Assistance, in point of fact to supplement her wages from going out weekdays for the rest of her life as an Embroideress).
Alice, our Mam fought many subsequent battles, fighting first one body after another, defending Jim's legacy against all comers.
One trivial example was when she accompanied me to a visit, aged 15 about to leave the Junior Technical School, to seek an introductory Job Card from Bury's Town Hall's Mr Jack's Office, the issuing officer, when he attempted to advise her "he liked to give these to Grammar or High School children" when she rebuked him with the words: "That's not your job but the job of the ppl conducting the interviews on behalf of the Companies requiring people!"
That I became in turn an O.N.C. and H.N.C. qualified Chemist, before going to University to qualify as a GradRIC (Graduate of the Royaal Institute of Chemistry) with the additional final letters, CSci CChem FRSC, after my name plus a 5 year term of Chairmanship and 2 year term of Presidency of an EU sponsored International Committee, selected by my peers, in a manner of speaking proving the soundness of her actions, Alice became my long term hero, (no longer termed heroine for the weaker sex)!
In 1941 with his second son arrived already 26th November 1939 Hitler's war in Germany was different, for he volunteered as a Royal Marine Engineer/Commando, and was despatched to Scotland to build listening huts for the WRENS on the island of Bencula in the Outer Hebrides in 1943. This was shortly after our sister Marion was conceived, when his family of 3 visited him in Oban, in the January, to be born on leave in the October, on the 14th, when I accompanied him to visit his mother and sister in Fallowfield, Manchester where I was born.
From his letters home I still have in my possession, to a lesser or greater extent, after our mother edited some of them out, he died 4th August 1945 and thereby ending his family life of 7 years and approximately 9 months, since his eldest son was born 28th July 1938.
Subsequently when the War Office in Westminster, London advised our Mam that regrettably he had died of natural causes which meant she and her 3 young children would have to subsist with 7s 6d/week National Assistance money she was not of a mind to take this news lying down and so spent the next 2 years and 3 months fighting her own war against the British Establishment when she at last, with the help of a Mr Abbot of the now Royal British Legion, won her case against the Crown to be awarded a full War Widow's Pension (35s/week for herself and one child plus 2 x 11 s/week for each subsequent of two more children, making 57s or £2.17s, a sizeable increase from the miserly 7s6d first given as National Assistance, in point of fact to supplement her wages from going out weekdays for the rest of her life as an Embroideress).
Alice, our Mam fought many subsequent battles, fighting first one body after another, defending Jim's legacy against all comers.
One trivial example was when she accompanied me to a visit, aged 15 about to leave the Junior Technical School, to seek an introductory Job Card from Bury's Town Hall's Mr Jack's Office, the issuing officer, when he attempted to advise her "he liked to give these to Grammar or High School children" when she rebuked him with the words: "That's not your job but the job of the ppl conducting the interviews on behalf of the Companies requiring people!"
That I became in turn an O.N.C. and H.N.C. qualified Chemist, before going to University to qualify as a GradRIC (Graduate of the Royaal Institute of Chemistry) with the additional final letters, CSci CChem FRSC, after my name plus a 5 year term of Chairmanship and 2 year term of Presidency of an EU sponsored International Committee, selected by my peers, in a manner of speaking proving the soundness of her actions, Alice became my long term hero, (no longer termed heroine for the weaker sex)!
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