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My father died suddenly in 1971 (aged 51)but he never tired of telling me how he came to meet my mother following his evacuation from Dunkirk in the summer of 1940. The details of this love story have blurred with time. My father & mother's story -
At 19 & an apprentice electrician in Chelmsford, Essex Ken was already in the TA when war was proclaimed in September 1939 & he was immediately called up with his apprenticeship put on hold. Meanwhile my mother - Margaret (Peggy)was quietly nursing in her native north Yorkshire not quite unaffected by the war as the isolation unit she was night nurse at was 'hit' by an incendiary device and matron at the main hospital feared the worse - luckily the 'bomb' had landed againt a brick wall, those in the unit were totally unaware of the fire - but I have side tracked myself. Ken never spoke of the horrors that lead him to reach the beaches at Dunkirk (well not to me). His story always started when he was evacuated by a small boat & on arrival in England the injured were assessed, depending on the severity of their injuries they were put onto trains. Ken's injury was a shattered hand & with other walking wounded was put on a train for North Yorkshire. Once on the train they had to hand over all their lice-ridden, smelly, bloody probably still damp uniforms - keeping only their personal papers & dog tags, everything else was used to stoke the steam train's boiler, as they travelled north. Ken was operated on and arrive on my mother's ward - egged on by fellow survivors my father asked the pretty nurse out. As walking wounded the soldiers were allowed to walk around the district often arriving at the local village pub for the occasional drink to aid their recovery. Family tradition stated that my mother resisted this advance but was won over and in 1942 they married. My father's shattered thumb had been set at a right angle & made firing a rifle impossible so he was assigned to the motor boats & inshore defences (he never did learn to swim).
My mother left nursing as a 1940's nurse had only 1.5 days off a month (she hardly ever saw my father)nad she went to work at the ICI plant in Middlesbrough on the top secret 'synthetic' rubber project. In 1946, upon his discharge from the army my parents moved back to Chelmsford so that Ken could complete his electrician's apprenticeship. I arrived at the end of the 'bulge'into a happy family.

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