The War Years
In September 1939 Neville Chamberlain announced that we were at war with Germany and Brixton Road no longer seemed a very safe place to live. My mother solved that problem by deciding to re-marry, a decision she lived to regret. Her second husband was a Mr Tom Laughton (known as “Old Pop”). He lived in Cambridge and was a widower friendly with some Cambridge people that my mother had got to know in the first world war. Pop was eccentric, selfish and a “varmint”. My mother’s life was very stormy until Pop had a stroke and died in our house at Barnehurst in 1947.
So my mother went to live in Cambridge (in Paradise Street of all the mis-named addresses !). But what of me? I was aged 17 and wanted to continue with my job at the County Hall (there were some nice boys there!). I had an Aunt (my mother’s sister) who lived with her husband (my father’s brother!) at Southgate, one of the northern outer suburbs of London and they offered to let me live with them. I then had a long journey by underground every day to reach the County Hall where I worked.
26th April 1940 was perhaps the most momentous day of my life. That evening I went to the office dance and got to know a brown eyed handsome chap named Eric Taylor. Eric was a wages clerk and every week paid me the 28 shillings that was my weekly salary. I’d had my eye on him for a long while and this was it. He offered to take me back to Southgate when the dance ended despite the blackout and possibility of bombs, so it seemed that he was rather taken with me too. We had stars in our eyes that summer but in October 1940 Eric was called up into the Army - the Royal Artillery, which was appropriate for a man born in Woolwich. For the rest of the war we had many poignant farewells and long periods of separation.
Eric and Grace
I was still living in Southgate with Auntie Florrie, Uncle Bert and my cousins Kath and Marjorie. Marjorie and I were close companions and playmates all through our childhood. We always dressed alike and pretended to be twins. Kath, four years older was called by us “the enemy” or “her”. But I wasn’t destined to live with them for much longer. One night a large bomb fell in Osidge Lane where I was living. The house opposite was totally consumed by fire and many lives were lost. It was terrifying. Fortunately, we were all protected by a Morrison’s table shelter under which we had dived at the outset of the air raid.
Shortly afterwards, with Eric away in the Army, I decided to go to Cambridge to live with my mother and Pop. The County Hall, Westminster didn’t seem to matter anymore. I managed to get a transfer to the Cambridgeshire County Council and in time became the County Accountant’s Cashier (how, I’ll never know!).
The war progressed and many more people got involved in it. If you were not registered in a reserved occupation you were liable to be called up either into the forces, the land army or into a munitions factory. I found a way of using the war to achieve and satisfy a lifelong ambition. I became a nurse. I joined the St John Ambulance Brigade firstly in a part time capacity, then in 1941, as a full- time nursing member working at the Gresham Road Cambridge Convalescent Home for Soldiers. In my “spare” time I took over the training of a St John’s cadet group, becoming cadet officer and later cadet superintendent. Life at Gresham is a story in itself. We nurses were all in our twenties and ready for any fun that was going. The patients were “getting better” and glad of all the companionship the nursing staff could give them. However, there was no “hanky-panky” - Matron saw to that. Matron was Welsh, had bright red hair, a fiery temper and kept chickens. This hobby was very unpopular with everyone as she used to brew up revolting pots of peelings and other kitchen rejects which gave Gresham a very unglamorous and unhospital-like smell!
My “buddy” during the Gresham years was a Red Cross nurse with the name June Mary Silver Frost or Frosty as she was usually called. Frosty always saw the funny side of any situation and she made us all laugh at a time when the horror of war news made life a serious business. A few years later, in 1949, when Eric and I had a daughter we gave her June as her second name and Frosty became her god-mother. Unfortunately, Frosty died some years ago (in 1995) whilst in the throes of an attack of asthma.
I worked at Gresham from March 1943 to July 1945 when the home closed soon after the end of the war. During this time Eric and I got married, but as the date depended on the course the war took, I must record Eric’s fortunes (and misfortunes!) during the war years.
Soon after Eric was called up in October 1940 he was posted to East Anglia (Southwold and Leiston) for training with the 902 Artillery Regiment. During this period (which lasted for about eighteen months) he used to hitch hike to Cambridge regularly to see me. In July 1942 he was sent to the Western Desert in North Africa where he, General Montgomery (Monty) and a few others fought and won the battle of El Alamein. From there our troops pushed Rommel and the German army back across Africa for about 2,000 miles until they reached Tunis in December 1943. Eric’s regiment then moved on to Sicily for a few months and took it from the Germans before coming home in early 1944.
It was the middle of the winter and during the war but we wanted to get married and on February 12th 1944 we did. We had a traditional white wedding. Because clothes were on coupons, I borrowed my wedding dress (three brides had worn it before me and three were to wear it after me!). For bridesmaids I had Eric’s half-sister Betty and two of my office friends from my Cambridgeshire County Council days. They all wore borrowed dresses (all different). We had my St John’s cadets (who I had trained in First Aid) to give us a guard of honour of splints. We were married at St Andrew-the-Great church which is right opposite Christ’s College in the centre of Cambridge and it was all wonderful. After the reception in the Dorothy cafĂ©, Eric and I went off for our honeymoon in Lyme Regis. The beach there was blocked off with huge rolls of barbed wire (anti invasion). The hotel though was full of spring flowers.
Eric and Grace’s
wedding in 1944
When we returned Eric looked terrible. He was ashen grey, haggard and ill. Everybody blamed me! But it wasn’t married life that was the cause of his condition, it was the anopheles mosquito. He was developing malaria which had been incubating inside him since his return from the mosquito ridden hot countries. There followed a period for him in Black Notley Military Hospital near Braintree, Essex (where I couldn’t get to see him because of its isolated position). However, a nice surprise was ahead. Later that spring a ripple of interest went around the staff of Gresham Convalescent Home. A new patient was about to be admitted - he was 1089894 L/Br Eric William Taylor. Someone had pulled a few strings!
6th June 1944 was a day that affected everyone’s life. It was D-Day - the day of the allied invasion of German held Western Europe. Eric’s regiment (now the 64th Medium Regt R.A.) went across to the Normandy beaches on D-Day itself but Eric wasn’t discharged for duty until D+6, when he crossed and landed at Arromanches. Another long period of separation for Eric and I followed whilst the allies pushed forward through France, Belgium, Holland and into Germany itself. At last on May 8th 1945, Germany surrendered unconditionally and VE day had arrived. It was with relief that we realised that there would be no more heart-rending partings on Cambridge station. Vera Lynn could stop singing “We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when”. Peace had returned to our lives.
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