Bill the Clerk

William Pedro Hand was born on 25^th September 1877 at 14 Woollacott Street in Oldham, Lancashire. Though he was born in the North of England he was not a northerner. Indeed, by April 1881 his family comprising his parents and older sister Marian Eliza Jane (known as "Jinnie"), had moved south to East Dulwich and were living 34 Constance Road. During the summer of that year, the family grew with the addition of a baby girl named Alice. This was followed by the arrival of two more sisters - Daisy in the autumn of 1883 and finally Mary in the spring of 1890. The family were catholic, yet his parents saw fit to have young Bill baptised on 12^th November 1882 in St John the Evangelist, East Dulwich, which was Church of England . In the years following his baptism the family moved and by the time of the next census on 5^th April 1891, they were living at 1 Lansdowne Place in Peckham and he was attending a local school. 

If the early years of his life seemed fairly uneventful, the years that followed were difficult and upsetting. It is likely that family life was adversely affected by the deterioration of his father’s mental health. As the only son, the onus would have been on him to earn as much money as possible once he left school in the summer of 1892. His older sister Jinnie was working as a domestic servant and would have also contributed to the family’s income. It is possible that with this money the family could have survived with only a minimum of financial help from the Poor Law authorities, however it would have been impossible for them to work and care for their father, especially as his illness worsened. 

Bill's father was admitted to the workhouse in the spring of 1899. Whilst there it would still have been possible for Bill and the rest of the family to visit him. However, it would not have been so easy once he had been transferred to Banstead Asylum for treatment. It was quite a distance to travel in those days. His father’s death from pneumonia on 31^st May 1899 would have been a terrible shock and at the age of just twenty one Bill became the man of the house.

The following year, the electoral records show the family had moved to 133 Peckham Park Road. They did not remain there for long and by the census on 31^st March 1901, Bill was living with his mother and three younger sisters at 53 Barkworth Road in South Bermondsey. The family were sharing the house with a second family which suggests they were struggling to make ends meet even though Bill, Alice and Daisy were working. At this time Bill was employed as a shorthand clerk, although it isn’t clear what industry he was working in. Both Alice and Daisy were employed as packers at a local baking powder factory which may have been Pearce Duff and Company located in Spa Road. The family had moved again by the following year and were residing at 21 Drummond Road, Bermondsey. They remained at this address until 1904. His youngest sister Mary died in August of that year and was laid to rest in Nunhead Cemetery in south east London.

Meeting Nellie Elizabeth Harris was the next big milestone in Bill’s life. Nellie, a domestic servant, was three years his junior and lived just around the corner from him. Just prior to their wedding, Nellie was living at 369 Rotherhithe New Road whereas Bill was at 42 Ilderton Road. They were married in a Roman Catholic ceremony at the Church of Our Lady of Seven Dolours, Lower Park Road, Peckham on 17^th June 1905. At the time of the wedding Bill was still employed as a clerk.

Our Lady of Sorrows formally the Capuchin Franciscan Church of Our Lady of Seven Dolours. Photo taken in 2014.

Two years after they were married their first child was born. Doris Ethel Hand was born on 23rd March 1907. This was followed by the birth of a son three year’s later. William Phillip Hand was born on 13^th June 1910. Having a family of his own would have eased the pain when his mother died at St Thomas's Hospital on 19^th February 1910. She was interred with his sister in Nunhead Cemetery on 24th February.

As 1910 became 1911 it seems that Bill’s career improved and by 2^nd April he was living with his wife and young family in the more prosperous environs of Twickenham. According to the census they were living at 14 Mary’s Terrace close to the railway station. He was still working as a clerk/shorthand typist and the proximity to the station suggests he was commuting to his workplace somewhere in central London. By 1913 the noise of the railway had become too much and they moved to a new address at 11 Prospect Crescent in the nearby village of Whitton. During Bill and Nellie’s time living in Whitton they had more children. Frederick was born during the hot summer of 1914, but sadly died in early 1917 of meningitis. Their youngest child, Charles, was born on 21^st August 1918.

War broke out in August 1914 and the following spring Bill enlisted with the army. His army medical took place in nearby Hounslow on 26th March 1915 and perhaps due to his age (he was 37 years old) and his diminutive stature (he was just over 5 foot tall), he was not given front line duties. Instead, he served in the Army Pay Corps and spent the duration of the war working as a clerk eventually attaining the rank of Lance Corporal. He was discharged shortly after the armistice on medical grounds due to chronic asthma.

Bill was a member of the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes. Known colloquially as "the Buffs", they are an organisation that raises money for charitable causes including, at this time, to supply ambulances to bring back wounded soldiers from the front. Bill was a Primo at the Whitton lodge and at a meeting held at the South Western Hotel on the evening of Tuesday 14th November 1916, he was awarded the Buffalo Knighthood for his long service with the lodge. The event was covered by the Middlesex Chronicle newspaper which was published the following Saturday.

Several years after the war ended Bill’s career took him north of the border and by 1924 he  and his family were living in Edinburgh at 41a Northfield Broadway close to Portobello and the beach. At the time of his daughter’s wedding to George Highley on 15th June 1932, they had moved the short distance to 9 Northfield Road and by the mid-thirties they had moved on to 35a Mountcastle Crescent on the same estate. He worked in Scotland right up until his retirement in 1937 when the family took the decision to move back down south. 

By 1938 the family were back in Whitton and were living at 38 Evelyn Road. He would have been present at the wedding when William married Constance Upson at St Peter & St Paul church in Ilford on 3^rd June 1939. Sadly, by 29th September 1939 his life had taken a turn for the worse. Bill's wife, Nellie, had been admitted to Springfield Mental Hospital in Wandsworth, perhaps bringing to the surface painful memories of his own father. He moved in with his sister Alice and her husband Jasper at 14 Sheridan Road in Bexleyheath, Kent along with his older sister Jinnie, who would have provided him with much-needed support.

The outbreak of war caused further ramifications for Bill and his family. His son Charles was called up and was posted to the Far East in 1941/42. Bill remained with his sister at at the same address implying that his wife was still undergoing treatment for her mental illness  In February 1942 Bill would have heard of Singapore’s surrender to the Japanese on the wireless and the news must have filled him with concern for his son. In May he received a postcard from him confirming the dreadful news that he had been taken as a prisoner of war.

If that wasn’t bad enough, his other son, who had been suffering from Crohn's disease, died on 10^th November leaving Connie a widow and a single mother of her 2 year old daughter, Maureen. Just 6 weeks later, on 28th December, his sister Alice died. Bill now found himself homeless, and with one son now dead and the other in captivity on the other side of the world, 1942 was a truly dreadful year.

Bill must have felt low. The loss of William was a cruel blow and he could do nothing to help Charles. He didn’t know where he was or even whether he was still alive. His catholic faith must have helped him through those dark days and given him the strength to carry on. He channelled his energies into helping his daughter-in-law and granddaughter and in 1943 Bill moved in with them at 40 Belmont Road, Ilford.

39-45 Belmont Road, Ilford taken in 1973

When his surviving son returned from the Far East in the autumn of 1945 it must have been an enormous relief. Charles’s return to England was to provide a neat solution to Connie and Maureen’s situation. It isn’t clear whether it was Bill’s, Charles’s or Connie’s idea for them to get together or whether Charles and Connie simply fell in love. What is certain is that on 29th March 1947 they were married in St Peter and St Paul church in Ilford and Charles became Maureen’s step father as well as her uncle.

After the wedding he moved in with Charles and Connie at their new address, 57 Benhurst Gardens, Selsden, Surrey. The electoral register shows he remained there for around 2 years. The most likely explanation for this extended stay is that his wife was still in Springfield Mental Hospital. She does not appear in the records again until 1951 when the electoral register shows them living together at 67 Hackford Road in Stockwell. 

By this time Bill was suffering from high blood pressure, which was no surprise given the stress the war years had brought and in early 1951 Bill suffered a brain haemorrhage and was rushed to St Thomas’s Hospital. Sadly he died on 19^th February. Probate was granted a month later and Charles received £327 14s from his late father's estate equating to roughly £10,500 in today's money.

Photo of my mum's baptism in 1948. Bill is second from the right.

 

John Robert Melton - Escaping the East End

John Robert Melton was born on the 16th June 1879 at 11 Ann Street, Ratcliff in London's East End. Known by the name Bob, his father worked a cook in a restaurant at the time of his birth. The census taken on the night of the 3rd April 1881 shows the young Bob still living at 11 Ann Street with his parents, older siblings Sarah Frances and George Frederick and his young aunt Eliza.

Bob was baptised on at St Paul’s church in Shadwell on 19^th January 1883. At the time, he and his family were living nearby at 25J Juniper Street, a newly-built tenement block for the “respectable” working class. This was home for the next five years. By 20^th November 1888, Bob had moved with his family to 263 Cable Street and was attending Lower Chapman Street school. The building still stands today and is being used as a mosque.

St Paul's church, Shadwell

Darul Ummah Mosque formally Lower Chapman Street school

Bythe time of the next census on 5th April 1891, Bob and his family were living at 245 Cable Street. His father is listed as a coffee tavern house keeper. Given the nature of local business in the area at the time, it seems likely that the house doubled up as the business premises with the front room providing a place for customers to sit. Bob's mother may have assisted by serving customers in between looking after Bob and his siblings. At this time Bob had an older brother (George) and four sisters. His older sister Sarah was aged sixteen and may have helped out by serving customers. George aged fourteen was working as a clerk at the council. Younger sisters Lily and Edith were at school and the youngest, Emily, was just two years old.

At the turn of the century Bob met a local girl named Charlotte Sherwood, who was the daughter of a dock labourer. Once it became apparent that she was pregnant, they had to get married. The wedding took place on 14th October 1900 at St Paul’s in Shadwell. At that time, the twenty-one year old Bob was working as a 'commercial clerk' and had moved from the family home in Tillman Street and was living in accommodation at 15 Drew's Buildings, 147-151 High Street, Shadwell. As the time of the birth drew closer the couple needed to find more suitable accommodation. In early 1901, they were able to move to 29 Belgrave Street, Stepney. Their son, Robert George Melton, was born shortly afterwards on 22^nd February 1901. Their new baby boy was baptised at St Dunstan and All Saints church in Stepney on 19^th March 1901.

Photo taken circa 1911. Back row: Robert George, William Stanley.
Front row: Edith Dorothy Florence, Charles Bernard,
Winifred Edith Lily

During the course of the following years, Bob and Charlotte moved between a number of addresses in the East End. Their second son, William Stanley, was born on 29^th October 1902. Baby William was baptised at St George-in-the-East on 19^th November 1902. At the time, John and his growing family were lodging with his sister, Sarah and her husbandAlbert at 53 Anthony Street, a street that ran south from Commercial Road just to the west of Watney Street. This was followed by the birth of Winnifred Edith Lily in Limehouse on 15^th January 1905. Little Win was baptised at St James’s church, Butcher Row, Ratcliff on 1^st February 1905. Between Win’s birth and her baptism, the family had moved to 220 Boundary Road, Barking. As the family was growing, Bob must have decided it would be better for them to move to Essex where the air was purer and the quality and size of the housing stock was better. On 4^th December 1907 their second daughter Edith Dorothy Florence was born. Two years later on 19^th March 1910 they had another baby boy named Bernard Charles. The census of 2nd April 1911 reveals that the family had moved to 59 Saxon Road, Ilford which was close to boundary with Barking. By this time Bob was working as a 'shipping clerk'.

Growing tensions overseas culminated in the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914. At the age of thirty-five, Bob would have been too old to volunteer for the regular army. Instead, he joined the 14th Battalion London Regiment which was a unit in the Territorial Army. It seems that while the younger men went to fight on the Western Front or other locations, Bob remained at home and was able to continue his civilian life working as a 'shipping clerk'. The family expanded further with the arrival of Kathleen Agnes Melton on 20^th July 1914 and another son, Arthur Sidney Melton, the following year. As stories of life in the trenches filtered through, he must have been nervous about the prospect of going overseas to fight one day.

That day arrived on 2^nd August 1917. He was summoned to Whitehall and enlisted with the Army’s 56^th (London) Division before being posted to the Western Front. He first saw action two weeks later at the Battle of Langemarck  (Inverness Copse and Glencourse Wood). This battle formed part of the more well-known Battle of Passchendaele which was also known as the Third Battle of Ypres. The battle’s objectives were reached, but a strong German counter-attack threw the London Division back to its original start line. Casualties were 111 officers and 2,794 men over a five day period in the line, most of them as a result of the attack on 16^th August. Following these operations the division withdrew from the line, and moved south to the Cambrai area, taking over trenches at Lagnicourt in early September. 

On the opening day of the Battle of Cambrai, 20^th November 1917, the division was involved in diversionary operations opposite Moeuvres, and two days later they attacked and captured Tadpole Copse and the Hindenburg Line near Moeuvres itself. Here they remained in reserve while the fighting for Bourlon Wood continued. During the German counter-attack, the positions held near Tadpole Copse were overrun and the division forced back towards the old British front line. Casualties at Cambrai were 211 killed, 1,046 wounded and 369 missing. 

After Cambrai the London Division moved to Arras, and took over the line between the Oppy and Gavrelle sectors.

In February 1918 Bob fell ill. His symptoms included headaches, skin rashes, inflamed eyes and leg pains. On 21^st February he was admitted to 42 Casualty Clearing Station, which at this time was situated close to the village of Aubigny in the Somme valley to the east of Amiens. He was diagnosed with ‘Trench Fever’ and his condition was considered serious enough for him to be transferred back to England on 6^th March, where he was admitted to the Birmingham War Hospital.

Bob spent almost three months in hospital. Though ‘Trench Fever’ was not life-threatening its symptoms could be unpleasant as well as debilitating. The patient would seem to recover only to relapse several days later. By 1917 it was one of the more common causes of illness in the trenches. The cause of the condition was not understood until 1918 and this could explain Bob’s extended stay in hospital. In 1918 the cause of ‘Trench Fever’ was identified as excretions from lice, affecting all trenches.  The disease was transmitted via the bites of body lice and was chiefly prevalent on the somewhat warmer Western and Italian Fronts. Lice were rife in the crowded and dirty conditions of the trenches.

On 1^st June 1918 Bob was considered well enough to be discharged from hospital. The army then sent him to Shoreham Camp on the south coast for training. He remained at the camp until October 1918 when he returned to duty with the Army Pay Corps. By this time the Allied forces had broken through the German lines and the First World War ended on 11^th November 1918 at 11am.

Fortunately for Bob, the ‘Trench Fever’ did not leave him with any serious health problems when he was demobilised from the army in 1919. However, he was still granted a disability pension on the grounds that he suffered from occasional rheumatism.

At the end of the war, Charlotte was pregnant again and on 19^th April 1919, Alan Douglas Melton was born. After the armistice life returned to normal and Bob returned to work as a ‘shipping clerk’. It is likely that he would have commuted into the city using the railway which passed through nearby Barking. At weekends he would have occasionally used Barking Station to take his family on outings to Southend. Bob and Charlotte's youngest son, Kenneth, was born on 10th January 1921.

Bob was keen on football and became the club trainer at Barking Town FC. He took on this role when the club was reformed after the war and remained there until at least 1938. During his period with the club they won plenty of silverware including the London League Premier Division (1920/21), London Senior Cup (1926/27) and President’s Cup (1937/38). The club played their home games at Vicarage Field which is now buried under the shopping centre that bears the same name.

1921 Barking Town FC London League Winners Div 1 also Ilford Hospital Shield beat Custom House FC 5-0 at West Ham
John Robert Melton is standing 3rd from the right with a scarf draped over his shoulder

In the twenties and thirties London County Council bought land to the east of Barking and at Becontree near Dagenham. London’s population was increasing and the people needed new places to live, away from the squalor and overcrowding of the East End slums. The area of land at Becontree was developed into the largest council estate in Europe. This massive public spending probably helped to soften the impact of the depression of 1929-1933. The development of the Becontree estate also resulted in the District Line being extended east to Upminster.

In 1934/35 Bob and his family moved to 136 Stratton Drive on Barking’s newly-built Leftley Estate. House prices started from £670 freehold with a £50 deposit. They were built with Crittall windows, roofs were boarded and tiled, and they had a bathroom with a separate lavatory – a luxury in those days. The house also had a relatively large garden which enabled Bob indulge his passion for gardening. By this time Bob had risen through the ranks of the shipping company where he worked and was now a departmental office manager.

Bob and Charlotte "Old Love"

The late thirties once again saw a rise in tensions overseas. Hitler became the chancellor of Germany and despite Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s peace summit with Hitler in 1938, Britain found herself at war in September 1939 when Germany reneged on her promise not to invade Poland.

The government immediately put in place measures such as the evacuation of children and the issue of gas masks, however very little actually happened following the declaration of war. This period became known as ’The Phoney War’.

‘The Phoney War’ came to an abrupt end in spring 1940 when Germany invaded the Low Countries and France. The British Expeditionary Force and the French Army were outflanked. Disaster was averted by the miraculous evacuation of British troops from Dunkirk, but with France under Nazi control, Britain was alone. It was only matter of time before Germany would attempt to invade England.

The Battle of Britain had now begun. German fighters attempted to gain control of the skies over South East England, but against the odds the Hurricanes and Spitfires of the Royal Air Force proved to be more than a match for the German aircraft.

On Saturday 7^th September 1940 West Ham United were playing Tottenham Hotspur at the Boleyn Ground. The Hammers were 4-1 up and on course for a famous victory. As the match drew to a close, the skies were darkened by hundreds of enemy aircraft approaching from the east. This day, which came to be known as ’Black Saturday’, was the first air raid that targeted London. The damage and loss of life was immense. The Luftwaffe had changed their tactics.

From ’Black Saturday’ until the 20^th November there were daily and nightly air raids. Bob and his family would have retreated to the Anderson Shelter in the back garden while the bombs fell around them. Though the majority of the bombs fell on the East End neighbourhoods closest to the docks, many fell in the Barking area.

As autumn turned to winter the air raids decreased in frequency and the worst appeared to be over. The air raids did not intensify again until early 1943 with the onset of the ‘Little Blitz’.

By 1944 there was a new menace: flying bombs known as ‘Doodlebugs’ or ‘Buzz Bombs’. These were V1 rockets launched from the Belgian or Dutch coast. Like other East Enders, Bob and Charlotte made the best of it and carried on with their lives. They knew they would be alright as long as they could hear the rocket’s engine as it passed overhead. If the buzzing noise stopped it meant that the rocket had expended its fuel supply and it was only a matter of time before it fell to earth and exploded.

As 1944 became 1945, London was subjected to an even more terrifying threat: the V2 rocket. This new weapon was silent and the first anybody knew about it was when they hit and devastated entire streets. Initially the Churchill government tried to cover up these attacks and would issue heavily censored photographs labelled by the caption ‘gas explosion’. Later, as London was subjected to more attacks, the restrictions were lifted. It is alleged that the government fed false information back to the Germans stating that the rockets were hitting to the west of their intended target, presumably as a means of protecting parliament and the royal family. Consequently it was the areas to the east and south-east that bore the brunt of both the V1 and V2 attacks.  At the time there was a large explosion over Mayesbrook Park  close to Bob and Charlotte’s house. This was attributed to a V2 rocket.

The war finally ended in August 1945 and once the celebrations were over, the enormous task of rebuilding London and re-housing the homeless began. By this time Bob had retired and could spend more time in the garden. In the post war years, he would have enjoyed relaxing and spending time with his wife and children who by now had their own children. They were a close family and his children and grandchildren all lived nearby.

In 1957 Bob became ill with stomach cancer and passed away on 21^st September. Bob’s son, Arthur, was present at his death. He lived through a period of enormous change and elevated the family from the privation of the Victorian East-End to the relative comfort of the middle-class Essex suburbs. Quite an achievement.

Emile Curmi - from Egypt to England

The following account of Emile's life draws heavily upon an email account written by Donald Curmi on 9th June 2003. Where applicable, I have added my own text which is based upon memories passed on from Antonia's mum, Gio and research conducted by me and by Antonia's cousin, John Auld.

Emile was born in Zagazig, Egypt on 31st May 1894. He was British by birth and never held any other nationality. His birth certificate below shows his name was actually registered as Emiglio. His father, Joseph Curmi, who was a jeweller by profession, had applied for and acquired British nationality. His mother, Teresa Widmar, was from Trieste, which at the time, was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. She was the daughter of a merchant and family legend has it that he was also an aide to Emperor Franz Josef and himself had an aristocratic background. She was a veritable polyglot who could read and write nine languages and merely speak another three. Emile had an older brother Adolph (born in 1892) and a younger brother William (born on 26th October 1896), but most regrettably, later lost touch with the both of them.

William, Adolph and Emile 1907

His mother taught him to read and write Italian instead of German. This was apparently because his father so disliked Germans as to forbid his mother from teaching him German. Emile studied the Koran and thus Classical Arabic at the renowned Al Azhar mosque school in Cairo. Where English was concerned, no comparable centre of learning existed, so he studied the language to a high level through correspondence courses from Oxford University. While still a youngster, his father asked him to review a petition written by a local man that was to be presented to the British Authorities who governed Egypt at the time. Seeing room for improvement, he reworded it. When Lord Kitchener read it, he was struck with its literary quality and wanted to meet the writer whom he presumed to be a learned gentleman. But when presented with Emile, he was astonished at the figure standing before him, who would have been little more than a boy. He was so charmed, that he invited Emile to be a guest for a week on board his yacht.

Emile volunteered into the British Army and saw action as a gunner in the First World War. This took him all over the Middle East in the campaign to end the Ottoman domination of it. He also served as an interpreter, coming into contact with monarchs and many people in high places. Many years later, Emile related a tale of a battle involving the crossing of a river where he saw the river turn red with all the blood spilled.

The Ottoman Empire was defeated and the British occupied Mesopotamia. After the war, Emile was employed by the Political Department of the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force. The department were charged with the post war division of the region between Britain and France. The French Mandate took over governance of Syria and Lebanon and the British governed what is now Iraq and Jordan. Emile must have been highly regarded as he was mentioned in dispatches twice in 1919: once on 18th February and again on 3rd June.

The British Mandate came into existence in 1921 and its first High Commisioner was a former officer of the British Indian Army by the name of Sir Percy Cox. Cox hand-picked Emile to be his personal secretary. The British installed King Feisal as a puppet monarch. It is said that Emile was acquainted with T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) and he certainly did know Gertrude Bell. Indeed he is mentioned in one her letters dated 29th September 1921.

After his work in the British Army, Emile engaged in various professions. At one time he was editor of the English language paper The Baghdad Times. At another, he was a merchant and in partnership with a man called Ibrahim Ayyeeb. They had a contract to supply the British Army with potatoes. They were prohibited from selling any on the open market. A third partner, a Kurd by the name of Jassim Nariman secretly broke this   agreement and a never-ending court case ensued. Thanks to old fashioned corruption it apparently dragged on endlessly without ever being resolved.

Emile and Asma wedding circa 1928

In around 1928 Emile married a young Lebanese teacher by the name of Asma Kanawaty. The couple had five children together: Giovanna (b. 1930), Eileen (b. 1932), Mafalda (b. 1939), Joseph Donald (b. 1943) and Richard Alexander (b. 1945). The family lived in a large house on Alamein Street in the Battaween district of Baghdad. As his children grew up, they remembered how Emile would entertain guests with many fascinating tales from his earlier life. These included such personages as the "Nakeeb" of the holy city of Najaf, an Islamic cleric and religious leader. He was a apparently very fond of Mafalda, or "Mafilda" as he used to pronounce it and would always ask to see her when he visited. Another guest was the Church of England minister, Reverend Roberts, at whose church the family attended Sunday morning service. On one occasion, Emile apparently shocked the family by asking the reverend whether he believed in God.

During the summer months temperatures in Baghdad frequently exceeded 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Even at night, the heat was stifling and the family slept on frame beds erected on the flat roof of the house. The sky was crystal clear and it was possible to see meteors against an incredible panorama of countless stars. Sometimes the family used to visit an island in the Euphrates river and eat delicious fish cooked over an open fire. They would occasionally travel across the desert to visit Asma's family back in Lebanon.

Family life was interrupted by a pro-Nazi coup which took place in 1941. A group led by Rasheed Ali seized power for a while. The family took refuge in the US Embassy until it was safe to return home. Emile had returned to the house to pick up a few badly needed things and whilst there, foolishly decided to take a bath. He was betrayed by a long known servant who had promised his loyalty to him as well as having seemed to be trustworthy. Emile was arrested and had to spend a short period of time in a concentration camp until the coup was overthrown. It was a worrying time for his wife Asma and the children as they didn't find out what had happened to him until many days later.

Curmi family c1956. Back row left to right:
Donald, Mafalda, Eileen, Alex;
Front row: Asma and Emile

Emile found himself in difficulties again after he reported a theft by a servant to the police. The prejudiced judge who was handling the case mistook the name Curmi with the common Jewish name Gouri and somehow twisted things around in order to have Emile thrown into prison. Emile resorted to contacting King Feisal's uncle, whom he knew well enough and was soon out of difficulty. The corrupt judge later exclaimed to Emile "how was I to know you had such a strong back?"

The revolution of 14th July 1958 overthrowing the pro-western regime came as a terrible shock to Emile and the family. All of a sudden they awoke to military music and strident voices on the radio and their lives were turned upside down. All of the royal family members were immediately murdered. A large storage depot near the family home blazed away for many many days and would frequently flare up and light up the entire city with every gust of wind at night. Emile and his family stayed indoors and one day, all of a sudden, they heard a sustained burst of machine gun fire. They had all been sitting around their Philco short wave radio when Emile told everyone to get down on the floor of the living room. They couldn't tell where the gunfire as coming from but knew it was not far away. Later, they learned that the ousted Prime Minister Nouri Assaid had been discovered disguised as an old woman and put to death, his body was subsequently dragged through the streets. The family remained at home throughout the revolution and did not seek shelter in any foreign embassy.

Sensing danger, Emile packed his family off to England in the autumn of 1958. Emile remained behind in Baghdad with his sister-in-law Mary Kanawaty. The family were reunited in Barnet, North London five years later but by this time he was dying of cancer. Emile died on 30th January 1963 and was laid to rest at New Southgate Cemetery.

My Nan - a special kind of strength

My Nan, Constance Irene Upson, was born on 8^th January 1920 at 81 Stanley Road, Ilford. Connie shared the house with her parents, Charles and Violet Upson, and her two older sisters, Vi and Ivy. In the autumn of 1923, when Connie was 3 years old, her brother Roy Charles Upson was born. As he was the only boy, Roy was doted on by his father. During her early childhood, when she was around 7 or 8 years of age, the family moved the short distance to a brand new house at 26 Clifton Road, Newbury Park.

On 2^nd September 1931, when Connie was just 11 years old, her mother died. It must have been awful for her to lose her mum at that age and it is bound to have affected her deeply. Her father would have had to continue working, so Connie’s older sister Vi probably assumed the responsibility of looking after her younger siblings.

Connie at 18 years old

The family was thrown into turmoil when her father remarried less than 18 months after her mother’s death. Her father married Frieda Gwendolyn Hubbard on 18^th February 1933. Connie was 13 years old, a rebellious age. Along with her other siblings, Connie initially found it hard to accept “auntie Gwen” as her stepmother but with time they got used to each other and in later years they got on well. In 1935, Julie, a younger step-sister was born.

Just a few short years later, when she was 19 years old, Connie met and subsequently married William Phillip Hand. Bill was a civil engineer’s assistant and was nine years her senior. They married at SS Peter and Paul RC Church on Ilford High Road on 3^rd June 1939. By this time both of her older sisters had married. Ivy had married Les Payton in the early months of 1938 and Violet had married Albert Boreham only a couple of months before Connie’s own wedding.

After the wedding they moved to Grisedale Gardens in Riddlesdown, near Purley in Surrey. Three months after the wedding Britain was once again at war with Germany. Connie became pregnant and on 10^th June 1940 she gave birth to a healthy baby girl, Maureen. The Blitz began three months later. Luckily few bombs fell in Riddlesdown, but Connie would have worried about her husband travelling to work on the train to London.

Bill was not a healthy man and he suffered from Crohns disease. The attacks were probably not helped by the stress of living under the daily threat of air raids. His health deteriorated and on 10^th November 1942 he passed away. He was just 32 years old.

It must have been bad enough for Connie to lose her mother at such a tender age but to become a widow at just 22 must have been almost unbearable. As difficult as it must have been for her, she had to hold it together for the sake of her daughter.

Little is known of what Connie did during the war years. She once told me that she worked at The People’s Palace in Mile End, which at the time had been taken over by the local council. She had to earn money to survive and may have resorted to desperate measures. She eventually moved in with her father-in-law once he had moved to Ilford and this was an enormous help. Her sisters would have also assisted her during those difficult years.

After the war she got to know Bill’s brother, Charles Hand, who had himself been incarcerated in a Japanese prisoner of war camps between 1942 and 1945. As they became acquainted with one another, her father-in-law probably persuaded them that it would be a good idea if they were married. Connie needed a husband and a father for Maureen, and Charles needed a wife and someone to care for him. They were married at SS Peter and Paul RC Church on 29^th March 1947. After the wedding they moved to Selsdon, Surrey.

Mum's baptism in 1948 (front to rear: Maureen, Connie holding mum, William Pedro Hand, "Auntie" Ginny, unknown couple and Eddie Fitt (holding the cat))

Connie became pregnant again and Theresa Irene Hand was born on 14^th July 1948. The baptism, held several weeks later, was attended, amongst others, by Connie’s father-in-law, auntie Ginnie and her husband Charles’s cousin Eddie Fitt, who was better known as uncle Eddie.

In the years immediately after Theresa’s birth, Charles was seconded to Nottingham and the family moved into a house at 10 Catterley Hill Road. They only spent about 2-3 years in Nottingham and moved back south in around Christmas 1952. They settled to a house at 57 Parkside Avenue, Romford. Soon after moving in, Connie’s third daughter, Janet Eileen Hand, was born on 15^th March 1953.

Left to right: Nan with Janet, Maureen, "auntie" Gwen, "auntie" Ginny and mum with cat at the front

The sadness and hardship experienced by Connie earlier in her life had made her into a strong woman and she needed to be strong. Charles suffered from periods of depression which disrupted family life. During these episodes he could not cope with everyday life and it was up to Connie to pick up the pieces. Sometimes she would find household bills that had been hidden away and she would lose her temper. This was not surprising given the pressure of looking after her husband as well as her children. It must have been very difficult for her. In spite of these challenges, she kept the family together and there were happy times too: summer holidays and family gatherings. Connie’s sister, Ivy and her husband Les ran a guest house in the seaside town of Cliftonville near Margate and the family would sometimes gather down there. Ivy and Les ran the guest house for a number of years but this came to an abrupt end when Les found himself in trouble with the tax man. Ivy and Les (and their son Trevor) decided to emigrate to Canada to avoid possible prosecution. It must have been sad for Connie saying goodbye to her sister at Tilbury docks on the day of her departure, although they remained close and Ivy returned to England every couple of years.

Outside the guest house in Cliftonville

Connie became pregnant again and on 23^rd January 1961 Clare Elizabeth Hand was born. By this time Theresa was 12 and had started secondary school at the Ursuline in Brentwood. Janet, aged 7, was at primary school and Maureen had grown up.  Just over three years later, on 6^th June 1964, Maureen married Brian White and two years layer Connie’s first grandchild, Darren, was born.

Connie and her family moved from Romford to Billericay in around 1967 and settled into a new house at 38 The Warren. It was a large house and Connie and her family enjoyed their new surroundings.

Theresa had been with her boyfriend, Keith Melton, since 1963 and in 1969 she married him. They married on at the Most Holy Redeemer RC church in Billericay on the 18^th October on a sunny autumn day. Less than four years later, Janet married Brian Jewell at the same church. Clare, who was by now old enough to attend the Mayflower school in Billericay, was a bridesmaid at both weddings.

The financial turmoil of the seventies caused Charles and Connie to sell their house in The Warren and in around 1974 Charles, Connie and Clare moved to a smaller house at 167 Mountnessing Road, Billericay. The move enabled Charles and Connie to have some money for their retirement.

The wedding of Clare to Martin Gale on 4^th June 1983 meant that Charles and Connie were alone for the first time in their marriage. The wedding, once again, took place at the Most Holy Redeemer RC church and this was followed by a reception at a hotel in Basildon.

With all of her daughters now married, Connie and Charles were free to spend their retirement years in any way they wished. In 1984 they moved from Billericay to a newly-built bungalow at 4 Grimston Way in Walton-on-the-Naze. These were happy times and they made friends with other couples who had retired to the Essex coast. They had a good social life and the fresher weather on the coast helped to ease her arthritis.

Charles and Connie with a friend at the seaside

We would regularly visit them at weekends for Saturday or Sunday tea and during the summer holidays my sister and I would spend a week with them. They would sometimes rent a beach hut for the duration of our stay and we would have many happy days by the beach playing in the sea when it was sunny or playing cards inside the hut over a cup of tea if it rained. 

Charles and Connie celebrated their golden wedding anniversary in 1997. The family took them out for a meal at The Harbour Lights and it was quite an occasion. By this time Charles’ was suffering from kidney disease and he had to get used to having regular dialysis which he could have at home. In spite of the treatment his condition gradually worsened and he was admitted to Ipswich hospital. He sadly died there on 20^th February 1998 aged 79. Connie was now a widow for the second time in her life but her family and friends helped her to cope with her loss.

Over the next couple of years Connie’s arthritis worsened and this affected her mobility. However this did not hold her back and I remember her proudly showing off her new mobility scooter to me. This enabled her to still get out to the shops by herself and to visit her friends. She was still able to get to attend mass on Sunday mornings thanks to her friends who had a car. Connie also had a carer who would do those jobs around the house that she could no longer manage.

Unfortunately Connie had a nasty fall one day and this resulted in an extended stay at Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford. She hated it there as some of the nurses were rude to her. Whilst in hospital she was diagnosed with heart disease which explained her increasing breathlessness.

It became apparent that she could no longer care for herself and the family took the difficult decision to place Connie in a nursing home. My mum managed to find a nursing home in Maldon that was conveniently close to both her office and her house. This enabled a member of the family to visit Connie every day. The downside was that Connie had to share a room with another lady and there was little privacy.

Sadly, Connie’s conditioned worsened and she could not walk across the room without becoming breathless. Connie passed away on 9^th August 2001.

My Nan did not have an easy life and there must have been moments where she felt quite low, but she was a strong-minded woman and that determination helped her through those difficult times. The qualities she displayed are a real inspiration.

Grandpop: survival in the Far East

The following biography has been adapted from my 2009 book and updated to include information from Charles’s military service record, oral histories of men who served alongside him and a Far East Prisoners of War questionnaire that he completed on his return from captivity:

Charles Alfred Hand, or grandpop as he was known to me, was born on 21^st August 1918 at 14 Mary’s Terrace, Twickenham, Middlesex. He probably didn’t remember very much about his early years in Twickenham, but the house backed on to the railway station and he would have heard the steam trains going past on their way to London.

Family tree

At a young age he moved to Edinburgh with his parents and his older siblings William and Doris. Little is known about this period of his life, but we know he spent his school years in Scotland and he received a good education. During this time his older sister Doris met and married a soldier named George Highley. At the time of the wedding, the family were living at 9 Northfield Road situated to the east of the city centre. After the wedding his sister and her new husband moved to India. Meanwhile, his brother William moved back to England in the 1930s and became a structural engineer. By the end of the decade, Charles had moved back to England with his parents and according to the 1939 electoral roll they were living at 85 Lyndhurst Avenue, Whitton. Soon afterwards he started working for the civil service.

In April 1939, with the threat of war growing, the government introduced the Military Training Act. The terms of the act meant that all men aged between 20 and 21 had to register for 6 months military training. Charles would have been affected by this legislation. By September 1939, Britain was once again at war and on 19^th October Charles received his conscription papers.

Army Training

Charles enlisted with the 162 Field Ambulance of the Royal Army Medical Corps on 19^th October 1939, but according to his military record, was posted to the 197 Field Ambulance on 11^th January 1940. Charles and the rest of his unit boarded a train up to Norfolk and arrived at the village of Hillington near Kings Lynn. From here they marched through thick snow to a nearby hall. By May 1940, the unit was put to good use as Germany had invaded France and the Low Countries and the first Luftwaffe raids were seen. At this time, the 197FA was based at Cranwich Camp in Norfolk and in addition to dealing with the wounded from air raids, Charles would have been sent on various training courses. By the end of 1940, they had moved to nearby Lynford Hall which functioned as a training hospital. It was during his time here that Charles was disciplined for serving breakfast to patients on cold plates and on a separate occasion, for not washing up dirty plates. Both times he was fined 2 days’ wages.

As a part of their training, the 197 FA travelled to various locations in England and Scotland during 1941. The unit was then given disembarkation leave at a rate of 30% of the unit a week starting 26^th September 1941. This leave lasted for 7 days. At the end of his leave, on 8^th October 1941, he was posted to the 196 Field Ambulance and reported to a tented camp at Norton Manor near Presteigne on the Anglo Welsh borders. Here he continued training as a part of the 54^th Brigade, 18^th (East Anglia) Division.

At 0830 hours on 27^th October 1941 they marched through the streets of Presteigne to a special troop train that took them to Avonmouth on the Bristol Channel.

Off to war

The men boarded the SS Oransay, which was an Orient Line British ship of 20000 tonnes. On 28^th October 1941 the SS Oransay left Avonmouth and headed up the English coast in stormy weather, with nearly all of the 196 and 3000 other troops. On 30^th October the SS Oransay arrived in Greenock, Scotland were it joined the rest of the fleet for an, unknown at the time, journey across the Atlantic to Halifax, Nova Scotia in Canada. 

On 2^nd November, in the middle of the Atlantic, the British convoy met up with an escort of US Navy ships who would provide protection during the remainder of the crossing. They arrived in Halifax on 7^th November and Charles would barely have had time to stretch his legs before embarking once again to some unknown destination. The 196 and most of the accompanying division were kitted out for desert fighting, so speculation ran that they were set for Africa or the Middle East. Transport this time was provided by the US Navy and Charles departed with the rest of the 196 on the USS Joseph T Dickman, an American troop ship. The convoy set sail on 10^th November 1941 and had arrived on 22^nd November in Trinidad in the West Indies to refuel. There was no time to disembark and the convoy set sail once again. 

By early December the unit arrived in Cape Town, South Africa and was given four/five days shore leave. This must have been a welcome relief to Charles and the rest of the unit having spent 10 weeks at sea.

The 196 spent Christmas Day 1941 aboard the Joseph T Dickman. The menu was roast turkey, giblet gravy, pickles, sage dressing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and buttered peas followed by plum pudding, camper down sauce and fruit salad. There was also bread, candy, tea, cookies, butter and cigarettes. The ships food was apparently complemented by many in the unit.

The 27^th December saw the unit arrive in Bombay, India, where they disembarked before getting on a train to Ahmednagar, where they stayed for around two weeks. The next stage of Charles’s epic journey was a train journey back to Bombay followed by another sea journey on board the USS West Point which left port on 19^th January 1942. This leg of the journey saw the first encounters with the Japanese, as an escort vessel fired on a Japanese plane, apparently on a reconnaissance mission. The Japanese had invaded the Malay peninsula on 7^th December 1941 and were moving south in the direction of Singapore.

The USS West Point arrived at Keppel Harbour, Singapore on 29^th January 1942. Charles and the 196 disembarked and were taken by lorries to a tented camp on the Tampines Road. They were to provide medical treatment to the soldiers of the 54^th Brigade who were now deployed in the north-east sector of the island and set up a series of remote dressing stations. The men of the Royal Army Medical Corps were not issued with any weapons and relied on the fighting troops around them for protection. This part of the island faced Malaya across the Johore Straits, where the Japanese had been steadily advancing and were expected to attack from.

On 1^st February 1942, the unit experienced the first enemy activity with artillery fire and aerial bombing. Between 2^nd and 5^th February the unit maintained its position and treated the wounded from the Japanese attacks. The minor sick were treated and held in the dressing stations, with the major casualties evacuated in ambulances, to one of three hospitals in Singapore City.

The Japanese landed on Singapore island late on 8^th February in the north-western sector, which was held by 8^th Australian Division. They quickly established a bridgehead and began to work their way towards Singapore City. By 13^th February the 196 were deployed in the Thompson Road/Bukit Timah Road area of the island just north of Singapore City. The unit was shelled and were almost immediately ordered to move from that location. The unit came under Japanese rifle fire as it prepared to move. The further withdrawal resulted in the main dressing station (MDS) being set up in the City High School at around 1800 hours.

The 14^th February was the busiest day for the unit and they treated large numbers of casualties. The situation was now very difficult and dangerous with men evacuating the wounded from the front line back to the MDS in the face of enemy fire. The morning of Sunday 15^th February saw large numbers of severe casualties received at the MDS with a report of over 200 wounded being treated. By now the City High School building itself was coming under attack from mortar shells and it must have been terrifying. By 4pm the shelling stopped and a final “all clear” siren sounded. By now the Japanese had complete air superiority and had captured the island’s water reservoirs, leaving the commander of the Allied forces in Singapore no choice but to unconditionally surrender the city and the island to the Japanese.

Japanese FEPOW card

Captivity

Charles and the rest of the unit remained at the City High School until 22^nd February when they were ordered to march to Roberts Barracks in Changi, on the east side of the island, around 15 miles from the school. Here the unit continued to treat the sick under very cramped conditions. There were no functioning lavatories and the medical supplies were limited. 

As time went on, conditions and the treatment of the men started to deteriorate. The diet was the main issue with very little food given out and there were very few Red Cross parcels reaching the men, as the Japanese held them back. With virtually the only food available being boiled rice, the men started to contract diseases such as Dysentery and Beri Beri, due to lack of vitamins.

From June 1942, the men were told that they would be sent away to “holiday camps”. Charles’ turn came on 5^th November 1942. He was transported with “Party M” firstly by truck to Singapore Railway station and then north by train in steel cattle wagons. The men were transported 35 to a wagon and by day these wagons became very hot and at night very cold. The doors did not shut properly and the rain would drive in. To sleep in these cramped conditions was near impossible.

The journey up the length of Malaya passed Kuala Lumpur and Prei Station near the beautiful island of Penang. Food was provided in a bucket, one bucket of boiled rice per truck per day, in the heat the rice went off and it wasn’t long before the men’s health suffered. Most of the prisoners suffered from Dysentery and there was only one bucket per truck. Occasionally the Japanese would stop by the train and the men would relieve themselves by the side of the tracks.

Five days after leaving Singapore, the train arrived in Ban Pong, Thailand at the start of what was to be the infamous Burma Railway. Here, they were greeted by more Japanese guards shouting “marchy marchy” and the men were marched to a nearby camp. The camp leader at Ban Pong was Lt Col Malcolm. Charles remained here until Christmas Eve. From here Charles was marched to a camp at the nearby village of Nong Pladuk which was at the southern end of the Burma railway.

Dysentery and flies were rife and the hospital lay at the lowest part of the camp and was often flooded. The hospital was an Atap hut (constructed with a bamboo roof and open sides) and at times the patients were laying only inches above the flood water on their bamboo shelving. It was not uncommon for the doctor to visit the patients in Wellington boots and then climb onto the shelving as the water was too deep to stand in. Mosquitoes took over the area at night and brought more illness to the already sick patients.

Conditions inside an Atap hut

Charles was moved up country on 25^th March 1943 to work on the railway. At the railway camps, there were frequent beatings and sick men were dragged from their beds to work. The medical officers and orderlies working in the camp hospitals would do their best to prevent the seriously ill patients from working and this would often result in a beating from the Japanese guards. The sadism and cruelty of the Japanese guards knew no bounds but it was the Kempetai, the Japanese Gestapo, who were feared the most for their methods of torture. Charles would have dealt with the consequences of this on an almost daily basis and is highly likely to have been on the receiving end of Japanese brutality himself.

Apart from Cholera, diseases like Diarrhoea, Dysentery, Beri Beri and Malaria were universal and kept the medical staff busy. The Japanese had been withholding food and medical supplies but the monsoon made it impossible to transport these goods in any case. Charles and the other medical staff had to do their best to comfort dying men with no drugs. They felt so helpless that they could do little for these poor people, yet their ingenuity still saved many lives. Bed pans were made from large bamboos and cannulas for intravenous saline injections from bamboo tips. There were limb amputations to save patients dying from gangrenous tropical ulcers and artificial limbs made from timber. The biggest factor for saving lives was the courage and compassion of the medical staff that had to work in the most extreme circumstances. There were some dreadful sights on the wards - men who were only parchment and bone. These scenes would have scarred Charles for life.

Treating a patient with tropical ulcers

Hospitalised men were only entitled to 250-300g rice per day with a small quantity of beans. To the Japanese, men who held up the construction of the railway due to lack of health were guilty of a shameful deed. Despite widespread disease, men continued to be dragged from their beds to do heavy physical work.

The records do not name the camps where he was imprisoned but at the time his commanding officer was Lt Col Flowers of the 9^th battalion of the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers. From his CO’s record it can be assumed that Charles was at Hindato camp, some 200km from Nong Pladuk, on Christmas Day 1943.  By this time, construction work on the railway had been completed and most of the medical staff were subsequently sent back down the line in cattle trucks to work in the camp hospitals at Chungkai and Nong Pladuk. Charles arrived at Nong Pladuk II Hospital in February 1944. Conditions, though still severe, were not as bad as they had been further north. Charles was moved to the newly created Nakom Patom camp in March 1944 where he spent the remainder of the war. His commanding officer was Lt Col. Coates of the Australian Imperial Forces.  Here, he treated patients with nothing but the most basic equipment and under constant threat of beatings from the Japanese guards.

Following the dropping of the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese surrendered on 15^th August 1945. With tens of thousands of Allied POWs all over South-East Asia, the task of getting them all home was huge. Firstly leaflets were dropped from aircraft telling them to stay where they were. Shortly afterwards items from clothing and boots to food and medical supplies were dropped. Charles was liberated by allied forces on 21^st September 1945 and was finally transported by train to Bangkok before being put on a plane for a short flight to Rangoon in Burma.

The men who arrived in Rangoon were treated with kindness. They were taken to a room set with tables with white cloths and flower arrangements. They were served white sandwiches of butter and cheese. English girls waited on them. The first white women the men had seen in years.

In late September 1945 Charles would have boarded a ship that sailed to England via Colombo and Port Said. The voyage would have taken about a month and his ship docked at Southampton on 28^th October. Once on British soil, he was taken to a military disembarkation camp before finally being allowed home to be reunited with his family.

Life after war

The Far East POWs (FEPOWs) had one short interview and completed a brief questionaire before they were demobbed and returned to their civilian lives. After a period of leave, Charles returned to work as a civil servant at the newly-formed Ministry for National Insurance even though he was still emaciated from his time in Thailand. It would take him years to put the weight back on.

 Charles’s obvious joy at being back home was tempered by the news that his older brother, Bill, had died during his period in captivity. His widow, Connie had been left to bring up her daughter Maureen by herself during the war years. Charles’s father had helped her through this difficult period but wanted to do more.

The decision was taken that Connie and Charles should get married. It was a practical solution and it isn’t clear whether Charles and Connie actually loved each other at that time, although they certainly did as they grew to know each other over the years. They were married on 29^th March 1947 at Saint Peter and Paul RC Church in Ilford.

Charles and Connie’s first child, Theresa, my mother, was born on 14^th July 1948 in Selsdon, Surrey. Soon after Theresa’s birth, Charles was transferred and the family moved to Nottingham. They lived at 10 Catterley Hill Road until around Christmas 1952. Whilst they were living in Nottingham, Charles’s father passed away and in February 1951 he had to return south briefly to register his death. The responsibility fell to him as his sister lived far away.

On returning south, Charles and his young family moved to 57 Parkside Avenue, Romford, Essex. Connie was pregnant and Janet was born on 15^th March 1953.

Charles’s wartime experiences continued to haunt him. He had recurring bouts of Malaria but it was the mental scars that were worse. He struggled to cope with the daily challenges of life and suffered from periods of depression and these were perhaps exacerbated by feelings of grief surrounding his father‘s death. Today these symptoms would be recognised as post-traumatic stress disorder, but they were not so well-understood in the 1950s. My mum has memories of him being taken away in an ambulance for electric shock therapy. He would return home, wrapped in a towel, and would be placed in a chair. He would pick up a newspaper which he would hold upside down in front of his face.

Charles was eventually prescribed with lithium tablets which brought his symptoms under control. The tablets helped him to regain control of his life but they were to have serious repercussions for his health later in life.

Left to right: Janet, Charles and Connie

Life improved and Charles and Connie gave birth to another daughter, Clare Elizabeth Hand, on 23^rd January 1961. By this time Theresa and Janet were at school. Theresa was attending the Ursuline convent school in Brentwood and Janet would have attended a local primary school. Maureen married Brian White in 1964 and in 1966 she gave birth to a son of her own named Darren.

Circa 1967, Charles and his family moved from Romford to a large house in The Warren, Billericay.  The house had a large garden and a double garage. Everybody loved the house. At the time of the move, Theresa had left school and was working in London. Janet had moved up to the Ursuline and Clare was old enough to go to primary school.

At around the time of the move, Charles had lost his job at the civil service. They had grown weary of his absenteeism due to his poor mental health and had forced him out. Charles managed to secure work with the post office and then later with the insurance firm Eagle Star. All this helped to pay the bills but he was not earning as much as when he was with the civil service and he had also lost out on the lucrative civil service pension.

Theresa was married to Keith Melton on 18^th October 1969. The service took place at the Most Holy Redeemer RC church in Billericay and was a very happy occasion. Less than four years later, Janet married Brian Jewell at the same church. Clare, who was by now old enough to attend the Mayflower school in Billericay, was a bridesmaid at both weddings.

As the carefree and prosperous 1960s gave way to the 1970s the economic dark clouds began to gather. Bills rose and they could no longer afford to make ends meet. In 1974 Charles, Connie and Clare, were forced to move to a smaller house at 167 Mountnessing Road, Billericay. Charles and Connie had hoped to have some money for their retirement but the rates were just as high in the new house. Charles retired from work in 1978 and still faced financial uncertainty.

The wedding of Clare to Martin Gale on 4^th June 1983 meant that Charles and Connie were alone for the first time in their marriage. The wedding, once again, took place at the Most Holy Redeemer RC church and this was followed by a reception at a hotel in Basildon.

With all of the daughters now married, Charles and Connie were free to spend their retirement years in any way they wished. In 1984 they moved from Billericay to a newly-built bungalow at 4 Grimston Way in Walton-on-the-Naze. These were happy times and they made friends with other couples who had retired to the Essex coast. They had a good social life and fresh air was good for their health.

We would regularly visit them at weekends for Saturday or Sunday tea. During the summer holidays, my sister and I would spend a week with them. They would sometimes rent a beach hut for the duration of our stay and we would have many happy days by the beach playing in the sea when it was sunny or playing cards inside the hut over a cup of tea if it rained. 

Charles and Connie with a friend 

Charles never forgot his wartime experiences and would attend annual Remembrance Sunday parades in London with other FEPOWs. Sometimes, over tea and cake on a Saturday afternoon, he would talk to me and Dad about his wartime experiences. He would talk about his hatred of the Japanese and his helplessness at being unable to treat the sick due to lack of supplies.

In 1997 Charles and Connie celebrated their golden wedding anniversary. The family took them out for a meal at a local restaurant called “Harbour Lights” and it was quite an occasion.

By this time Charles’ was suffering from kidney disease which had been caused by his long-term use of lithium. Following his diagnosis, he spent several weeks in hospital at Black Notley. His condition stabilised with the use of new medication, but now he had to get used to having regular dialysis which he could have at home, although he still needed to attend out-patients’ appointments.

In spite of receiving treatment his condition gradually worsened and he was admitted to Ipswich hospital. He sadly died there on 20^th February 1998 aged 79.

Further reading:

Account of Charles’s unit until their capture in Singapore.

Lawrence Smith’s experiences in the 196 Field Ambulance

Ronald Fiegehen’s experiences in the 197 Field Ambulance

Account of life in NakonPatom POW camp.

Account of life in NongPladuk POW camp

Details of POW movements

Charles' FEPOW questionaire