What Did Your Dad Do After The War?

[Bilbraborn 1,594]

We had freedom in our teen years. They only had war.

[catfan 14,793]

Very seldom saw him without a Tie............even on the Beach at Skeggy..............

A chip off the old block eh benjamin !

[NewBasfordlad 3,599]

One of my favourite quotes "They also serve who only stand and wait". It was a terrible time for everyone from the men at the front to the women who waited every day for news.

[Deepdene Boy 642]

Started school

[Oztalgian 3,296]

As ANZAC day draws to a close here in Australia, the day we remember all those who served and especially those who made the supreme sacrifice.

The playing of The Last Post always makes me remember my mum who served in WWII with the WRAF and lost her brother at Dunkirk who could never listen to that haunting piece of music without shedding a tear. Her father served on the Western Front in WWI.

My Dad was in the Royal Artillery and saw service with the BEF at Dunkirk, and then in North Africa and Italy. When he returned he worked at Ransome and Marles at Newark before going dahn t' pit until he retired.

Their medals, Certificates of Service, Pay Books, Identity cards and wartime photos etc. hold pride of place in a display cabinet in our family room.

Lest We Forget

[Guest]

My Dad returned to Boots at Beeston, driving bev forklifts, playing pranks ,knocking people out,drinking in the Dolphin,driving Prince Henry Vauxhalls,lost mates in Palestine, got married,coached Bob Anderson at fencing,had kids, dropped jazz for classical, hung onto his money,bought a big six,packed in players weights,got divorced, remarried, started at the gym,then snuffed it!!

Grim times for folk then,having said that he said the 50's were "wonderful".

[trevorthegasman 150]

My Dad joined the Royal Navy in 1941,he told me one of the questions he was asked was could he swim(he could not swim a stroke) he replied "why are you short of boats". He was on MTB,S and served with Peter Scott as captain for a short time,he was also very lucky as two boats got sunk when he was on leave and as I was born on 8th of June 1944 he missed D Day...

On return in 1945 he went back to the Railways and was a Goods Checker at Carrington Street till he retired....In 1996, at the age of 80 he and my mother moved to Bunbury West Australia he died in 2005 and my mother in 2007...

[terence12 725]

Dad was in the Royal Navy though sent into DEMS, Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships, mum told us about when he was aboard SS Ger-y-Bryn, coming back from North Africa, (operation Torch), They were just of North Portugal Shore when they and other ships in their convoy were attacked by a uboat U32 i think, 3rd March 1943, his ship and two others were sunk, all hands saved, in the lifeboats they were picked up by a flower class corvette, hms Choreopsis, (in the film, THE CRUEL SEA, the ship HMS Chrisanthemum is actually Choreopsis,) they were transferred to an armed tug and landed at Londonderry. After leaving the navy in 1945 dad retrained as a joiner, worked on high marnham power station, the M1 motorway, Littewoods, side of council house, Victoria Shopping Centre and Queens Medical among other building sites. Lovely fantastic dad, man and human being, miss him very much.