Post WW2 Memories

KENNETH RETURNS AT THE END OF WW2

And so the war years dragged on. I continued to write to Kenneth once a fortnight, but from early 1943 there was complete silence from him. I knew he would have written if he could, but relatives of others in that theatre of war suffered the same silence, so we encouraged each other and hope lived on. Meanwhile the teacher in charge of the older section of Agnes Hunt ward heard that her Air Force husband had been shot down and killed over Europe. Another contact from Milton Abbey lost her only son, also in the air over Europe. Her husband was a Senior Wing Commander, not actively involved in operations but her daughter's husband was also shot down and killed.

Fortunately life was very full during those war years. Occasionally Margo and I would get away for a weekend at Tirley Garth. We went by train from Heswall to Chester, where we changed trains for Tarporley. We took our bicycles on the train and cycled the three miles or so to Tirley. We left very early on Monday morning so that I could reach Heswall in time for school at 9 o'clock. In the winter, with one hour of 'summer' time still in force, it was a very dark journey along country lanes to Tarporley. In December and January, it was only half light at 9 o'clock.

Margo's elder brother Tom was an officer in the army and was in North Africa, involved in the battle against Rommel at Tobruk. I never really knew where Ernest was but thankfully, they both returned safely. My friends frequently said how brave they thought me. I was certainly thankful to have a faith in God which supported me through the years of uncertainty. But one cannot in any case, feel deep anxiety indefinitely. Life must be lived, and anxiety though always in the background, becomes blunt edged.

Meanwhile Charles and Margaret were· at Achimota with little Rachel. Their second daughter Helen was born at Agogo in February 1940. Travel by sea to Britain, was still possible, but very risky. In any case we were living under strict conditions of rationing and blackout, with constant danger from enemy bombing. So, they decided to take their leave in South Africa. There was still danger from the journey, but far less going south than north. Conditions in Ghana were then pretty spartan, for imports of flour, meat, butter, tea etc. from Britain were completely cut off. But South Africa had no food problem and once there they could relax arid enjoy their much-needed leave.

In any case, they had no home in England to which to return. They had previously been welcomed to share the home of Margaret's parents at Selsdon 1 near Croydon. But there were now four of them and they really needed their own base in England. So many people had left London to escape the bombs that many houses were for sale. It was risky to buy a house there, but prices were very low. So after their return from South Africa they asked Margaret's father, a retired builder, to find a suitable house for them, in easy reach of their own home. He found an attractive and roomy house at Sanderstead with quite a large garden, and gradually bought up basic furniture from sales to be ready for their next leave.

George and Georgette with Minnie and Sylvia spent the war in Stroud. George was teaching at the technical college and was in a reserved occupation. They took in an evacuee, a schoolgirl several years older than Minnie, named Ruth. She settled in very happily and became a life-long friend.

Soon after Mrs Todd and Margaret were evacuated to Edinburgh by Margaret's firm, a bomb fell on a house just opposite their home in Wallington. The old man and his housekeeper who lived there were killed instantly as they were making their way to the cellar. How grateful Mother and Margaret were to be in a comparatively safe place.

Meanwhile Charlie and Margaret were again due for leave. Margaret's father had bought for them the spacious house in Sanderstead which was within walking distance of his own home in Selsdon. There was enough furniture for the family to move in. The war was still on, but the children, particularly Rachel, needed to be settled into school. So in November 1943 the family arrived safely in Liverpool. Mr. Bigland had agreed that they might be invited to spend the night at Greyfriars. It was already dark when they arrived, and how glad they were not to have to travel through the night to Londoh. I had not seen them since our last time in Achimota in 1939 when Rachel was three, and I had, of course, never seen Helen before. She was tiny for her age, but dainty and very alert. What a joy it was to have them safely back in Britain. Next morning, all too soon, they continued their journey to London and their new home.

There was a bomb shelter in the garden at Sanderstead and when bombing was frequent the family spent the nights there.

In the spring of 1944 Charlie had to return to his work at Achimota. After the allied invasion of Europe in June that year the German invention of the V2, a pilotless plane carrying a bomb, did much damage in and around London. As there was no pilot to protect, they could be despatched during daytime. This new weapon brought great fear, and many daytime hours were spent in shelters. One of these 'doodlebugs' as they came to be called, landed on Margaret's roof, making the house uninhabitable. None of them was hurt, but they needed immediate alternative accommodation till the roof could be repaired. Margaret's nearby parents took them in, but it was a tight squeeze and a big upheaval for an elderly couple. When George and Georgette in Stroud heard of their plight, they immediately invited them to join their own family. So Margaret and the children moved down to Gloucestershire where they settled in gratefully for several months until the Sanderstead house was repaired.

And so, on to 1945, when hopes were rising that war might be near its end, and victory in sight. The allied armies had landed in the south of Italy and moved northwards at speed. The British forces had landed in France with the aid of the Mulberry Harbour, an amazing floating landing stage.

And so Paris was captured from the Germans and France again became a free country. Mile by mile the German grip on Europe was loosened. Hitler at last realised that all was lost, and in his Berlin bunker he and Eva Braun, his mistress, committed suicide.

So the war in Europe, which lasted from September 1939 to May 1945, was over. But the Japanese stranglehold in Burma, Malaya and Singapore, and so much of the Far East including Borneo, Java, Sumatra and the Philippines and Hong Kong remained. Now1 however, the United States and Britain were able to concentrate on that theatre of war.

Soon U.S.A. troops had freed the Philippines, and released numbers of their men who had been held prisoner there. One of these men was contacted, I know not how or where, by Mr Willard, father of Kenneth's old schoolfriend, also named Kenneth. He too had been captured at Singapore and no news of him had been received. So Mr. Willard asked this freed American prisoner if he had ever come across his son, or his friend Dr Kenneth Todd. It was known that the Japanese often moved their prisoners from one place to another, but it was a long shot. It so happened that this man, freed in Luzon, had at one time during the war been in Malaya. His reply to Mr Willard was that unfortunately he had no news of his son, but he had heard of Dr Todd in June 1944. He had not met him, but when he was in Thailand the previous year he had heard that he was there 'working with the Oxford Group'. This was the sort of message which could not possibly have been thought up. My only news of Kenneth had been on two postcards he had written in 1942.

This news showed that he was still alive in 1944, but no longer in Singapore. Many prisoners, we knew, had been sent up to Thailand to work on the 'Railway of Death'. Conditions there might well have made it impossible for him to get letters through.

The chance was great that he might still be alive.

One cannot carry a burden of anxiety indefinitely at its original intensity. But as the moment of truth approaches the intensity increases. This news buoyed up my hopes so that I was spared a good deal of the anxiety of the last months of waiting.

When Charlie and Margaret heard the news we had of Kenneth, and realised that it could not be long before the war in the far east was over, they decided to offer us a temporary home with Margaret and the children at Sanderstead. Kenneth would obviously need a long period of rehabilitation. Perhaps when he had settled in we could take on the care of Rachel and Helen, enabling Margaret to join Charlie at Achimota for the remaining part of his 'tour'. I gratefully accepted this offer knowing how much Kenneth would enjoy sharing with me the responsibility for the children.

I was still teaching at the hospital school in Heswall. At the end of July when the summer holidays began I went as usual to Shrewsbury to help Elsie with the care of Father and Ernald. It was while I was there, on 15 August 1945, that the Japanese capitulated and the war was over. I hastened back to Heswall, and almost immediately I received a telegram from Kenneth assuring me of his safety and release. There came a series of letters, as the ex-prisoners were cared for and brought slowly home from Thailand. Their ship called at Rangoon where Kenneth met his old friend Dr David Watson. Many of the men were seriously below par, and the plan was for their voyage to be an opportunity for quiet recuperation before they re-joined their families. They had been in Japanese hands for three and a half years to the day since the fall of Singapore. They were joyously welcomed at each port of call. It was mid-November before they reached Southampton.

Meanwhile I had given in my months’ notice and prepared to leave Greyfriars which had been my home since May 1941. I now travelled down to Dorset to collect our car from Milton Abbas. It had been well cared for by the garage proprietor/miller who had stored it in a barn, and it was ready for the road when I arrived. Then back to Heswall to pack my belongings and take them down to Sanderstead. I was in good time to settle in with the family before Kenneth's boat was due to arrive.

As soon as they docked Kenneth phoned me and gave me the time of their arrival at Waterloo. Margaret had arranged with her parents that she and the children should go to them for a few days so as to leave Kenneth and me on our own. Awaiting the train at Waterloo I wondered whether I should recognise him after our four years of separation and all he had gone through during that time. But, of course, when we saw each other on the platform there was no doubt at all. He was certainly thin, but so had he always been. And in all other respects he was the same dear Kenneth. How wonderful it was to be together again.

Quite soon he had to go before a medical board. He was given extended leave on full pay, and this was continued for a whole year until he was demobilised in November 1946.

LUCY AND KENNETH RETURN TO WEST AFRICA

Kenneth was now appointed by N.A.P.T., the National Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis, to do a survey of T.B. in Ghana. We were both delighted to have the opportunity to return to our old haunts. Kenneth was given a passage by boat, but I could not travel with him. The passengers were all men because the cabins had all been converted into dormitories to accommodate more soldiers during the war. So, we consulted a travel agent who arranged to let me know when any form of transport was available. There were now some planes travelling to West Africa but the demand for passages was great as war time restrictions were lifted and the world gradually returned to normal.

Kenneth had booked only to Freetown, where he was to spend a few days with an old African friend Mrs Casely-Hayford. He would continue his journey to Accra by plane. We had no idea how long it would be before I could join him.

However, a fortnight after he left I heard that I could get an air passage in a few days' time. I had never yet travelled by plane and I was not at all sure that I wanted to. However, it might be the only chance I would have for some time, and I accepted it trustfully. I should just be able to catch Kenneth in Freetown and we should arrive together at Accra.

It was now mid-December, and winter had started early. There was snow on the ground and as I travelled to Heathrow the fog was thick. I wondered whether we should be able to take off in such weather. However, we did, and landed safely at Lisbon where we were to spend the night in an hotel. Nowadays one flies on through the night, coming down only at scheduled stops for refuelling. But in 1946 one was amazed that a journey which took fourteen days by boat could be completed, even with overnight stops, in three days. I had soon settled down on the plane, which felt amazingly safe; and henceforth air travel became for me the normal method of covering long distances.

We spent the second night at Bathurst, Gambia. But here the accommodation was more spartan. It had been built specially for the overnight stops. But we were now again on mainland Africa, in sweltering heat. After an early start we came down at Freetown where Kenneth was waiting for me. We spent another two days with Mrs Caseley-Hayford and then took the last hop by plane to Accra.

By this time Charlie was back in Achimota. We had asked him to find us accommodation which we could use as a base for Kenneth's work. At that point, the Principal and Vice Principal were on leave and Charlie was Acting Principal. He offered us the use of the wooden house behind the college hospital, which had been built by the military during the war when they occupied the western compound. This was empty at the time but furnished. It was now about two days before Christmas, the anniversary of my first arrival at Achimota exactly twenty years earlier. Charlie gave us a great welcome. He had engaged a cook-steward for us and it all felt like old times. Many of the old staff had retired and been replaced by faces strange to us, but several old students were now on the staff.

After Christmas Kenneth began preparation work for the T.B. survey he had come out to do. His strategy was roughly to beat the bounds of the Gold Coast, to co operate with the hospitals and test village populations when possible. A laboratory technician had been appointed from England to help with the work. The first essential was to procure a truck which would transport us, including a hospital orderly named Wilberforce who had been seconded by the Health Department in Accra, and our houseboy. We should be putting up in rest houses, but needed our own bedding, kitchen equipment and basic food. A new 3/4 ton truck was available so early in the New Year we set off on a trek which was to last about three months.

We travelled first towards the east, crossed the Volta river by ferry and into British Togoland. We stopped to do some shopping in an African store, and I was immediately recognised by Rosa, now Mrs Addo, wife of a well-known headmaster. Rosa had been one of the two teaching students who helped us to start up the school at Achimota twenty years before. She threw her arms round my neck in joyous reunion.

Our route took us to Kumasi, which we both knew fairly well, and on to Tamale in the Northern Territory where we were both breaking new ground. The medical officer in Tamale was Dr Griffiths who had been the Achimota doctor overlapping with Kenneth in the early thirties. He invited us to stay with him and must have been glad to meet old friends in that outpost of civilisation.

This was the dry season, and extremely hot. The trip would have been impossible during the rains, when sudden floods washed away the bridges over the little river beds which are completely dry at this time of the year. But the heat has to be experienced to be believed. It is a dry heat, of course, very different from that near the coast where the prevailing wind blows all day from the sea, and the temperature seldom reaches 90 degrees Fahrenheit. But in Tamale and all the Northern Territory the wind blows from the north in the dry season, from the Sahara desert.

As we lay in bed in Don Griffith's otherwise comfortable house we could not sleep because the pillows were so hot. No bed clothes could be tolerated, and the heat was rendered worse because the necessary mosquito net kept out what breeze there was. We kept moving about trying, hopelessly of course, to find a cooler spot.

At Navangro, a stop still further north, almost on the boundary of the then Northern Territory with Upper Volta, we found the temperature was 107 degrees Fahrenheit. I suppose the local people took such heat for granted. One wondered how any crop could grow in such a climate. Almost the only one was millet, which was ground into flour and made into a porridge. Obviously, conditions must have been very different when the rains came, and the desert suddenly burst into life. Sadly, for several years recently, in the early nineteen eighties, the rains have largely failed and real famine has been experience in these regions. Is this a permanent encroachment of the Sahara?

So we moved on to Bole still beating the boundaries of the Gold Coast, down the western side with the Ivory coast only a stone's throw away to our right. Gratefully we left the arid north, through savannah country into the more southern forest region. The road brought us to Axim, where there is another of the coastal castles built by the early colonists both for defence and as slave trading posts. Neither Kenneth nor I had been as far west before. Then came a stretch, going east, where there was no road for some miles apart from the beach. Naturally, one could only negotiate that at low tide.

Then we moved north again to the gold and diamond mines round Prestia. Most of the mine workers were from Northern Ghana as it is now called. Not surprisingly, the incidence of T.B. here was high. After a few days here we returned to the coastal road and travelled east again through Takoradi, Elmina where we had spent part of our honeymoon just ten years before, and back to Achimota, our temporary home.

It was about this time in May 1947 that Charlie had news of the birth of his third daughter, Mary. Margaret had stayed in England with her parents for this event. Mary was born on 17 May 1947; she shared her birthday with my brother George. Just a week later, on the 24th, a second daughter was born to Arthur and Barkay Ankrah at Achimota. He was an old friend of Kenneth's and assistant bursar at the college. Just before we left for home a few weeks later I stood as Godmother to their new baby, who was christened Lucy Adukwei.·

Kenneth had now finished his T.B. survey of the Gold Coast, but his report remained to be written. When this was complete we were able to get a passage back to England on one of the Elder Dempster liners which by now had returned to their normal civilian use.

Work in Progress

Lucy Todd
nee Deakin