A Canadian In Wartime

A Memory of Church Crookham.

My father must have arrived in Church Crookham around 1942. About a half dozen Canadian officers were quartered in an extremely 'modern' house, called The White House. My father, a young Captain, always spoke of that house with something approaching awe. For some reason, the sanitary fixtures fascinated him: wash basins in individual bedrooms, something unknown in North America. His bath had tiles embossed with dolphins, I remember him saying.
Even for the officers, transport was generally by bicycle and he became an intrepid cyclist, whereas at home he had always had his own car as a teenager (a Ford Model A, with rumble seat).
Mostly he recalled the kind welcome of the English people: it seems Canadians were preferred to the rather rambunctious Americans.

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