When Dad Came Home

A Memory of Smethwick.

There was a knock at the door, and there he was, this tall man wearing a bush hat who grabbed my mom, giving her a great big smacker of a kiss. Of course I wasn't having this strange man doing this to my mom, so I promptly got the broom and hit him with it, he may have been fighting a war in Burma but he hadn't met his bad-tempered stroppy daughter yet. Even though there was the odd photo around, this man was a complete stranger to me, but that would change. Sadly mom died 5 years later, when she was 34 years old, of malignant hypertention. My younger sister was living with my aunt, she had lived there from birth, and my sister and I were sent to live with my gran in 1951 so even after the war there were still casualie, but then it wasn't proper for Aunt to be lumbered with 3 daughters. We stayed with Gran who insisted on being called Nan for the next few years. There was quite a housefull as Nan had daughters only a few years older than myself, as my nan was 17 when she married; so my dad was one of the older children of 9 surviving children. Her dad also did army service in India, as her elder siblings were born there; my nan though was born in Smethwick as was I, in 1942 in my gran's front room in Wills Street, but dad of course was away fighting at that time so he didn't see me until he got whacked with the broom!

---

---