Picturing My Mother

A Memory of Debden.

I have no doubt that my lovely young, 23 year old mother, Elma , a WAAF stationed at Debden fighter aerodrome, during WW2, cycled this lovely lane at some point.

It was around here, in the summer of 1942, that my life began when my mother and still unknown father 'sparked' me into life. He apparently named John, according to one source, guarded a radio transmitter from a small hut out in the Essex countryside, safely away from the aerodrome. A perfect place for my beginning, I imagine !

The unfortunate part for Elma was that she had to leave the WAAF and travel home to Kirkbymoorside in Yorkshire to have her first child. She died in 1947, when I was only 4 years old.

I have researched her past, as best as I can, and tried to get the 'feel' of her life as a plotter in the operations room at Debden at such a critical time in our country's history. I managed to get in touch with three women who worked with her there, one in New Zealand, one in Liverpool and one who lived only 15 miles from me in Toronto.

Unfortunately none of them knew who my father was, hardly surprising as my mother never told anyone either.