War casualty?

In Rob Gandy’s feature ‘Not the face!’ [ FT414:46], he mentions a friend’s parents encountering a man in Wallasey during the late 1950s dressed in typical city clothes, “a little old-fashioned, possibly pre-WWII”, but who had no face. His friend’s mother said there was “just a mist where his face should have been” and thought it “looked rather like muslin”. Perhaps it was muslin. Many WWII pilots and other service personnel suffered terrible disfigurement from burns, and some may well have resorted to wearing a face covering in order to avoid other people’s reactions. Patricia Cox

Halesowen, West Midlands