Extraordinary LIVES
THERE were six children in our family, growing up in India during the 1920s and 1930s. Kaye and I were the middle two and always close, sharing a love of music, theatre and literature. Our parents were of Irish background and we were there because our father, a doctor, was an officer in the Indian Army Medical Corps. Kaye was born in Ootacamund (Ooty for short) in the south of the country, and went to school in Bangalore. She had a talent for music and at 15 was one of the youngest pupils ever to pass the Senior Cambridge exams. She went on to qualify as a teacher of music, English and maths. She was teaching at the Holy Cross school in Poona in 1943 when she decided to do her bit for the war effort. So she enlisted in the WRINS, the Women’s Royal Indian Naval Service, was seconded to Intelligence under Lord Mountbatten and posted to the port city of Trincomalee in Ceylon. Her deciphering skills enabled her to warn the defence batteries of an impending raid on the harbour. The bombers were shot down in time, thus saving the harbour, and Kaye and her colleagues received
personal commendations from Mountbatten. After the war, Kaye returned to teaching. She looked forward to marrying her beloved fiancé, Captain Maurice Game, who’d also been in the Indian Army, and had been captured by the Japanese and suffered badly as a PoW. After he was tragically killed in a motorbiking accident in Bangalore in 1948, she lost all interest in marriage and remained single. In 1950, Kaye moved to England, where she began teaching at a convent school in Berkshire. I followed her here from India soon afterwards to join the RAF. I recall visiting her once in her classroom, where the chattering of her 40 or so pupils was hushed by her stentorian command of ‘Settle down, girls!’ Upon noticing me in my smart RAF uniform, the girls cried out in approval: ‘Ooh, is he your brother, Miss? He’s nice! Can we meet him?’ To which she replied, ‘Certainly not! He’s old enough to be your grandad.’ (I was 20 at the time!) Kaye’s longest teaching stint was at a South London comprehensive school. She was there for more than 20 years, running the choir as well as teaching. On her retirement in 1985, the school gave her a big ‘Cockney knees-up’ as a send-off. She continued to attend the school’s concerts and played the organ at her local church, where she took responsibility for cleaning the priest’s vestments! Kaye was my lifelong ally, always backing me up, and I’ll be forever grateful for her support.
KATHLEEN MARIE VERONICA GERNON, born March 18, 1921; died January 2, 2021, aged 99.