WRITING LIVES DURING LOCKDOWN
I have just received the June issue of the magazine where Sarah Williams asks readers in her ‘Welcome’ letter if they have done any lockdown projects.
My lockdown project has been to write my father’s biography. He never threw anything away, and fortunately his parents kept all of the letters that he wrote home during the Second World War. He always told us that he was in RAF Intelligence, and we thought it was his Yorkshire tongue-in-cheek humour, although we knew that he had learnt Japanese. Further research has put him in 1944/45 at HMS Anderson, the Bletchley Park outpost in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). He met and married my mum – who was a Wren – out there. He returned to pick up his theology degree in London, then became a clergyman.
I have written his story to span from a bit before his birth in 1913 to his death in 2008. There are also loads of photos as well as all the documents and letters from beginning to end. I’m hoping that I might find a publisher.
Having finished that, I have now embarked on my Great Aunt Evelyn Mary Pike’s biography. You may remember that she featured in the magazine as a ‘Family Hero’ (February 2015, and again in the 'Letters' section when her medals came up in an auction (January 2019)! It has been a huge bonus that The National Archives has made its digitised records free to access during lockdown.
I have read the War Diaries of all of the casualty clearing stations (CCSs) where she was a nurse. I have just reached the end of her time in the war. There are no diaries or letters here, but it is a factual account. I am now continuing with her going to South Africa on the ‘Overseas Settlement’ scheme in 1922. In 1935 she became matron at the Somerset Hospital in Cape Town, and then matron of the Groote Schuur.
Anyway, as well as home-schooling our two grandsons for eight weeks it has kept me busy! And it has helped me to put everything into perspective – the diaries from the CCSs are a salutary reminder of what it was really like.
Susan Rose, by email
EDITOR REPLIES: Thank you for sharing your projects with us Susan. Sounds like they have kept you busy. I have always found that family history helps me keep things in perspective, and we need that now more than ever!