My parents were newly married when the Second World War broke out. My mother, Edna, had a hairdressing shop at 57 Great Darkgate Street and my father, Colin, worked in Boots Pharmacy. We are lucky enough to have my father’s service record along with some letters, notes and a number of photos from that time which has enabled us to piece together an account of their lives during the war. I have picked out some points from these which I hope gives an indication of life during this time.
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| My mother's hairdressing shop |
My father volunteered for service and entered the Navy on 24th July 1940 to become JX208528 Ordinary Seaman Morgan after a period of training at HMS Rayleigh (Torpoint, Cornwall). He had a varied career including working on motor torpedo boats in Stornaway, convoy duty and postings in Belfast, Gibraltar and Freetown.
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Game of Ludo, Freetown, on Christmas Day 1944 |
My mother continued to work in her hairdressing business in Aberystwyth together with her sister. She would travel to meet my father when he had shore leave including going to Ireland on at least one occasion. It must have been hard for them to communicate effectively during that time and train services were often disrupted in the war particularly if there were air raids. Their letters reference my father waiting for her in Plymouth station but they did not meet that day due to some misunderstanding caused by the timing of letters and telegrams.
My father also spent some time working as an instructor at HMS Glendower, Pwllheli. I have read that Glendower was built during the war by Billy Butlin at the request of the Admiralty; at the end of the war he took back ownership of it and Butlin's Pwllheli was opened to the public after some reconstruction. My father was pleased to have been back in Wales but yearned to be that little bit further south to be back home in Aberystwyth with my mother and his new daughter (my sister) who was born in 1942.
Their letters give some indication of the everyday austerity and stress that people faced during that time. There is reference to my mother getting electricity installed in her house in Llanbadarn in 1941 and my father feeling very lucky to be able to buy a bottle of squash so that he could use it to accompany his daily rum ration to make a hot toddy of sorts. Also the unaccustomed luxury of him being able to wash his underclothes and have a bath when based at Glendower.
As you would expect my mother worried a lot for the safety of her husband but service men also worried about the safety of their families and often received telegrams calling them home as their families had been bombed out of their homes. For this reason my father worried when my mother stayed with her family back in her home town - Merthyr Tydfil. It was a nerve wracking time for them both and letters were much anticipated and gratefully received.
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Sailors removing ice from the upper deck of a ship in the North Atlantic |
I have a handwritten account of my father’s experiences on convoy duty whilst being under U-boat attack. He was on HMS Orchis, a flower class corvette, working as a leading torpedo operator on North Atlantic convoy duty. The crew were housed beneath the mess deck with bunks positioned on the side of the ship. The noise of exploding depth charges and torpedoes prevented any rest for the crew for 4 days and nights. Finally however the convoy made it to St John’s, Newfoundland due to fog halting the U-boat attacks as they had no radar and were still reliant on visual sightings.
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Part of the rescued crew of a sunken U-boat landing at Gibraltar, Feb 1945 |
My father served to the end of the war and his record shows that he was released to Reserve on 3rd June 1945. I believe that he volunteered to work down the coal mines in South Wales in order to be released from the Navy earlier than he would otherwise have been. He was finally discharged on 29th June 1946. Below is a letter of recognition stamped 'Borough of Aberystwyth' that was sent to my father's brother Ivor, who served in the army in WWII. I assume that my father must have had one on his return home too but we never found a copy amongst his things.
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Blog by Alison Comley
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