Free A Special Duty by Jennifer Elkin Page A

didn’t talk about it, and even if he could tell us what he had done during that winter and spring of 1943/44, perhaps the pain was from what he failed to do, or what he felt he should have done, rather than anything he actually did. Maybe the pain was because those events of 1944 were a high point of madness and thrilling adventure, never to be recaptured in the peacetime world of work and family. Did working as a commercial traveller for a soft drinks company suck the remaining life out of the returning hero? Or did he feel he was lucky to have any job, and berated himself for having thrown it all away because of the memories. For twenty years he had been troubled, and we had grown quite used to it. Life in our home always carried on with as much normality as possible thanks to the strength and resourcefulness of Rita, my mother. She didn’t understand either, but loved her husband enough to take up the cup of tea that lay cold at the bedside, when she could have said: “For goodness sake get up and stop feeling sorry for yourself”. Doctor Brown, in his struggle to find comforting words for us said that it was: “Maybe for the best”, and, although he meant well, he was quite wrong. It was not for the best at all. The despair didn’t die with him – we had breathed in too much of it to ever be fully free ourselves. Yet we survived – our little team of Rita, Pat, Jennifer and Susan.
    I can never know what lay behind such strong feelings about the 23 rd April, but it was a day that held terrors to be escaped from in any way possible. I would like to understand, but I may just have to tell the story of those months – the winter and spring 1943-44 – and accept that sometimes a person’s experiences are so unique and personal, that not even a loving daughter can unravel the threads.

C HAPTER 9
HOME
    P eace returned to Europe in May 1945, just two days after my sister Pat was born, and it was a time of change for war-weary people. Churchill’s Conservative Government was very quickly swept out of power in a landslide election victory for Labour, whose pledge of full employment for returning servicemen and a ‘cradle-to-grave’ health service struck a chord after the hardship of war. Thousands of servicemen would never return; their fate and whereabouts unknown, but Walter Davis, the last missing member of the Storey crew, made it home to his parents’ house in time for VE day and, by way of celebration, hung a notice outside next to the Union Jack that read Niech ż yje Polska (Long Live Poland). His friend, Private Jimmy Bloom eventually reported to the British Embassy in Warsaw and worked there as in interpreter for five weeks before being repatriated in October 1945. In 1947 he received the British Empire Medal for gallant and distinguished services in the field. i Tom continued to fly with the RAF for another year, before a failed eye test grounded him and he was moved to a desk job. His old crew would attest to the fact that his eyesight had always been pretty bad, joking that his landings were better at night than in the day, but in peacetime, it was no longer expedient to overlook such imperfection. Life in the RAF without flying was unthinkable, so Tom resigned his commission, returning to Ludlow where he took over the running of the Unicorn Hotel with Rita. There followed a series of unsettled and restless years, with job opportunities ill-matched to his skills or potential. He yearned for a better life and, having done his pilot training in Canada and mixed with many Canadians who flew with the Squadron, decided that he and Rita should emigrate. Charlie Keen had already left for Canada and was flying with the Transatlantic Ferry Unit, and Patrick Stradling would also take his family to Canada and then to Rhodesia in the 1950s. Tom’s plan was well advanced when Rita became ill, spending many weeks in hospital and, having given up the tenancy of The Unicorn, he was forced to look for whatever job he