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Stories from the Homefront: Oshawa During the Second World War

 

 

TRANSCRIPT

I was born in 1925, June 25th 1925. So when the war started I must have been 14.
I lived in a little village called Frenchcum Surrey in South East of England. It was about 40-50 miles from the coast and that's when the war started of course. And the planes came over to bomb England. We had a view of what was going on, we saw many fights in the sky and as the planes where on their way out to bomb London. And from the top of our garden we could, more than once, see London almost on fire from the bombing.

We weren't used as a target, really by the Germans; there were lots of dog fights, as they called them in the sky. Because our little (Hawker) Hurricanes and spitfires, I mean, kept them, the German bombers at bay really. They saved our lives actually, they won the war in a way.

Eventually as time went by, of course, I met this young man called Jimmy Gilbert, who was in the Irish Regiment of Canada and he was such a beautiful dancer, and a very handsome young man. But unfortunately he was sent to Italy and he said to me, "We're leaving next week" you know, the selfishness of youth, I said "but I want to go to that dance, you know we were going to go to that dance together." And he said "Well there's a tall dark handsome man came in today from the Argiles" and he said "would you like to meet him?" and I said, "Oh that's fine" so that turned out to be my husband how I met him. Harvey Easton. And we used to go to dances, oh I love dancing you know, even though I was working.

I used to see him in the mornings when I was riding my bike by. He was billeted on the side of a hill there, and he'd be; they'd be out doing parade duty, and he'd have his rifle in his hands and he'd wave it at the bus, or the bike or whatever source of transportation I chose to use that morning. And my husband took me, he was a sergeant, so he used to take me to the sergeants mess for a meal well that was wonderful, you know I got a free meal, and it's all Canadian food. So we were married on the 8th of August in 1944, and it was a beautiful wedding. Even despite the fact that we had been going through years of horror and war, and Aunt Win was there, in full force. And my cousin, her daughter was there, my brides' maid.

I was fortunate; I spoke to someone who was from London. And said, "I'd like my husband to stay in England a little while longer, because I'm going to have a baby, and you wouldn't have a job for him would you?"
And he, to cut a long story short, he allowed him to work in the War Brides Bureau it's called, where he would list all the war brides and they'd come for interviews, and he'd get all their documentation and be told them where they'd be on the ship. So he was on the ship, the Aquitania, when I came home. So I was glad he was because I, when it got to the point, and I had my baby in my arms, and I said good bye to my parents in Walworth station, my heart broke, I thought, what am I doing to my dear parents? So, it was a very sad parting, for me and for them. And I thought well, you know Harvey was waiting for me at the docks, at South Hampton he got off the ship to come and get the baby Gil, she was four months old. And so how could I, I wanted to run away, you know with the baby and go back home, but I didn't. I stayed of course, and I've never regretted it really, it's just that I love England as much as I love Canada.

But we'd have these meetings so we would get to ask, they could ask questions and understand what was to happen to them, and they, we were very well looked after. We stayed in a, I stayed anyway, and many where with me, we had to go up to London near Wasner (sp?), then they'd bus took us to these buildings were there where bunk beds and stayed there for a day or two, and then we were shipped out on the train. To South Hampton docks and we were given beautiful things by the Red Cross, you know I had a great big parcel full of clothes that Canadian people had knitted, and so on and diapers and things like that, which was just as well because we really needed them. My diapers where, my husband helped put initials on every diaper because they were material in those days. And then I went to get mine one day, and someone had taken them.

So it was a long journey across the Atlantic, it was quite a difficult thing for me, I mean I was what? 20? 21? Well we were, I was met at Toronto station by my husband. They let them off first. He was on the train a day ahead of me. So he was able to come down to the station to greet me. And it was a different world. I've come from a village and this is a city of Toronto, as it was then. And I wasn't awe struck by it, it wasn't my cup of tea, lets put it that way. And eventually we bought a home, with our savings and I rented the upper half of this great big old house to make money to establish ourselves.

So we lived with them (Harvey's parents) for about a year. But we wanted to rent a place right away, but they would say, "Do you have a baby?" and I said "Oh yes but she's a lovely little baby she's quiet and sweet you know." "No! no babies, no children" There was a shortage of housing because of the men all coming back and wanting accommodation, and I suppose they thought it would be a nuisance, they would have to put up with a baby crying and what not.

There was this feeling, you quite actually, there's a feeling I got from my husband's family that I had stolen one of their boys almost.

They would make discouraging remarks about the carriage that I had, the baby carriage because it was a pedigree, a great big thing, but that's the way it was and my dad and mom gave it to me, it cost them a lot of money it was crated up and brought over with me, but I found it hard to get up the steps and in England we didn't have steps, the houses were flat on the ground. I found it hard to adjust to the meals; we lived a different life in England, we had breakfast and a cooked lunch and a light supper, or tea as it was called. It really wasn't just tea, it was a big meal, but it was tea time; so all these little things at first are hard to adjust to. And then the cold weather; that really knocked me for six you know, and I realized you couldn't wear a thin coat outside. The two extremes here I found difficult the cold and the heat and the mosquitoes and I didn't know there was a thing as mosquitoes and that they would come in if you didn't have screens and bite ya, and little things like that I found hard to understand, or you know, I didn't realize it would be that way. The food was different, although it was very plentiful. In England we were rationed very severely and we'd cued up for miles to get our rations. When I came over here of course there was a shortage maybe, very not really noticeable, and I found them not as disciplined, the people, as they were in England.

I have a saying about the wars, in the words of Sir Edmond Burk, "the only thing necessary, for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing." And well that's my philosophy in life too.

 

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