Fathers at War A Century of Fatherhood


Fathers at War

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The Second World War had a devastating impact on family life in Britain,

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with repercussions that are still felt to this day.

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It brought grief and heartache to millions of people across the land.

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It wrecked marriages and turned decent fathers into broken men.

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It did affect me badly. I began to think myself as worthless...

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..as no good for anything, because I couldn't provide

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as I wanted to for my family.

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Four million men were demobbed in the years following the war,

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many of them fathers.

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Thousands were scarred by their experiences and struggled to return

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to civilian life in a world that had changed beyond all recognition.

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But their homecoming could be just as traumatic for their children,

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for whom Daddy was a stranger.

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And all of a sudden there was this man, and he just threw his arms around my Mum

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and I just felt as if I was totally on the outside.

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I think I heard mum said something about it,

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it's your dad, or your daddy.

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I didn't know what a dad was, I didn't know what a daddy was.

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And I didn't like him.

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In the years that followed, austerity would be replaced by affluence

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and as stable marriages flourished, fathers would at last enjoy

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the simple pleasures of time spent with their sons and daughters.

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But the children of the Blitz would soon grow up to become

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the rebellious teenagers of the '50s and '60s, and would reject all that their fathers had fought for.

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I didn't want to be like him, I wanted to be the business,

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which was at the time the Teddy Boys, and he didn't want me to be.

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And the more he didn't want me to be, the more I wanted to be

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and the more I would be, do you know what I'm saying?

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This is the continuing story of how Britain's fathers have fought

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to overcome many obstacles in their struggle to bring up their children.

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These are tales of love and war, rebellion and redemption.

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This is A Century Of Fatherhood.

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BELLS RING

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For many families in Britain, life in the late 1930s was a happy one.

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With unemployment falling after years of depression,

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and home ownership on the rise, the future was looking bright.

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But all this would change with the outbreak of the Second World War.

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I have to tell you now

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that no such undertaking has been received,

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and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.

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At the start of the war, the British Army numbered less than 900,000 men,

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compared to well over four million in the combined German Armed Forces.

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Conscription was introduced for all able-bodied men between the ages of 18 and 41,

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and by the end of 1939, more than a million men had been called into service.

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Given the age range, many were fathers.

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EASY LISTENING MUSIC PLAYS

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Before September was out, the British Expeditionary Force

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had set sail for France

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and in the months that followed, more volunteers and conscripts

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would leave Britain for the Middle East, North Africa and Burma.

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And unlike those that left to fight at the beginning of the First World War,

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this time they were fully aware that they might not be coming back.

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It's very easy to forget

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that the Second World War came hard on the heels of the First World War,

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so that young men who were going away to fight, and were young fathers in 1939-1940,

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had quite possibly had the experience of losing

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their own fathers, or uncles, or cousins, or even brothers in the First World War

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and they knew the impact that had on family life.

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Cliff Shepherd, a butcher from Yorkshire, had volunteered to fight,

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despite being devoted to his baby daughter, Thelma,

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who was born in 1939.

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Well, to leave Thelma,

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it...

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just practically broke my heart

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to go...

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and the thought passed through my mind, "Will I see her again?

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"Will I be killed and that?"

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And we loved each other so much.

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Cliff made Thelma one last promise, that he would bring her home a doll on his return.

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Then it was time for him to leave.

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And I were feeling absolutely terrible

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and I tried to look cheerful,

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and as soon as I got out of the door, I cried all the way to the station

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and I couldn't resist it.

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Family life was disrupted further as the threat of aerial attack loomed large.

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And over three million people, mostly school children

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from Britain's towns and cities, were evacuated to the countryside.

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But against all expectation, the air raids didn't happen.

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During the months of phoney war,

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a false sense of security spread across the country

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and in time, thousands of children returned home.

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When the Blitz finally began, over 5,000 of them would be killed.

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Sonny Leigh grew up in Bermondsey in London.

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As a boy, he'd had a difficult childhood and when he married

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his sweetheart Daisy in 1938 they vowed that they would

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bring up a happy family together.

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In 1940, Daisy gave birth to their first daughter, Pamela.

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You can't describe the feeling I had, you cannot.

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It's out of this world, especially when, you know,

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you want something and you've got it.

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And she was about six weeks old, and I said, "Daisy,

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"don't you think we ought to see about getting her christened?"

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She said, "I'm going to give it until she's two months,

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"then we'll go to the church and we'll get her christened."

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Sonny had volunteered for the Auxiliary Fire Service at the outbreak of war,

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but was off duty when the Germans began their aerial bombardment on September the 7th.

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This was the first night of the Blitz and London's docklands,

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close to where Sonny lived, bore the brunt of the attack.

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As the bombs fell, Sonny and his family fled

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to an air raid shelter close to their home.

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This night was a bloody awful night,

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it was like a bloody battlefield.

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Daisy and her mother and Pamela, they were all in the shelter.

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And she said, "I've left my rings and everything on the dressing table."

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So I run upstairs, grabbed her stuff, run downstairs.

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As I bent down to give it to Daisy

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so the landmine came down and that was it.

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Inside, the shelter was all buckled

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and they dug us out.

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And I looked at Pamela and she was lying in this woman's arms.

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I wanted to go and kiss her but I thought she was asleep,

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I don't want to wake her.

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I didn't know she was dead.

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I've regretted it ever since, that I never said goodbye.

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Now she's a little sunbeam.

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For fathers separated by the war from their families, whether at home or overseas,

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the best way to ensure at least some involvement in the lives

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of their growing children was through the good old-fashioned letter.

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From the deserts of North Africa to the jungles of Burma,

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as fathers prepared for action, thoughts of their children were never far from their mind,

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and a simple message from home could mean so much.

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It is absolutely the case that the army recognised the importance of the postal system to morale,

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not only morale of their men, but also morale back home.

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Thousands of millions of letters exchanged hands,

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so there was a real correspondence and communication going on between fathers and sons and daughters,

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which I think helped enormously for when the men came home, because they had that link

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with their children, and they really felt they needed it because a child is the future

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and they had to feel they were fighting for something.

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If you just sit out in the desert or you're stuck in Northern Italy,

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or you're fighting in Burma,

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you have to believe that there's something you're going to go back to.

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From the women of Britain to all their men folk overseas.

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"My dear, another letter for you to let you know we're all well and everything at home is going on fine.

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"Ann and John are marvellous, they seem to be growing every day,

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"and since the weather improved, they've just lived out of doors.

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"I'd love you to see them scampering over those fields at the back of the cottage..."

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Cliff Shepherd joined the RAF Regiment as a gunner

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and was away from home for most of the war.

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He wrote to his wife and daughter, Thelma, every day,

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and sent Thelma this photograph, so that she wouldn't forget him.

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In his letters to her, he was always careful

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to avoid the realities of war.

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I used to say, "I've been on the tram car today,"

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and in some cases...

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I hadn't. I used to make it up

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because I didn't want to tell her anything about war.

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But you were scared stiff many times.

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Thelma has kept many of the letters Cliff wrote to her in the five years that he was away,

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and still has his photograph that she used to kiss goodnight.

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But there is one card that Thelma treasures above all others.

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There was one very special birthday card that Dad sent me

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and he'd put a special two verses in, a little poem for me.

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I'll read it to you. "God bless you darling Thelma upon this happy day.

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"My thoughts are always with you, though I am far away.

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"I send you birthday greetings, for you are six today.

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"May future years be happy ones, to help you on life's way.

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"To my darling, Thelma, with best wishes for a very happy birthday.

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"From Daddy. Lots of kisses."

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And that one's really special.

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As the war dragged on, the armed forces were keen to experiment

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with alternative ways to enable fathers to keep in touch with loved ones back home.

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Among them were a series of messages known as "Calling Blighty",

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which were filmed in India and the Far East and played at cinemas across the country.

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Hello there.

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Firstly, many happy returns of the day to Brenda.

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Give her a big kiss from her daddy.

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I'm quite well and hoping to be home soon.

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I'm sure you're doing well over there judging by the mail I receive.

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Give my love to Aunty Eve, Aunt Evelyn, Uncle Rog,

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all those who are interested.

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I don't think it'll be very long before I'm catching the boat.

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Keep your fingers crossed and smiling.

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Kay Chorley's father had been a butler in a large country house

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in Hertfordshire before he left home on her 7th birthday in 1939.

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In peacetime, they'd been devoted to one another so she found their separation hard to bear.

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Well, I longed for him every day. Every day.

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It was cruel because you...

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had a picture of him, but it was getting more and more faded.

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I couldn't remember how he walked or you couldn't remember

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what it felt like to be up on his shoulder or cuddled.

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All those things were precious, but...but they began to fade.

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Then in 1943, Kay and her mother were told

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to expect a message from him broadcast over the radio from the Middle East.

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For a few seconds, he was back in the room with me.

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His voice, I'd forgotten what he sounded like.

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And I began to build up a picture of his face again,

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his blue eyes and his hair and everything, and he was almost in the room again.

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I can remember my mother and I both sat with the tears rolling down our faces.

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It was very emotional, very, very emotional.

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But not all messages brought good news.

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After the death of his daughter, Pamela, in the Blitz,

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Sonny Leigh volunteered for the Navy and went to sea as a stoker,

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at the height of the Battle of the Atlantic.

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At home in London, his wife Daisy was expecting another baby.

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Well, the Petty Officer came up and said, "Leigh..."

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I was on duty in the boiler room. And he said, "Here's a telegram for you."

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And when I read it, it said "Daisy very ill, baby dead."

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I was numb, numb, really numb.

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Daisy had had a miscarriage.

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But when Sonny asked the Petty Officer if he could take compassionate leave,

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he found there was little time for sympathy.

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He took the telegram and he went and saw the First Lieutenant.

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The Lieutenant went and saw the old man, so the Captain said "Tell him to get back on duty.

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"He may be dead himself in the next hour, the convoy's being attacked."

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And that's all there is to it,

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and course I couldn't cry because it hurt me so much.

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Before the war was over, Daisy would lose another baby in childbirth.

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The experience would have a devastating effect on Sonny.

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I seized up, I suppose. I don't know.

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I was like a machine, just doing automatically.

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I couldn't think straight.

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In Billinge, in 1942, Heather Burnley's mother received a telegram informing her that her husband

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had been captured by the Japanese.

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Over a quarter of around 50,000 British Servicemen taken prisoner in the Far East died in captivity,

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mostly from starvation, punishment or disease.

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Heather's father couldn't know it, but at least the odds were in his favour.

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The statistics show that it was

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the married men in the prison camps, those men in their 20s and early 30s,

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who generally did better because they had some life experience behind them and had children,

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so they had something to look forward to, something to live for, something to go back to,

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and even though they hadn't been able to communicate with them

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because the Japanese wouldn't allow them to write letters,

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nevertheless some of them had kept diaries, they've written stuff

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so that they could have something to show their children later.

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Heather's father was imprisoned in Kuching Prisoner of War Camp in Borneo.

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Against all the rules, he kept a journal in which

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he recorded the suffering he endured at the hands of his captors.

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It was only found after his death in 1992.

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"First of November, 1942.

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"There is an outbreak of dysentery in the camp

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"and today I find myself a victim.

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"So today I go to hospital and I've got to get over it somehow,

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"although they have no medicines,

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"as I've just got to get back to Wynn and Heather.

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"Two of the men died in the ward today

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"and two more are expected within the week.

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"When they are known to be hopeless cases they are put in a small adjoining room

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"known as 'the death cell', and left there to pass out.

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"Have been here three months now and still hanging on.

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"I mustn't let it beat me,

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"although I have to crawl on all fours to be able to move.

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"I've no strength left at all and a beard six inches long."

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It just brings tears to the eyes to think of this strong human being,

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nice man, cuddly man,

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reaching this state of being in a prison camp.

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It's just so very, very sad.

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SHE MOUTHS

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One of the greatest fears

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for men going into battle was the possibility of serious injury

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and the impact the disability would have on their prospects for family life.

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In 1944, Wilfred Copley was a 34-year-old sergeant

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in the Essex Regiment, preparing his platoon for the Normandy landings,

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while at home in London, his wife, Florence, was expecting their baby.

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On D-Day, Wilfred and his men landed on Sword Beach

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and in the days of fierce fighting that followed,

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he led his platoon in the advance towards the town of Caen.

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There's a crossroads and that's what we were fighting for.

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And this German tank, I see it come out of a siding.

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And it pointed the gun my way,

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along my road where I was, my platoon.

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And the next thing, it fired.

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All I knew, there was a kind of a blinding flash and I was out straight away, I was unconscious.

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Wilfred received life-threatening injuries.

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His left leg was almost severed and he had terrible wounds to his neck, his back and his hand.

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Still unconscious, he was given emergency treatment

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before being shipped back to Britain, where he was covered

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from head to toe in plaster cast.

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But he was determined to survive.

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I think it was by virtue of knowing that I was going to be a father

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that sort of gave me some added strength to live through it.

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I realised that...

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probably the worst was over...

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and I would live...

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I'd want to live...

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to welcome my child when I get well again.

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Whilst Wilfred lay seriously ill in hospital, his wife gave birth to their son, Michael.

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Wilfred was desperate to see him, but gangrene had set into his wounds

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and, fearing infection, father and son were kept apart.

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It would be six months before Wilfred was allowed to meet his son

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for the first time.

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Unfortunately, I couldn't welcome him by cuddling him or anything like that

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because I was in this plaster cast

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from the neck down to my feet,

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and all they could do...

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was place him sat on top of the plaster cast

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facing me, looking at each other,

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and that's how we met for the first time.

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What a welcome(!)

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And immediately, soon as I see him, I knew he was my boy.

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In the months that followed the end of the war,

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there were many happy reunions as four million men were demobbed from the armed forces.

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After fighting in France and Holland, Cliff Shepherd returned home to his daughter in 1945.

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It was just marvellous.

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My legs were getting dizzy as I were getting near home.

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I think it was just the excitement.

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My daughter said, "Are you come on leave, Dad?"

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I said, "No," I said, "I'm not going back any more."

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She said, "Well, what will they say if you don't go back?" I said, "The war's finished."

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I says, "I'm stopping at home now, I'll be home with you always now."

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And we really enjoyed the life together then.

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When he left home in 1939,

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Cliff had made Thelma a promise, that he'd bring her home a doll.

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In the nine months that he carried her around France,

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she survived a few near misses, but Cliff was true to his word.

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And bringing it home was absolutely gorgeous, it were like Father Christmas give her this doll.

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And she were absolutely thrilled to bits with it and she still has it this day, just as new as ever.

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It was really, really special to have you home again, wasn't it?

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Oh, it was just wonderful.

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We've got through everything else. We've had great, great times,

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and I love you so much.

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Bless you, darling.

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At the end of 1945,

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Heather Burnley discovered that her father was alive.

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Miraculously, he had survived the horrors

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of the Japanese Prisoner of War Camp and was at last on his way home.

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She hadn't seen him in over five years.

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When I knew my father was coming home, I was wildly excited.

0:24:420:24:48

And when the ship docked, it was full of men

0:24:480:24:52

going absolutely wild, shouting, waving.

0:24:520:24:56

And I remember looking at all these men and picking out my father.

0:24:560:25:01

And I said, "I've found him, I've found him."

0:25:020:25:05

And he came to join us

0:25:070:25:10

and he gave me a big hug,

0:25:100:25:13

a long enduring one, and also to my mother,

0:25:130:25:18

and I was asked or invited to sit on his knee.

0:25:180:25:23

And, of course, suddenly this man was a stranger.

0:25:230:25:27

I hadn't seen him for so many years.

0:25:270:25:29

And although I knew it was my father, I felt a little shy, to put it mildly, but I did sit on his knee.

0:25:290:25:36

This photograph, taken on the quayside, captured that moment.

0:25:390:25:42

It was a little strange when sitting on his knee

0:25:470:25:50

because I hadn't seen this man since I was a very little girl, and now I was eight years old.

0:25:500:25:57

And so it must have been hard for a man who left his tender young family

0:25:580:26:05

to come back and find that so many years had wrought the changes.

0:26:050:26:09

And here was a skinny girl with pigtails,

0:26:110:26:13

he probably didn't like pigtails.

0:26:130:26:15

I don't know what he thought, but certainly he must have thought,

0:26:150:26:19

"Gosh, I've got to come to terms with all of this."

0:26:190:26:22

Although awkward, Heather's reunion with her father

0:26:270:26:30

was a happy occasion.

0:26:300:26:33

But despite what the newsreels suggest,

0:26:330:26:35

not every reunion went so smoothly.

0:26:350:26:38

It is estimated that when the war ended,

0:26:410:26:43

as many as a million children under the age of six had never met their father.

0:26:430:26:48

In these circumstances, the trauma of his homecoming could last for decades.

0:26:480:26:54

Janet White was born in Braintree in Essex in 1940.

0:27:000:27:04

The youngest of four children, she was still only a baby

0:27:040:27:08

when her father left to fight.

0:27:080:27:10

In 1942,

0:27:120:27:14

he was captured by the Italians while serving in the Middle East.

0:27:140:27:17

Here we've got some photographs.

0:27:190:27:22

I like the ones that my mother sent to my father out in the camp.

0:27:220:27:26

And this one is my sister,

0:27:280:27:30

Nancy, and myself.

0:27:300:27:33

Nancy was eight and I'm three.

0:27:330:27:35

And this is the actual one that was sent to my father.

0:27:350:27:38

It's addressed to Prisoner of War, Number One Camp, in Italy,

0:27:380:27:42

with my mother's address on it as well, they had to have their addresses on everything.

0:27:420:27:47

And evidently they took us to a studio to have these photographs done purely for my dad,

0:27:470:27:52

but I can't remember having them done, because I was three years old

0:27:520:27:55

and, you know, the memories are very scarce from that time.

0:27:550:27:58

Although Janet has no memory of this photograph being taken,

0:28:010:28:05

the day of her father's return is one she will never forget.

0:28:050:28:08

Mum had said to us before we left for school,

0:28:110:28:13

she said, "I've got a surprise for you this afternoon."

0:28:130:28:18

And she said, "I'm going to come and meet you from school and I won't tell you about it till then."

0:28:180:28:23

And she'd taken us to buy our favourite sweets,

0:28:230:28:26

and I can remember mine were aniseed balls that changed colour as you sucked them.

0:28:260:28:31

Then we started to go down for the railway station

0:28:310:28:34

and we'd not got the slightest idea why.

0:28:340:28:37

And then we saw all these men coming up from the train, the train had just come in,

0:28:370:28:42

all these men in khaki coming up the road.

0:28:420:28:45

And all of a sudden there was this man

0:28:450:28:48

and he just threw his arms around my mum.

0:28:480:28:51

And I just felt as if I was totally on the outside.

0:28:510:28:54

I heard mum said something about, "It's your dad," or, "your daddy,"

0:28:560:28:59

but I didn't know what a dad was, didn't know what a daddy was.

0:28:590:29:04

And I didn't like him, he was a stranger and I didn't like him, I didn't want him.

0:29:040:29:09

I just wanted to get away.

0:29:090:29:11

So it was literally a shock.

0:29:110:29:14

I was being taken out for a surprise that turned out to be my worst nightmare.

0:29:140:29:19

For fathers returning home with the physical and mental scars of war,

0:29:210:29:25

readjusting to normal family life could be a gruelling process.

0:29:250:29:30

Resettlement Advice Centres were set up to help men

0:29:300:29:33

with the practicalities of finding work, but for fathers recovering from serious injury,

0:29:330:29:38

like Wilfred Copley,

0:29:380:29:40

it was difficult to come to terms with the fact that, for a time at least,

0:29:400:29:44

they could not be the main provider.

0:29:440:29:46

Those years between

0:29:490:29:51

leaving hospital

0:29:510:29:53

and getting home,

0:29:530:29:55

and then afterwards, trying to find a job,

0:29:550:29:59

was...

0:29:590:30:01

..was a void really.

0:30:020:30:04

It did affect me badly.

0:30:060:30:07

I began to think of myself as worthless...

0:30:090:30:12

..as no good for anything,

0:30:140:30:16

because I couldn't provide as I wanted to for my family.

0:30:160:30:22

My wife was mothering two, not one,

0:30:240:30:27

mothering Michael and myself

0:30:270:30:31

because of my condition, and that went on for two years.

0:30:310:30:35

For those most severely traumatised by their war experiences,

0:30:390:30:43

Emergency Medical Service Centres, like this one, were set up

0:30:430:30:46

to provide the latest in psychological testing and treatment.

0:30:460:30:51

NEWSREEL: From every point of view, a neurotic who has broken down is a liability.

0:30:510:30:55

Treatment must therefore be carefully planned to restore each individual

0:30:550:31:00

to maximum usefulness within his limitations.

0:31:000:31:03

But for the thousands of prisoners of war

0:31:030:31:06

who returned from the Far East to a Britain slowly recovering from war,

0:31:060:31:10

there was often very little sympathy.

0:31:100:31:12

What's interesting is that the men who came back from the Far East

0:31:120:31:16

didn't come back until November 1945 and they were told by the army

0:31:160:31:21

that they were not to talk about their experiences.

0:31:210:31:23

And they came home and were simply expected to get on,

0:31:230:31:27

and some of them couldn't.

0:31:270:31:29

And what's very interesting is that it's quite clear

0:31:290:31:32

that it was the younger men, who had had three-and-a-half years of their lives stolen from them,

0:31:320:31:37

the men who were 19, 20 when they went abroad, who found it more difficult to adjust.

0:31:370:31:42

Frank Davies from Salford was 24 when he returned to Britain

0:31:440:31:48

after being held prisoner by the Japanese for three-and-a-half years.

0:31:480:31:53

He wanted a wife and a family,

0:31:530:31:55

but was too traumatised by his experiences to see any hope for the future.

0:31:550:31:59

All my teeth had started to rot through lack of vitamins and calcium.

0:32:010:32:07

My eyesight was affected with no shelter in the sun.

0:32:070:32:11

I'd got a damaged ear...

0:32:110:32:13

I was on malaria tablets,

0:32:130:32:16

I was having nightmares,

0:32:160:32:19

I were having panic attacks

0:32:190:32:21

and you had to try and carry on with a normal life

0:32:210:32:26

feeling the way you did.

0:32:260:32:28

And some of my old comrades in England who'd never been out there

0:32:280:32:32

had already married and had young children coming up,

0:32:320:32:35

and there was me at the same age, felt like a freak.

0:32:350:32:39

I thought who the hell's going to want to take up with me, the condition I was in.

0:32:390:32:44

Sonny Leigh had simply wanted to be a father,

0:32:470:32:50

but during the course of the war,

0:32:500:32:53

he and his wife Daisy had suffered the trauma of losing three babies.

0:32:530:32:57

The pain was too much for Sonny to bear and he was admitted to a mental hospital.

0:32:570:33:03

NEWSREEL: Electric convulsion therapy is reserved for depressions of the more endogenous type.

0:33:030:33:10

Loss of consciousness is immediate

0:33:120:33:14

and the treatment leaves no unpleasant memories.

0:33:140:33:17

I went in there and they gave me narcosis treatment,

0:33:180:33:22

electrical shocks, medicine, everything.

0:33:220:33:24

People there thought they was bomber pilots,

0:33:260:33:29

they was coming down the ward as aeroplanes, religious maniacs.

0:33:290:33:33

I watched three men walking round a flowerbed like that, round there,

0:33:360:33:40

and a man took a packet of papers out and it blew away,

0:33:400:33:44

and he's running round... And I thought to myself,

0:33:440:33:47

"Sonny, you're not going to come to this, you're going to get out."

0:33:470:33:51

And from that day, I made sure I got better.

0:33:510:33:54

I wasn't going to be like that.

0:33:540:33:56

After several months of treatment, Sonny did get better

0:33:590:34:03

and he was able to leave the hospital.

0:34:030:34:05

And although he and his wife agreed they would give up on their dream of having a family,

0:34:050:34:10

in 1957, Daisy gave birth to their daughter, Linda.

0:34:100:34:15

I saw Daisy and the baby, I could have jumped over the moon.

0:34:210:34:24

I could have won the Olympics the way I felt.

0:34:240:34:27

Being a daddy made me king of the world, I was so happy.

0:34:290:34:32

I had everything, I had a wonderful woman, a lovely child.

0:34:350:34:38

What else did I want?

0:34:380:34:39

And she's a wonderful girl.

0:34:410:34:43

Sonny's story had a happy ending, but thousands of families failed

0:34:480:34:53

in their efforts to readjust to life after the war.

0:34:530:34:56

The years of separation had often brought too much change,

0:34:560:35:00

and as a result, in the late 1940s, the divorce rate soared.

0:35:000:35:04

It's very well recorded that the divorce rate

0:35:040:35:07

after the Second World War escalated,

0:35:070:35:09

and it reached 60,000 in 1947, which was an all-time high.

0:35:090:35:13

And the really sad thing was

0:35:130:35:15

that the divorces that happened after the Second World War were very often

0:35:150:35:19

where simply two lives had grown apart,

0:35:190:35:21

and for the children, it was very often tragic

0:35:210:35:24

because they didn't understand why Daddy,

0:35:240:35:27

who'd been revered during the war, had been celebrated, had written letters,

0:35:270:35:32

came home and suddenly didn't want to live at home any more.

0:35:320:35:35

In Hertfordshire, Kay Chorley's father had returned home from service after six years overseas.

0:35:390:35:45

She was delighted to have him back,

0:35:450:35:48

but it wasn't long before she found out

0:35:480:35:51

that he had left home again, and this time for good.

0:35:510:35:55

I was at school doing an art exam.

0:35:550:35:57

It's very clear in my memory.

0:35:570:35:59

And the headmistress came in and said

0:35:590:36:02

could she speak to me. And the teacher said yes.

0:36:020:36:05

I went out, and she said, "I've just had a message from your mother,

0:36:050:36:09

to say don't be surprised if you get a letter from your father

0:36:090:36:15

from your aunt's in Ipswich, he's going to stay there for a while."

0:36:150:36:20

And I thought, well, what's all that about?

0:36:200:36:23

You know, it's very odd, cos I'd never ever heard them argue

0:36:230:36:28

or row or even disagree about things really.

0:36:280:36:31

My life was changed at that point, and I did wonder,

0:36:350:36:40

have I done anything?

0:36:400:36:43

What had I done?

0:36:430:36:46

But I assume they were two different people.

0:36:460:36:50

My mother had had to do everything

0:36:500:36:54

and he had had a different life again.

0:36:540:36:58

And I didn't see him for a few years after that, till I was about 18.

0:37:000:37:05

But at least I did see him again,

0:37:080:37:10

so he didn't end up out in Egypt in the grave somewhere.

0:37:100:37:16

The post-war years saw a baby boom in Britain,

0:37:190:37:24

but the country remained dominated by austerity.

0:37:240:37:27

Rationing continued well into the 1950s,

0:37:270:37:30

and in towns and cities across the land,

0:37:300:37:33

children played on bomb sites, these improvised playgrounds,

0:37:330:37:36

the last remnants of the 500,000 homes destroyed in the Blitz.

0:37:360:37:41

With so much destruction, there was a nationwide housing crisis,

0:37:430:37:47

and many newlyweds faced an unenviable choice

0:37:470:37:50

between slum housing and sharing a home with their in-laws.

0:37:500:37:55

This shortage of housing put great pressure on young fathers,

0:37:560:38:00

who found themselves unable to fulfil the basic paternal role

0:38:000:38:04

of providing decent accommodation for their children.

0:38:040:38:08

David Ritchie and his wife Rhoda lived in Dundee.

0:38:080:38:12

When I came out of the army

0:38:130:38:15

and I was setting up a home,

0:38:150:38:18

Rhoda and I were married and there was no possibility

0:38:180:38:21

of my living with my parents

0:38:210:38:24

because my parents had two rooms with an outside toilet

0:38:240:38:29

and three grown-up children.

0:38:290:38:32

And to try to get a house was impossible.

0:38:330:38:37

I went down to Dundee Corporation, to the council,

0:38:370:38:40

and asked if I could put my name down for a house,

0:38:400:38:43

or our names down for a house, and "Certainly," they took it all down.

0:38:430:38:48

"Married?" "Yes." And I said,

0:38:480:38:50

"Now, when do you think I could look forward to perhaps getting a house?"

0:38:500:38:55

He says, "Well, at the present time, where you are,

0:38:550:38:58

"come back in 15 years and we'll see how we're getting on."

0:38:580:39:01

He says "I couldn't even promise you one then."

0:39:010:39:04

Part of the solution was the creation of new towns,

0:39:080:39:12

like Stevenage, Basildon, and importantly for David Ritchie, Glenrothes.

0:39:120:39:17

In the heart of Fife, work on

0:39:210:39:23

new housing for over 30,000 people began in Glenrothes in 1948,

0:39:230:39:28

and by the early 1950s, David and Rhoda had moved into their dream home.

0:39:280:39:34

It was fairyland! I couldn't believe it!

0:39:370:39:40

We couldn't really believe it.

0:39:400:39:43

Lounge, big kitchen that you could eat in,

0:39:460:39:49

bathroom, garden back and front.

0:39:490:39:53

Ach, I think it was the best time in my life.

0:39:550:40:00

It really was the best time in my life,

0:40:000:40:03

coming to that place, it was really great.

0:40:030:40:06

Nicknamed "Nappy Valley", Glenrothes quickly became

0:40:070:40:12

the ideal place for young fathers like David to raise a family.

0:40:120:40:15

People next door to us had seven,

0:40:180:40:19

we had four, there were three next door to us on the other side,

0:40:190:40:24

and five on the end, and that was quite common, that was the norm.

0:40:240:40:28

We-We-We loved the children, the children were our life.

0:40:280:40:33

But they always had something to do.

0:40:350:40:38

They were out, they were playing down the bank, in the burn,

0:40:380:40:42

up in the play park, this was it.

0:40:420:40:45

They didn't have to be at home to play.

0:40:450:40:49

They were out most of the time and it was marvellous.

0:40:490:40:52

I think they had a wonderful life.

0:40:520:40:55

These were the "never had it so good" years, of modernity,

0:40:580:41:02

domesticity, and happy, stable marriages.

0:41:020:41:06

This was the Britain the country's fathers had fought for.

0:41:070:41:11

Ex-prisoner of war Frank Davies found that his worries about the future were in the end unfounded

0:41:190:41:25

when he married Joan, a girl he'd met at work.

0:41:250:41:28

In 1953, Joan gave birth to their daughter Val,

0:41:300:41:34

and Frank quickly discovered

0:41:340:41:36

that, ironically, his experiences as a prisoner of war

0:41:360:41:40

had left him with many of the skills he needed to cope with

0:41:400:41:43

the responsibilities of fatherhood.

0:41:430:41:45

I used to enjoy all the little tasks

0:41:460:41:49

that in those days wasn't considered manly.

0:41:490:41:53

Things like changing nappies and giving 'em baths

0:41:530:41:57

and letting 'em, helping them on the potties and things like that,

0:41:570:42:01

there was no problem for me

0:42:010:42:03

because we'd done all this for our comrades.

0:42:030:42:06

They'd done it for me, I'd do it for them in the prison camps.

0:42:060:42:10

When blokes have dysentery,

0:42:100:42:11

they're having to relieve themselves a couple of dozen times a day

0:42:110:42:17

and it's blood and mucus and God knows what.

0:42:170:42:20

Er...things like changing a nappy's nothing.

0:42:200:42:24

By the 1950s, many fathers were happy

0:42:260:42:29

to get involved in the care of their young children at home.

0:42:290:42:32

But in some places, there was still a certain stigma

0:42:320:42:36

attached to fathers seen looking after their children in public.

0:42:360:42:39

Where I lived, in Salford, you know,

0:42:400:42:44

it was a real man's world as they called it

0:42:440:42:47

and everybody thought men were tough

0:42:470:42:50

and women had to know their place in life

0:42:500:42:53

and I used to think nothing

0:42:530:42:57

of taking my daughter out in the pram or for a walk

0:42:570:43:01

and blokes would be looking at you as if to say,

0:43:010:43:04

he looks a bit of a Mary-Ann as they used to call it then,

0:43:040:43:08

and it didn't affect me at all, it didn't.

0:43:080:43:11

I didn't look upon it like that.

0:43:110:43:13

Being a father had a profound effect on Frank, and finally helped him

0:43:160:43:21

to banish the terrible memories he carried from the war.

0:43:210:43:25

And I got...suddenly felt that

0:43:250:43:29

all this was...helped me to...

0:43:290:43:32

get rid of the feelings that I'd had before of the...

0:43:320:43:36

that were left behind, the horrors of the terrible days of the prison camps.

0:43:360:43:42

You know, you felt really uplifted.

0:43:420:43:45

You'd left all that behind you,

0:43:450:43:48

you were starting a new life with this...new person

0:43:480:43:54

and it was all worthwhile.

0:43:540:43:56

But just when the generation of fathers who had lived through the war finally felt

0:43:560:44:02

that life was regaining some sense of normality,

0:44:020:44:05

a new phenomenon appeared in households up and down the country -

0:44:050:44:09

one which would seek to undermine a dad's place as head of the household -

0:44:090:44:13

they were called teenagers.

0:44:130:44:16

# You shake my nerves And you rattle my brain

0:44:160:44:19

# Too much love drives a man insane

0:44:190:44:22

# You broke my will Oh, what a thrill

0:44:230:44:26

# Goodness gracious Great balls of fire... #

0:44:260:44:29

The new idea of teenagers began

0:44:290:44:32

with the emergence of the Beatniks and Teddy Boys in the early 1950s.

0:44:320:44:36

On street corners, in coffee bars and in jazz clubs up and down the country,

0:44:360:44:40

there was a revolution in music, fashion and idealism

0:44:400:44:44

as the young turned their backs on the old way of life.

0:44:440:44:48

In their search for identity and self expression,

0:44:480:44:52

the new teenage rebels questioned all that the previous generation believed in,

0:44:520:44:57

and all that their fathers had fought so hard to defend.

0:44:570:45:01

JAZZ MUSIC

0:45:010:45:03

For the fathers who had come back from the war

0:45:060:45:08

and had adjusted to life back in Britain,

0:45:080:45:11

and who had really begun to enjoy the simple pleasures of life,

0:45:110:45:15

suddenly, that their teenage children were turning round

0:45:150:45:17

and rebelling against them was a shock, and one in the eye for them

0:45:170:45:21

because they, in some ways, even if subconsciously,

0:45:210:45:24

felt they'd made the world a safer place through the sacrifice

0:45:240:45:28

they'd made in the Second World War.

0:45:280:45:30

What you ended up with of course is

0:45:300:45:32

terrible clashes of personality between fathers and children

0:45:320:45:36

because the fathers still wanted control over the children

0:45:360:45:39

and their children felt that they didn't owe their fathers anything.

0:45:390:45:43

Peter Lambert was born in Birmingham in 1940.

0:45:450:45:49

His father was a welder who spent his evenings in the local pub,

0:45:490:45:53

or asleep in his favourite armchair.

0:45:530:45:55

As a teenager, it was a lifestyle that Peter would violently reject.

0:45:550:46:00

I didn't want to be like him because I didn't want any of that.

0:46:020:46:06

I wanted, like, to be... out with my mates.

0:46:060:46:11

I wanted to dress how I wanted to dress,

0:46:110:46:13

not how he wanted me to dress.

0:46:140:46:17

I wanted long hair.

0:46:180:46:20

I wanted these, sideburns, I wanted to be me.

0:46:200:46:24

I wanted to be the business,

0:46:270:46:29

which was, at the time, was, in the '50s, was the Teddy Boys.

0:46:290:46:34

I wanted to be one of them

0:46:340:46:36

and he didn't want me to be...

0:46:360:46:40

and the more he didn't want me to be,

0:46:400:46:41

the more I wanted to be and the more I would be.

0:46:410:46:44

Nobody could touch me, not even my dad,

0:46:470:46:50

and I got to the stage where I sort of turned on him.

0:46:500:46:55

And then it ended up like we're rowing

0:47:040:47:08

and I ended up smashing a milk bottle on the fireplace

0:47:080:47:13

and holding it up to him.

0:47:130:47:16

It stunned him so much probably to think that

0:47:160:47:20

his own son could do something like that.

0:47:200:47:23

Hoping to keep him out of trouble,

0:47:250:47:27

Peter's father sent him away to live with his grandmother.

0:47:270:47:30

But it wasn't long before Peter was back with his gang.

0:47:300:47:34

Father and son would barely speak to one another for the next 25 years.

0:47:340:47:40

In Essex, Janet White had also become a teenager,

0:47:460:47:49

and was having similar problems with her father.

0:47:490:47:53

More than ten years had passed since his return from the war,

0:47:530:47:57

but the distance Janet had felt at his homecoming had not diminished.

0:47:570:48:01

He was often strict about her going out,

0:48:010:48:03

and worried about her forming friendships

0:48:030:48:06

with the American servicemen who still had a base in town.

0:48:060:48:10

# Too late

0:48:120:48:14

# For me to ask the reason why... #

0:48:140:48:20

When I was a teenager, I wanted to go dancing with my friends

0:48:200:48:23

and he wasn't very keen, and one occasion I really remember

0:48:230:48:27

because it made me believe he didn't trust me at all.

0:48:270:48:31

I just felt, he doesn't trust me, he doesn't know me,

0:48:310:48:33

his own daughter and he doesn't even know me.

0:48:330:48:36

Cos he came in, it was the following morning I'd got up,

0:48:360:48:39

"What were you doing round the town last night talking to Americans?"

0:48:390:48:43

I said, "What?"

0:48:430:48:44

He said, "I saw you. Don't you tell me you didn't, cos I saw you with my own eyes."

0:48:440:48:49

I said, "I'm sorry, Dad, you don't even know your own daughter."

0:48:490:48:53

It really hurt that I felt he didn't trust me, you know, that there was no trust there.

0:48:570:49:03

It was a very difficult thing, you know?

0:49:030:49:05

But I also acknowledge now that a lot of that was my fault.

0:49:070:49:12

It was my fault because I had resented him from day one,

0:49:120:49:16

I hadn't really wanted him there

0:49:160:49:18

and my mum told me after he died, she said many times he sat and cried,

0:49:180:49:23

many's the time he sat and cried because he just felt,

0:49:230:49:28

as much as he tried, and I know he did try in his own way...

0:49:280:49:33

he just couldn't get through. Neither of us in a way could bridge that gap.

0:49:330:49:37

I suppose I was young and thought I knew better at the time.

0:49:370:49:40

I just...I just don't know what it was.

0:49:400:49:42

Keen to escape their father's rule in the family home,

0:49:460:49:48

many teenagers of the 1950s married young,

0:49:480:49:52

and by the '60s had become parents themselves.

0:49:520:49:56

After a series of petty crimes, Teddy Boy Peter Lambert ended up in prison.

0:49:590:50:04

It was an experience that for while set him on the straight and narrow.

0:50:040:50:09

In 1966, he married his girlfriend, Judith,

0:50:100:50:13

although they had to elope to Gretna Green

0:50:130:50:17

after her parents disapproved of their courtship.

0:50:170:50:21

Then, in April 1967, Peter became a father to daughter, Debbie.

0:50:210:50:28

# Take my hand, little girl

0:50:280:50:32

# And we'll go through life together... #

0:50:320:50:37

I used to look forward to coming home from work to see my little girl.

0:50:370:50:41

I was proud to be her dad, you know? She was a lovely little girl.

0:50:410:50:46

I used to rock her in this little rocking thing that she had, you know?

0:50:460:50:51

So take her down the rec where the little swings are, you know?

0:50:510:50:56

I just wanted to be normal.

0:51:020:51:04

Normal dad, go to work, earn my wages.

0:51:040:51:08

Being a rebel...then, at that particular time,

0:51:090:51:13

was sort of fading out a bit.

0:51:130:51:16

I was more interested in being a dad.

0:51:160:51:19

And I used to love going out and pushing the pram.

0:51:190:51:23

I'd do it cos I wanted to do it.

0:51:230:51:24

By the late '60s, many of Britain's young fathers were able to provide

0:51:260:51:31

for their children as never before.

0:51:310:51:33

They had more money, better housing

0:51:330:51:36

and a brighter future than their own fathers could have dreamed of.

0:51:360:51:41

But for some of those who'd grown up with a rebellious streak,

0:51:410:51:45

domestic bliss just wasn't enough.

0:51:450:51:48

After several years of marriage, and the birth of a son, David,

0:51:510:51:56

Peter Lambert started to go back out with his old gang.

0:51:560:51:59

Working away for much of the week

0:51:590:52:01

and drinking with friends when he was back,

0:52:010:52:04

it wasn't long before his marriage fell apart

0:52:040:52:06

and he lost contact with his children.

0:52:060:52:09

And although Peter took responsibility for the break up,

0:52:100:52:13

it still upset him deeply.

0:52:130:52:16

Well, I used to go for a drink, back then, I used to go for a drink

0:52:160:52:20

and I'd get a few drinks in me and I'd start crying.

0:52:200:52:23

Wondering what my kids were doing.

0:52:230:52:26

Where they are, what they're like.

0:52:260:52:30

I used to wonder, drowning in self-pity, if you like,

0:52:320:52:36

you know, why's this happening to me?

0:52:360:52:38

But I'd brought it on myself, you know what I'm saying?

0:52:380:52:42

It wasn't the ex-wife's fault, it wasn't the children's fault,

0:52:420:52:46

it was mine, but there I was, sitting on buses coming home from the pub,

0:52:460:52:52

crying my eyes out because of my kids.

0:52:520:52:55

Not only had Peter lost his children,

0:52:580:53:00

he'd also lost contact with his own father.

0:53:000:53:04

And, like many of his generation, it wasn't until he got older

0:53:040:53:08

that he began to question his past.

0:53:080:53:11

Men and women, now in their retirement age,

0:53:110:53:14

are looking back at what their fathers did for them

0:53:140:53:17

and actually are beginning to appreciate it,

0:53:170:53:19

and the number of people that one hears saying,

0:53:190:53:22

"I wish I'd understood my father better.

0:53:220:53:24

"I wish I'd asked him more questions.

0:53:240:53:26

"I wish I'd shown more interest in his life during the war"

0:53:260:53:30

is very sad, so it's not too late now

0:53:300:53:33

if your father is still alive, but sadly many of them are not.

0:53:330:53:37

In 1983, 25 years after leaving his childhood home,

0:53:390:53:44

Peter arranged to meet up with his father.

0:53:440:53:48

They spent the weekend together,

0:53:480:53:50

and when Peter left, they vowed to make it a regular event.

0:53:500:53:54

Two weeks later, Peter's father passed away.

0:53:540:53:58

You know, I'm looking forward to when I was going to see him again,

0:54:030:54:06

I was gonna tell him this, things that we hadn't spoke about

0:54:060:54:10

and I was gonna talk about stuff that we'd missed out on, and...

0:54:100:54:14

Crazy, innit?

0:54:210:54:22

And then, like...you can't do it then, you can't tell him.

0:54:260:54:31

And you think to yourself,

0:54:360:54:39

"Ooh, why didn't I say it when I saw him, why didn't I say this,

0:54:390:54:42

"why didn't I say that?"

0:54:420:54:44

You live and learn, don't you?

0:54:500:54:54

Peter has now been married three times, and has seven children.

0:54:580:55:03

Over the years, and particularly after the death of his own father,

0:55:040:55:08

he'd thought often about Debbie and David, the two children from his first marriage.

0:55:080:55:14

Finally he decided to search for them.

0:55:140:55:17

And in 2003, 30 years after they were separated, he found them.

0:55:170:55:23

We can't change the past,

0:55:250:55:27

but we can try and make things better in the future.

0:55:270:55:30

You know, I just love life now, I love life, I'm just...

0:55:300:55:35

I'm just happy and I'm grateful for every day.

0:55:350:55:39

I'm not sure whether I deserve it really cos I've been a bit of a rascal, you know,

0:55:390:55:45

but it's just great and I'm just enjoying life, you know?

0:55:450:55:48

I wouldn't change it for the world.

0:55:480:55:50

I don't think so, you know what I mean?

0:55:500:55:53

Throughout her life, Janet White was never able to bond with her father.

0:55:570:56:02

The repercussions from that first fateful meeting

0:56:020:56:06

on the railway platform lasting until his death in 1971.

0:56:060:56:10

Like so many war veterans, he'd never spoken about his experiences,

0:56:100:56:16

and it wasn't until 1996, long after his death,

0:56:160:56:20

that Janet found the diaries he'd written during his time in captivity.

0:56:200:56:25

Reading his words, she began to understand

0:56:260:56:30

all that he'd been through as a prisoner,

0:56:300:56:32

and finally discovered just what she'd meant to him

0:56:320:56:36

all those years before.

0:56:360:56:38

"It'll be grand just to receive some letters from home.

0:56:390:56:42

"Everything seems to have stopped at once, no mail, no food, no fags.

0:56:420:56:47

"Roll on those blue clouds.

0:56:470:56:49

"Spend a lot of time these bad days planning all sorts of things for when we get back.

0:56:490:56:55

"It's going to be rather strange to go back to one's family all grown up

0:56:550:56:58

"and to feel almost like a stranger amongst your own family,

0:56:580:57:02

"but we'll soon sort that out, I have no doubt.

0:57:020:57:04

"I don't suppose that they have forgotten their dad

0:57:060:57:09

"except for the youngest, Janet, who cannot remember me,

0:57:090:57:13

"she being too young when I left her.

0:57:130:57:16

"But the wife tells me in her letters that she's always talking about Daddy,

0:57:160:57:20

"and I expect in her little mind she has made up a picture of what her daddy should look like.

0:57:200:57:24

"I hope sincerely that I shall not disappoint her.

0:57:240:57:27

"I only know I'm longing to be with them all again."

0:57:270:57:31

To think that he was actually thinking about me

0:57:330:57:36

when he was stuck in a prisoner-of-war camp.

0:57:360:57:39

Even now I can say, "Oh, Dad, if only you'd let us have those books earlier."

0:57:390:57:44

If I could have been given those books to read, we may have healed that breach before he died.

0:57:440:57:49

If my dad was alive today I think I'd just want to tell him I understand

0:57:540:57:58

and I'm sorry it took so long, but it was too late,

0:57:580:58:02

it's much too late for both of us,

0:58:020:58:05

and I just wish the war had never ever happened.

0:58:050:58:08

Yeah.

0:58:100:58:11

Next time, sex, divorce and the rise of feminism

0:58:160:58:20

present new challenges for Britain's fathers.

0:58:200:58:24

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

0:58:390:58:42

E-mail [email protected]

0:58:420:58:45

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