The first objective, in preparation, was passports, which meant photographs. No coin in the slot, instant photo booths, then. And family snapshots were not acceptable, either. The requirements for passport photos were quite specific, and non-negotiable. They must be of professional quality, and so necessitated a visit to a professional photographer, by prior arrangement, of course.
The day before our departure, it seemed that someone phoned the station almost hourly, to check on our train time, and got a different answer, every time.
That must have involved a fair amount of walking, because I can’t recall a phone box near the house. In the event, we set off for the station about 11p.m., in the cold and dark, it being November. We knew the walk to the LNER railway station would take no more than half an hour, and we were prepared to sit around the station, although in those days, you could rely on the use of a waiting room with horsehair stuffed seating, and a blazing coal fire, even at quite provincial stations
The train came at 1a.m., as foretold! Charlie had accompanied us, carrying our case, and staying to see us off. At this stage, of course, it was all a big adventure, being on a train, in the middle of the night. We passed through London at about 7 a.m. but they must have all been in bed because their light was off, apart from the landing lights on the Underground, which I assumed they had kindly left on for our convenience. We crossed London by Underground, possibly St Pancras to Waterloo, without coming above ground, so in November especially, we wouldn’t see daylight until we were well clear of the Metrolops.
The Channel crossing on S.S. Worthing was lively, and Betty was sick. I was a grand little sailor. We had encountered other travellers on the same errand, on the train journey, so by the time we arrived in Newhaven, we were easily identified and mopped up by our courier.
On the train journey to Caen, we saw much evidence of the war- damage, destruction and desolation. At every hand there were bombed out, or half demolished buildings, and piles of rubble. A ruined church, with dogs running in and out. A building several storeys high, partially destroyed, presenting a series of rooms, ripped in half, as though a giant had peeled the end off an apartment house. It looked quite abandoned, with the odd picture or photograph still crookedly clinging to the wall over a fireplace, a table or chair lurking by a gaping chasm, where once there was a hearth, a bookcase with some books still hanging on, hugger mugger, the pages flapping weakly, damp, torn, like crippled birds dying in an open cage, too weak to escape. Then one noticed that some of the ‘half’ rooms had fresh laundry drying on lines. So the undamaged parts of the building must still be occupied, the broached rooms, with their unsafe floors, being utilised as bizarre, high-rise back yards.
Memories of Caen, itself, are scant. At breakfast, when asked what the little boy would like, I replied that what I would really like was a boiled egg please. Betty was horrified at my impertinence, but even more upset, when she mistook the waitress’ response for sarcasm-
“Would you like two or three?” but the warm smile, which came with it, and the encouraging, gentle, repeated- “Would you like two?” calmed her fears, as she answered for me-
“I think one will be enough for him, thank you” In Normandy, they may have been better off for eggs than we were, but I think a more immediate truth was that they couldn’t do enough for us, knowing who we were and why we were there.
After breakfast, we were shepherded onto a coach, where our guide introduced himself as ‘Wed-nes-day’. Eventually the coach stopped on a straight stretch of road, open and featureless, except for a belt of fenced woodland, on the right, as we were parked, and just open fields on the opposite side. There was no sign of the cemetery, which was described as being at Banneville-la-Campagne. A village? No sign of one. Nothing. Wednesday explained that the cemetery was through the woodland, and that we were going to take a short cut. We all trooped off the coach, followed Wednesday through a gap in the fence, and along a path, through the wood. Although quite dense, the wood was just a strip of cover, maybe 75yds deep, screening the cemetery from the road, though the wood was obviously there long before the cemetery.
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| Cemetery |
We had all been issued with papers, which identified graves by plot, row, and grave number, all of which were displayed on black flag markers on the ground. Betty couldn’t cope. She just couldn’t think at all. We just wandered around, aimlessly, for a long time. I was too young to offer advice. I just tagged along. I remember watching the others. As they shuffled along, a woman would suddenly drop to the ground, out of sight, behind the closed ranks of the now familiar Portland stone gravestones, which had replaced the temporary metal grave markers captured in Arnie Dyson’s photos. Having found what they were looking for, the shock of recognition would be like a blow to the body. They would collapse with a gasp, or a cry- drop like nine pins; just disappear.
Betty was getting into quite a state, just stumbling about with no idea of where to go. Eventually, Wednesday noticed her agitation, and asked what was wrong.
“I can’t find it. I can’t find it,” mumbled Betty. The guide glanced briefly at the papers then took us straight to it. Plot 17, Row ‘A’, Grave No.27- the first grave you see, on entering by the usual way.
I still don’t understand the reason for the ‘short cut’ entrance. A glance at the plan will show you it is fractionally further than the official way in. Look more closely, and you will see that this first plot, in fact the last one to be installed, had been laid from the front, but not completed, so leaving two and a half rows slightly isolated. I know none of this excuses Betty’s confusion; that was simply a matter of her mind being paralysed by grief, but those two and a half rows look for all the world like a bunch of latecomers who have snuck in late, not wanting to disturb anybody. Now this ties in with something Betty once said. When she was first notified about John’s burial, the cemetery was a different one- one with a ‘Z’ in it. The only such cemetery is the Bazenville cemetery, by the village of Ryes, which is situated less than 4 miles from ‘Gold’ beach, and this cemetery was set up on ‘D’ Day plus two. That’s 37 days before John’s death, and 22 miles to the rear. It doesn’t really seem likely. A cemetery with a ‘Z’ could be an ordinary village cemetery, and that would really open up the question. No, its just one more question I can’t answer.
First I think it isn’t important, but then I think ‘That could be the escape hatch he craved so much- mistaken identity’. So it might be someone else, and before you know it, this emaciated figure, in khaki rags, pulls himself up out of the mud, and comes staggering, then running through my mind, shouting ‘Neil! Help me!’ I can’t see his face, because it is in shadow, or is it just not there?
I know the Imperial War Graves Commission did a lot of ‘tidying up’ of graves scattered here and there, so a transfer is feasible, and this incomplete group, 66 in all, do look as though they might have a story to tell, a story perhaps of late comings, or last minute reservations? Ironically, had we come in through the proper entrance, he would have been there to greet us, at the nearest front corner. As it was, we missed him by coming the ‘short cut’.
Now it was Betty’s turn to drop to the ground, her body racked by her sobbing, which I thought would never end. I stood there, silently asking ‘Why did this happen to my Mom and Dad, and to me?’ I’m no closer to an answer now, than I was then, but I’ll never be able to stop asking. As Dickens has Scrooge say; ‘Spirit, show me no more. Take me from this place; I cannot bear it’.
In1991, on what would have been Betty’s 50th Wedding Anniversary, my wife Valerie, and I, took Betty to the cemetery again. In fact, we had four days in Paris, with a day trip to Caen, so it was a holiday with a purpose, rather than just a weepy little pilgrimage to a cemetery. She didn’t remember the wood, which by this time had been completely removed; razed, or the short cut, or Wed-nes-day, even, but her first words on entering the cemetery were-
“Oh they’ve cut down the big tree!” Within 15 yds of John’s grave, and quite overshadowing it, had been a huge horse chestnut tree, which I had quite forgotten. Again, there were gardeners quietly working, and although they spoke no English, their eyes were full of sympathy, when we thanked them, in our tourist French, for their care.
Wednesday conveyed us back to Caen where, after our lunch, we just wandered around the city, in such groups as we had ‘palled up’ into. In those days, I was required to wear long woollen socks with elastic garters to hold them up, but I had forgotten the garters, so the socks wouldn’t stay up. As we walked about among the interminable piles of rubble, and endless ranks of ruined shops, I progressed somewhat in the manner of a relay runner. I would stop to pull up my socks, as the others walked on, then I would run to catch them up, by which time, after running, the socks would be down again. I’d put up with this state of affairs for a little while, then not being used to having socks flapping round my ankles, I would stop to pull them up, so falling behind, again.
My other little nugget of triviality, is the astonishment on the faces of the English ladies, when a couple walking arm in arm towards us, along the pavement, on a quiet word of command from the man, executed a little left wheel manoeuvre so that the man could have a pee, against a fence, the couple remaining arm in arm for the entire operation!
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| “Le Pee” |
One of our fellow travellers was an elderly lady, Mrs. McIlwrick, or Granny Mac, as she introduced herself. She was visiting the grave of her son, and was accompanied by his widow, Nellie. On the way back through Customs, Nellie was stung rather badly for duty on excess purchase of booze. She was probably only a bottle of spirits over the limit. Granny Mac, next in line, and similarly burdened, was determined not to be similarly penalised. When the officer pointed to her case, and asked if there was anything to be declared, she answered ‘That’s only bananas’, gave the
case a swipe which sent it a couple of yards along the bench, while she leapt smartly after it, scooping it up almost before it had finished its skid, and went galloping off along the clearance route, to the obvious amusement of the customs officer.
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| “Only Bananas!” |
Granny Mac told us how her late husband, Gilbert, had been a monumental stone mason, by trade, and at one time he had been engaged to renovate the alleged grave of Little John, Robin Hood’s lieutenant. The grave was (still is) in Hathersage Churchyard, Derbyshire. When the old stonework had been removed, someone in authority had decided, somewhat high handedly, to take the opportunity to investigate the contents of the grave, in an attempt to glean information towards substantiating the legends surrounding its alleged occupant. They didn’t find any clue as to identification, but what they did find was the dead body of a skellington of a bloke over 7ft. tall. Now that won’t win any bets, but it’s interesting, isn’t it?
Betty and I did visit Granny Mac, Nellie, and her two children, Archie and Rose, both roughly my age, at their home at Breaston, near Derby. They lived in a large farm house, looking onto a real farm yard, with animals and poultry in evidence, but it wasn’t clear how much they were involved in the farm, if at all.
Granny made some wonderful, soft, sticky toffee, which she called ‘goose grease’, and Archie taught me how to catch live sparrows, by scattering a little corn, over which you propped a bin lid, on a short stick, to which you tied a string, the other end of which, you, in your place of concealment, held ready to pull, as soon as the sparrows ventured after the corn under the bin lid. At least, he taught me how to go about it. We didn’t actually catch any, which was as well, because apart from the obvious difficulties of extracting the birds from under the lid without losing any, I couldn’t see a market for sparrows, in either cages or pies.
There was a strange melancholy about the household. There was obviously considerable tension between Granny Mac and Nellie. I don’t think there was any fault on either side. They were each living in the other’s shadow, and all were living in the greater shadow of 35yr old Gunner Ambrose Melland McIlwrick.