June 6th 1944 was my mother’s 32nd birthday. She was 8 months pregnant with her fourth child.

Her other children were 9, 8 and 5 years old. She became ill earlier that year, when she was in the early stages of the pregnancy. Our family lived in “West Riding 0f Yorkshire” but her brother lived in Essex. She was invited to stay with her brother and sister in law, who could look after her, and the children, while she received treatment (which turned out to be appendicitis)  My dad was not “in the war” due to his job on the railway, and wanted the children to stay with him. He insisted they came back to Yorkshire. He then realised he could not work and look after the children, so they were put into foster care – each to a different foster home. The older two became frantically upset without one another, and the experience had lifelong effects.

My father was instructed to take back the first born, my 9 year old brother, as he was so distressed and could not be cared for. My father collected him, but put him on a train to London St Pancras and arranged for the boy’s paternal grandmother to collect him. My brother  then had a different set of fears – he was in war-torn London.  He was sent to school there, and slept on the landing of the accommodation his grandparents shared with 5 other families. He witnessed at close sight the bombing of the local station, and collected shrapnel with his peers after school.

There is no written record of what happened to  my sister and 5 year old brother during this time. Nor is there a timeline – was it weeks or months?

There is no written record of the Normandy landings or anything war related.  D-Day in our family was only ever mentioned because it was my mothers birthday

The year of 1944 was only spoken about by my sister when we were much older. The  experience she described to me was utterly frantic.

These records are taken from my mother’s diaries and my brother’s autobiography. On July 4th 1944  my youngest brother was born. My older brother recorded that he was told there was a new baby brother in the family and that he would soon be returnng home.