Roy remembers how his father came home from the War, and failed to recognise him!
Resource Type: Audio | Posted on 22nd July 2011 by Liam Physick
Roy tells of the time that his father returned home from serving in the Second World War. Roy, his mother, and his sister Pat all went to Edge Hill to greet him. Roy approached his father on the platform, but the latter walked right past him, not having seen his son in four years!
Interviewee: Roy
Interviewee Gender: Male
Interview Transcript
Roy: The War was ended, me dad was on his way home, all the soldiers used to come home every week to this station, Edge Hill, and they’d get off, and we didn’t know who was coming, or who where.
Paul: Where, where, where would the train have set out from?
Roy: Pardon?
Paul: Where would the train have come from, if they were getting off here?
Roy: From down south somewhere, I don’t know.
Paul: From down south?
Roy: It came down, from south, wherever, it came down, from south . . .
Paul: Portsmouth, or somewhere.
Roy: . . . and it came up here and, as far as we know, we came into look to see if me father was on it, and nobody knew who was on, what was on, but there was all soldiers, they’ve all been demobbed, down south, and come home, and, as I’ve told Terence many a time, we come up here, and we’re on the platform, I thought it was Platform 3, he reckons it was Platform 2, don’t you?
Terry: Well, I wasn’t around at the time, like, but (Roy and Pat both laugh) I’m only going by where the trains come in now . . .
Paul: Platform 3, as far as I was concerned . . .
Jenny: It’s probably changed.
Roy: . . . we came down with me mother, and Pat, and she was only a little girl, and we come down, and we meeting me dad, and next thing, they’re all . . . this train pulls up, stops at Edge Hill, they all start getting off and all the soldiers, with th, the new, what was the uniform, not the uniform, but their suit, they used to . . .
Pat: Demob suit.
Paul: Demob suit, yeah.
Roy. All in their demob suits, and all like that, they were all getting off, and they were all coming up and then, next thing, my dad’s coming along, isn’t he, and I see him, and I look at him, and I think, “That’s me dad”, and he walks right past me . . .
Pat: I thought . . .
Terry: (laughs along with Pat) He’s not seen you for a while.
Roy: Doesn’t he know me, like? And, he walks right through, and he meets me mother and Pat, me mother . . . he grabs hold of me mother obviously, gives her a big hug and kiss and all like that, and he says . . .
Pat: (laughs) “Where’s our Roy?”
Roy: (laughing uncontrollably) “Where is Roy?”, and she said, “You’ve just walked past him!”
Terry: “You’ve just walked past!”
Roy: And he turns round, he come back and he grabs hold of me! And, you know, it was unbelievable that me dad could walk past me, not know me, I mean, when he went away, which was 1941, 42 type of thing, I was, like, 12, or 11, and he, when he come back, when he come back he was 45, and I was 14, 15, and he didn’t know me, he didn’t recognise me . . .
Jenny: You’d changed a lot, yeah.
Roy . . . and that was unbelievable, you know, but that was me dad, like and he was back.
Categorised under: The War
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