Waiting

I was a baby when the war began, and I only recently dicovered that my father was at Dunkirk when I found this, written by my mother:

"My memories of the dark days of Dunkirk do not make spectacular reading. It is just a story of a waiting wife.

We were living in London with our three children. My husband was working with the Y.M.C.A in Belgium. It was three months since he had gone out, and I had received no letter for many weeks. The news was alarming and everyone tensely waiting to hear the fate of our troops. It was a black moment indeed. Kind friends tried to persuade me to leave my home and join relatives so that what now seemed to them inevitable would be easier to bear. But something kept me. Just one more night....and one more; then, at seven o'clock when, the silence throbbing with uncertainty, doubts implanted by anxious friends fermenting, and an ultimatum agreed upon that I should leave the following morning....the telephone rang! A loved and longed-for voice saying "I am at Victoria Station, I'll be home in an hour".

He had returned, hungry, tired, grimey and bearded. The children did not recognise him - but, oh! what overflowing happiness and a deep thankfulness that he had been spared to me - that the telephone had not rung in an empty house."

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