A War of Forgiveness

PREFACE:

I have gone over this epic story, the bits and pieces, since childhood.  If you imagine yourself watching a mini-series on Acorn TV, or Netflix, that spans time and place, then you will take the time to read this.  It is not an 8 minute read and under.  It is a huge part of my heart and I pray it opens up and softens a heart that needs it.  Take your time...

From where I sit now, my mother’s novel in front of me, I hear her saying how hard it was to sit and write while she worked and took care of her home and family.  It was finished in retirement, in a seaside home in Oregon.  A place that gave my children so many beautiful memories and brought my parents back to the ocean, reminding them of where they came from in England.  I can see her pounding at the keys, sharp memory full of detail, vividly flushing out each scene, every ounce of sadness, pain, hope, joy and treachery.  Bursting out a novel that spanned two World Wars, intricate details of her life and family laced together in brilliant form.  This was the hardest piece I have ever written and I have anguished over it. It is a far richer, more character-filled colorful story than I can possibly write, in order to honor my mom and her family. I hope I have been tender. Btw, you may insert “mum” along the way. I’ve called her mom forever now and lost my accent long ago. My ultimate wish would be to turn this story over to the screen.. I would love to hear from you.

A War of Forgiveness:

It was March of 2006.  I was sitting on the settee, staring at his hands., mom sitting on the edge of his recliner, looking at him.  Facing my camera it was a moment I’ll never forget.  I truly loved him.  Before we were set to leave, he asked my aunt, my mom’s half sister, and I, if we wouldn’t mind going outside for a bit.

As I scour the pages and memories of the stories told, I gaze up from his shaky hands and see his eyes swollen with tears.  The little boy of nine riding his bicycle up to the old drab grey building that had housed his older sister for six years.  She had caught Scarlett Fever and went mad.  His father took her at four years old to an insane asylum and they never spoke of her again.  The 10 year old who’s mother made poor choices out of poverty and loneliness., beaten, shamed and kicked out.  Forced to say goodbye as a taxi took her away.  The teenager dropping out of school with a dream to act on the stage.  A father who shunned his dream at every turn, forcing humiliation on him.  A sweet auntie, a widow to the rescue, that would remove my granddad and his sisters from their home and give them a happy life for the first time.  A successful uncle that would provide jobs at his bakeries.  Life was finally good in his late teens.  He adored his Aunt Maggie and his father’s siblings.  He had a home with a loving and vested aunt.  I stare hard and see his face as we exit the door, leaving my mom with him and feel the impact of his life.  Not long after living with his aunt she took a walk to her sister’s house, a beautiful, bright, brisk day, and was hit from behind by a car that was blinded by the light bouncing off of the shiny church steeple. The man didn’t see her in the crosswalk.  She was flung onto the steps of the church..  her church.  She would die there and my granddad remained a broken man for a long time after.

As I look at my mom’s face smiling over her dad I see a woman who has loved with her whole heart, her entire life.  My fireplace mantle is full of old images, black and white.  I see the picture of her as a little girl on the back of my tiny nana, blond curls, big smiles.  Happiness prior to war.  A rags to riches, back to rags, riches, rags again story that covers decades and I stop several times to cry.

Did I tell my nana how brave she was? or ask her a million questions? Did I stop every time I drove past her little apartment in Van Nuys, California to keep her company for a few hours?  Did I call enough? I called and visited but it was never enough.  There could never be enough time or love to give her.  To me, she embodied everything a stoic, strong person should be but I was young and although I loved her immensely I was not overwhelmingly, deeply amazed by her until now.  There was also an old-fashioned, desperate, trusting side to her that left my mom vulnerable as a little girl during the war.  Isn’t that how life is?  We fear we will lose something, perhaps everything, or a friend, a family member.  We are too afraid to speak up and do what’s right.

I have long treasured all the bits and pieces I was bestowed after my nana passed.  Tea cups, glassware, the “B Warden” badge, autograph books collected since the 1920’s.  Treasures from nana and her mother.  “Things” that remind me of who I am and where I come from.  It’s a harsh world today for those with sentiment.. I am finding.

16 years ago I can still see my mom standing at the gate of the church.  Going back to the car for extra film I returned and noticed the back of her shoulders going up and down. Arm around her, I asked if she was okay?  Through welled up eyes, she said  “I wondered if he would come to get me.” Hawkwell Church, Rochford, in Essex, is where my paternal grandparents are buried, where mom married my dad, and where I was christened.

My maternal nana, Dorothy Mary Godfrey, was born in Ilford, Essex, on January 23rd, 1905, the sixth daughter to a successful pawn broker and his wife.  Her mom, Mary Anne, my great-grandmother, died in childbirth and the man that would be my great-granddad, Frederick Godfrey, was so disappointed he had another daughter, filled with rage, angry at his deceased wife that she could not bear him a son, he ordered the baby wrapped in a blanket and delivered to the local orphanage.  His sister, unable to bear children, would come to visit the baby and her dear friend, only to discover what had happened.  She would strike a deal with her brother.  He was never to mention he was the child’s father and his other daughters would be her “cousins.”  Her plan was to retrieve the child as her own.

A tragic beginning left behind for her sisters to live out and ponder,  she would be raised in a Downton Abbey style story, in a Victorian household, dressed in beautiful clothing, servants pushing her in an opulent pram, music coming from the parlor as her father played the piano.  Elizabeth and Claude Hamilton would love her as their own.

A well known Professor of Music, established in the music scene, her father, among several endeavors, had also written scores for musicals performed in the West End.  He would take Dorothy to his favorite job., the ladies afternoon teas at the Savoy Hotel in London. My tiny nana would sing behind the curtain until the ladies asked to see the child one day.  From there, she often performed for them as her father remained playing behind the curtain.  He was so proud of her.

I can still hear her voice as my almost husband and I parked the car at her apartment building.  We hoped she would be playing and singing, when we went to visit, and would stand outside and listen before we knocked.  We were overwhelmed with joy hearing her play and sing on the old upright that she found and barely fit into her place.  That’s when I knew I surely loved my John.  He was so kind to her and interested.  We would talk about nana for days after and laugh at the way she scurried around her apartment, making tea, whistling and putting extra Brandy on her Christmas cake, tucked away in a tin, six months prior to Christmas.  He knew it was coming and we still laugh about it to this day.  She loved America and was a spitfire.

In June of 1914, the British Parliament declared war, going to the aid of France and Russia. My Nana was nine years old.  Her father would remain a reserve soldier at home and part of the Entertainment Corp.  Their successful life would take a drastic turn to standing in lines for hours for food rations, worrying about friends and family going off to war, banding together to share what they had and renting out rooms to boarders to make ends meet.  By the end of the war, in 1918, ‘eight-million, nine-hundred and four-thousand, four-hundred and sixty-seven” were killed, wounded or missing in England alone.  My nana dropped from school by 13 years old unable to cope anymore.  Elizabeth would continue to take in boarders and my nana helped out as they took years to rebuild their lives.  Dorothy would date, hang out with friends, get engaged a few times, break it off, work outside the home and learn about life while remaining at home under the watchful eye of Elizabeth.  Claude would continue to pursue his music profession.  

In England it has been a long tradition to have a “coming out” party for your 21st birthday.

On January 23rd, 1926 all the preparations had been set for months for the lavish affair Elizabeth had dreamt about.  She had become a real 1920’s independent woman with her boarding business and had been planning an epic 21st birthday for my nana for months.  Socialites, dignitaries, including the Mayor, town council and all the family would attend.  The music would be stellar, of course, and down to every detail it was to be the most beautiful, memorable occasion of Dorothy’s life.  England had recovered a heinous war and this was a milestone.

Perhaps one might guess what was about to happen. My nana had noticed her “cousins” in the ballroom all evening, yet it was Winnie, the oldest, that was seemingly drunk and sour.  Every time Dorothy looked her way she had pursed lips and a mocking face. In the midst of this grand affair, food and drink overflowing, the band playing, gorgeously dressed guests swirling around the dance floor, there was an uncertainty to the life my nana was living.  As she was running to the stage to be announced, Winnie caught her by surprise and whispered in her ear “you’re not who you think you are.”

It took years to recover. Nana would quit her job and help at home.

By 1933 my nana would meet a handsome boarder, answering an add for a room in Claude and Elizabeth’s home.  Joseph Nichols was smitten and after a year of sneaking around, quietly dating, they would have to face my nana’s parents and tell them they wanted to be married.

During this time Claude had suffered ill health, battling pneumonia, then chronic bronchitis., while still trying to keep a resident organist and band conductor position at People’s Palace on Mile End Road.  One day he decided his daughter had never looked happier and that he must speak to her about her relationship with Joseph.  At the prospect of this conversation, it was while running for a bus, that he suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage from atherosclerosis and collapsed.  He passed away quickly.

For months my nana, in a daze, would mourn the sudden passing of her father and patiently wait to marry Joseph.  Despite Elizabeth disapproving of the marriage, she relented in a polite and formal letter to my granddad and they were married in a small ceremony on June 10th, 1934.  My proper and quite naive nana struggled along in marriage, yet loved the handsome man she called husband.  Dorothy and Joseph Nichols had only been married two months when Adolf Hitler was made President of Germany.

When I stare at the picture of my mom and granddad, from our trip, I think how could he ever have told her “you are never to call me father.”  Her “grandmother,” a strong and childless woman telling a man he was never to be known as “father.” Another woman, my nana, sobbing at the grave of a mother she never knew, swearing to never call her father “father.,” and another young girl, her daughter, my mom, yearning for her father.  Children who would be “cousins,” not sisters, and children who would be kept secrets, kept from each other.  Children who were told other grownups were uncles, or friends.

Secrets and lies never do remain buried.  There is an odd and timely manner to the unearthing.  The unraveling.  The regrets.  I wondered to myself, is my story being made up?  Will I be found someday..

Beryl Nichols, my mother, would be born July 28th 1936 by c-section and my nana would remain in hospital for a few weeks to recover.  By Christmas-time a Civil war had broken out in Spain and Mussolini and Hitler sent aid to General Franco.  After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, once an ally, China was also joining forces against Japan and Germany.  The entire world was trembling.  In England, history making royal scandal was taking place with the abdication of King Edward VIII.  He wouldn’t give up his love for a twice divorced woman, so he stepped down.

By April of 1937 news broke that a town in the Basque country of Spain was randomly attacked by German bombers.  They dropped 550 pound bombs onto a shopping plaza annihilating mostly women and children everywhere.

In my grandparent’s neighborhood there was endless chatter in the streets that Hitler would stop at nothing before they knew it.  By now, my one year old mom was suffering from what was to be severe asthma attacks.  People were given land, by the government, to grow food everywhere there was land to spare and this made my granddad believe he would be called up sooner than not.  

By 1939, everything would change as my Granddad got his orders.  He was to go to Cardington in Bedfordshire as part of the 9/10 Squadron of the Barrage Balloons.  Joseph was assigned Corporal and they would be the third line of defense to stop Nazi planes getting through the channel.  First line, the British war planes, second line, the coastal guns mounted in turrets, surrounding the coastlines, and third line, the mass balloons, raised up from steel cables, creating a hazard for enemy aircraft.  

The trajectory of their lives would leave them all on survival mode, as war dictates.  My granddad would take with him their beloved Airedale dog, Major, who ended up being useful as he notified the unit of any movement.  I am reminded of my parent’s rescue dogs after they retired to the Oregon coast.  They would have two different Airedales, one after the other, that gave them a lot of joy.

We carry our pain in the deepest parts of our souls.  Many hear the bombs and sirens years after the war as fire trucks speed by or are reminded of loss, whether a unit mate, friend, family member.  Loss of a limb or one’s mind.  A child left to a wicked neighbor.  Trust broken.  Utmost innocence haunting us.  The dog lying over the child in the bomb shelter or on alert in the deep muddy marshes.  A comfort, a furry friend to take with us as we have seen in images of war at present.  

In May of 1940, Winston Churchill became Prime Minister and declared a unified government.  An all out German assault reigned down pummeling London and so many villages on the outskirts, it was all they could do to survive.  The British government used the underground train stations for shelters and sent many Anderson shelters to the villages to be buried underground, including my Nana’s home.  Joseph got a 24 hour leave and had papers drawn up to get my mom on a boat out of Liverpool straight to Canada where she would be safe from the war.  Many had stepped up to offer safety for women and children in other countries.  My nana refused as my granddad explained in a loud and orderly manner that they would not survive and he wanted his little girl to make it.  My nana had realized that the asthma was so bad that only she, her mother, could keep watch over my mom and give her local treatments, despite the war going on.  It was dangerous but she was left with no choice.  Her mother, Elizabeth had come to live with my nana and mom and saw the paper the very next day that my mom would have been on a boat to Canada.  It had been torpedoed by the Germans and there were very few survivors.  Just after Christmas, a Luftwaffe came in destroying everything in its path in London. Old churches, historical buildings falling as fire engines drained water from the Thames.

There would be the occasional 24-hour leave so my Granddad could come home and see his little family.  Ebbs and flows of evacuations, running for their lives with very little in hand, land mines to avoid, road blocks, blown-up bridges. Dorothy, Elizabeth and little Beryl returning home only to find the windows blown out overnight as night assaults got worse.  A cousin spared, running from a burning building, as the heart of Coventry, England was deluged with bombs, killing and injuring hundreds.

By Spring of 1941, my granddad would return to the barracks where a terrible raid would take the lives of 750 civilians in one night, killing two of the men in his unit.  My great-grandmother Elizabeth would be slowly passing this year, as she enjoyed time with her little granddaughter by her side.  My mom would be five years old, in the summer, and was looking forward to going to school yet it was destroyed and closed for good.  My granddad brought Major home as protection.  My mom’s asthma attacks got worse and worse.

On May 8th it was certain that Elizabeth would return from a hospital appointment to wait out her numbered days., my nana and granddaughter by her side.  During this time, the last monstrous attack would rain down shaking the ground beneath, loudly whistling above them, hanging onto one another in the shelter.  They would wake to hear that The Houses of Parliament and the Tower of London had been hit and nearly 1,500 people had been killed.  After this, Hitler would turn his attention toward Russia.  Nearly 60,000 were killed and my nana learned that one of her sisters had died, while my granddad never heard from a sister again. There were no birthdays and holidays, just days.  We thank Him for the days.  War of yesterday, today and the future as I sit with my hot tea thankful for today. 

During the years, my nana helped in any way she could.  She was a “bomb girl,” in the war effort, a warden in her neighborhood, ensuring neighbors went blackout to avoid being seen from night raids.  During one bike-ride to the bomb factory a German buzz bomb rode overhead.  These were manless aircraft that slowly crept along making a buzzing sound.  Once they came to a stop a bomb would be released.  I will always remember my mom telling me that my nana rode as fast as she could.

Out of the ashes of The Blitz my granddad would return to his post, continue on as an entertainer and radio announcer and meet another woman.  There would be an affair and a long lingering, a pretending of sorts, that he was still a husband and a father, with occasional visits.  Slowly, my mom would become a secret to another family made by the poor choices of example and lack of fortitude.  He wanted a divorce but none was granted.  It was my nana’s quiet way of hoping he would come back, as promised, and in another way it was punishing.  Back then one needed both signatures on the divorce papers.

In 1944, Operation Steinbock would come in the form of a “Baby Blitz.” More brutality, bombs and tears, screaming “daddy, wait!,” as my granddad officially left his wife and child for good.  My nana would need to move and work hard to make ends meet.  Months, after tracking her husband through his performance schedule, she would send my eight year old mom on a train, alone, to meet up with her father, note pinned in her pocket, begging him to come home.  My mom would get off the train and see him greeting another woman with two small children.  She would get back on the train.

Beryl would suffer more asthma attacks, poverty, and the humiliation of being fatherless.  She was a secret.  During her teen years they had to move to a 14 ft trailer.  It was during that time, hours spent sneaking a listen to her father on the radio, that she would write to him about their conditions.  She was very smart and wanted to go to college.  Mom was angry in her penned tone and he would come storming to the trailer, fist pounding on the table, telling her to never speak to him like that again.  “You listen here!!”

Mom would eventually marry my dad out of that trailer on April 27th 1957, at the age of 20.  On the morning of her wedding day, as she has recently recounted to me in great detail, mom woke early, washed her face, hair and body in the sink., grabbed her rollers and makeup bag and walked up the quiet street to the seamstress’s home, where she would be fitted into her dress.  Back in those days it was much cheaper to have a dress made.  Only the wealthy could afford a dress from a bridal boutique.  All her little bridesmaids were there to be dressed and collected, along with my nana, and brought to the church by other family.  The seamstress was a kind women who also helped with mom’s makeup and hair.  For days, mom wondered if her dad would come to get her, as promised, and give her away.  When there was a knock at the door, at the scheduled time, he broke down crying at how beautiful she was.

It was there that my mom stood at the church gate in 2006, frozen in her memories.

We made it to America in 1963 and our story only got richer through the years as the dirt was uncovered and more truth became light.  Mom would continue to write to her dad, yet she was instructed “never to call him father” in her correspondence, until one day she did. I was seen by my granddad once during my Christening and before we left.  But I would be 14 when that letter was discovered.  During this time my granddad was asked if there were any more secrets?  His response was “no. no more.”  He promised.

Shortly after his adoption papers were unsealed there would be another half sibling traveling and researching all of England and Ireland to find his birth parents.  Another secret unearthed.

I met my grandad again, his “wife” and two children., my aunt and uncle, in a reunion of sorts in 1976.  My mom would meet the siblings that never knew her, although she knew of them and craved to know them for years.  They would all meet a sibling that none of them knew, yet tragedy, after tragedy would ensue for him., until he was left with no marriage, no sons and finally passed away a few years ago, alone, in Wales.

Somehow America gave my parents and my little nana a peace they had never completely known.  They were on the outside of a story left to other souls to nourish and put together and it wasn’t easy.  My mom would discover beautiful relationships with a brother and sister from afar. It was so very hard to go home after they met. They would talk for hours on the phone, write, and exchange the most beautiful birthday and Christmas cards they could find. They would also mourn the loss of time.  They still do.

Mom came out of my granddad’s small flat, on that cold March day, and hugged us.  We proceeded to take pictures with my film camera outside laughing in the cold, clutching each other in the wind.  I could have hung on forever.  We were a family.  Mom would tell us that my granddad, through tears, asked if she could ever forgive him? “Can you ever forgive me?,” to which she responded, “I forgave you a long time ago.”  My granddad passed away a few months later.

This is the family I treasure and the lessons I keep...

Matthew 6:14-15

Mom and her dad, my granddad Joseph Nichols, in 2006.

My granddad, nana and his mom, Lily, on their wedding day. Discovered that Elizabeth, although she relented to the marriage, she did not attend.

Nana and mom just before the war.

Mom saying goodbye to Sandy, her tabby cat, on her wedding day, at the trailer (my nana holding her veil from blowing).

l to r: me, mom’s sister, my Auntie Heather and mom in 2006 outside of granddad’s flat.

Before I write my next story, I’d love to hear about your family stories and what you think of this one, .. or answer any questions you might have.