Yesterday morning I watched the VE Day parade on TV. It was very moving and brought back memories of things my mother told me about the war. My father wanted to join the RAF but he found he was one year too old to train as a pilot. He didn’t want a desk job so he stayed home and worked in the local munitions factory and trained with the Home Guard at weekends. They were living with my father’s parents who were running the Masonic Arms pub at that time but, as the munitions factory was the other end of town, my mother took the opportunity to suggest they bought a home of their own nearer Dad’s work and they bought a house in the area.
It’s funny because Hubby and I visited Shrewsbury over the weekend and we stayed at a different hotel from our usual one because I found a cheaper offer. That hotel was just down the road from the house where Mum and Dad lived and the factory where he worked in the war. Kind of appropriate for VE Day weekend, although when I booked I hadn’t realised it was.
So I was thinking of Mum’s stories about the war when we were there as well. She took in evacuees and told me about the woman and her little boy from Coventry who came out of an air raid shelter and couldn’t find their street, let alone their house. She also sometimes had army girls from the local camp and she told about the Polish Jewish girl who was serving in our army and who hadn’t heard from her family back home for months.
She told me about hearing the German planes going over to Liverpool and heaving a sigh of relief that they hadn’t dropped a bomb and then feeling guilty because they would now be dropped on someone else, and about the one time they did drop a bomb on Shrewsbury, probably aiming for the railway station or the factory where Dad worked but missing both and hitting a private house killing two young children and their grandmother.
This was our first visit to Shrewsbury for 3 years. The drive up was beautiful. We stopped at a wood in North Herefordshire for a picnic lunch and a brief walk to see the bluebells. Then on through south Shropshire and another stop at the Shropshire Hills Discovery Centre. It was lovely to see my home county again. On past Church Stretton where seeing the hills took me back to childhood afternoons with my parents when Mum and I would climb them while Dad sat by the stream reading his paper.
We arrived feeling ready for another meal and, rather than trying to find somewhere to park in town and then look for a cafe we stopped at McDonald’s. Then, feeling refreshed, we did find somewhere to park and went for a walk through the Quarry park down to the river.
We had an early night as we had to get up early the next day. We were meeting my friend Jill and going to a Spring Fair at my old school who were celebrating their 140th anniversary. It all looked very strange and different from when we were there over 60 years ago. I have been back to the school once before to a reunion but not to the sports field where the fair was being held. The school has taken over several adjacent buildings and It was odd to see a big new block of classrooms and a car park where someone’s garden once was.
After spending an hour there we went into the town to the market cafe for a coffee and a chat. Then Jill left to go to the football match! She’s been crazy about football since her early teens and now in her late 70s still attends matches every week.
Hubby and I had a look around the market and found a plant stall where I bought 2 trays of plants, couldn’t carry any more. Then, after lunch, we went back to the Quarry this time to have a walk around the beautiful garden in the centre which had been closed the evening before.
We had to fit in my weekly shopping trip on our way home as Hubby was due to go back to Cardiff the following day. We arrived home in the evening and, after putting away the shopping we settled down to watch Poldark. We’ve been watching the whole series through again together over the past few weeks when Hubby is here. I recognised the beach where we stayed on our last holiday together before I went to Cardiff. We Would love to go to Cornwall again but it’s difficult to leave Louise for more than 3 or 4 days at the moment. It was lovely, though, to have these last 2 days together visiting my hometown.
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