A country at war
The wonderful life they were living in Shanghai was coming to an end. The Japanese invaded China and in 1938 my grandparents decided it was time to leave. Their house was sold and they moved into a hotel while the journey home was arranged.
This was a very distressing time for everyone in Shanghai and my family witnessed many awful things. One memory that stuck in my father’s mind is seeing truck after truck load of coffins being unloaded to keep up with all the killings.
He also remembered shells constently flying over the hotel. Once, when he was playing in the gardens with his friend Christopher, another English boy of about the same age, there was a large explosion frighteningly close by. Christopher lunged at my father, pushing him over and out the way as a large shard of glass embedded deep into the ground where my father had been standing just a split second before. The hotel windows had been blown out. Neither boy was hurt, at least not physically.
Homeward bound
Eventually they managed to buy the tickets they needed to return to England. They travelled back by boat to North America, taking the train across Canada and then the Queen Mary, across the Atlantic. Some of the friends they left behind ended up trapped in China. A few years later when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour the value of the American dollar dropped and some could no longer afford the fare home. The Japanese were now at war with Europe and America as well as China.
It was at this point of my families story that my father told me something shocking that I was not expecting. On the 5 day train ride across Canada he was playing with Plasticine, making figures and little boxes. An American passing by asked what he was making. My father explained that the figures were dead people and the boxes coffins. The picture in my mind of this 9 year old boy playing with such ‘toys’ breaks my heart.
Dad did have some happy memories from that journey though. in Canada they stopped off to see some of the sights including Lake Louise. They then journeyed on via the Niagara Falls to New York where they embarked on the Queen Mary to Southampton.
On board there was much excitement as the ship was carrying copies of the first ever feature-length cartoon, Disney’s ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs‘. It was being transported to England for its first ever showing there. You can imagine the children’s delight when they saw the film on the ship before it reached England’s cinemas.
Finally my grandparents and father arrived in England as virtually penniless refugees. My grandfather had been the deputy head at the Chinese school but because it was run by the Shanghai Municipal Council, his time there was not recognised in the UK. He was told he would have to start his teaching career again from scratch. Devastated by this he instead took a position in a relative's building business as company secretary but this never really suited him.
My grandmother’s brother had done extremely well in business and he bought them a house in Chippenham which they named Jessfield after the park they loved in Shanghai.
Grannie, who had only known married life with servants, had never cooked before but she adapted well to her new situation and became a fantastic cook. I wish I knew where her notebook was in which she’d hand-written all her favourite recipies. Sadly, my grandad died before I was very old and I barely remember him at all. I do remember the most wonderful holidays though at Jessfield House with Grannie making the world a magical place to discover. And, when I was a little older, she taught me to cook, teeth-breaking toffee, scrumptious chocolate cake and a superbly light lemon cake, all from her notebook. I wish I had it now.
For many years Dad had terrible nightmares about the horrors that he had seen in Shanghai and he found it very hard to fit in at his new school in England. None of them ever returned to Shanghai but I would dearly love to one day.
above: swimming at the Country Club, Dad in his Cathedral School cap
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