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W52 : My grandfather was a baker

6/1/2015

2 Comments

 
If you have been reading my blogs over the past 52 weeks, you will know by now that I was adopted and have quite recently found both my birth mother and father's families.  In this the final week, I had planned to write about my grandfather, Bill Anderson, who, because of how and where he died, was responsible for reuniting me with six half siblings despite the fact I had already discovered my birth father had died. My grandfather's story will be told shortly, but just so I can achieve the goal of writing about 52 different ancestors over a 52 week period, I want to share a couple of letters he sent home to his wife, Annie, and the poem it inspired his daughter to write in 1990 which I find very moving.
PictureWritten prior to his capture in June 1942
My Father was a Baker

I never knew my father
He didn’t know me.
But today I received a letter
Written when I was three.
A little scrap of paper
Barely four by five
But how the words on that scant page
Made him come alive !



Concern for his family
Hopes for better times.
Thoughts of Spring in Scotland
Written in simple lines.
Nothing in the way of news,
The censor had his way,
But just to say he was alive
Was sufficient for the day.



What were his thoughts I wonder ?
What visions did he see ?
A bakers shop, prosperity,
Back in liberty ?
He knew not then his fate was sealed,
And he’d come home no more
Only in his wistful dreams
Would he see our island’s shore.


PictureSent from POW Camp 54
In 21st Field Bakery
Royal Army Service Corps.
Their daily job to feed the troops
Who soon would fight no more.
Then later dad was captured
In enemy camp enclosed
Detained by Hitler’s henchmen
Their will on him imposed.



I wonder if he baked their bread ?
Did they commandeer his skill ?
Did he have cause to wish them dead,
Or did he bear no ill ?
So many questions in my mind
So much I’ll never know
Strange it should take fifty years
For this interest to grow.


Picture
As a child I remember
The kids with dads would brag,
Vying with each other
On the attributes they had.
And when they asked what mine did,
I told them with a nod,
My father was a baker
And now he bakes for God.
 


Written by Joan Comrie - July 1990 - about her father, Bill Anderson, who died on a train going over a bridge in Italy with hundreds of other POW’s on 28th January 1944
2 Comments
Jean Walker
6/1/2015 02:22:06 pm

It's only when you see such letters as these you realise how lucky we all are to have been born at a later date. Life was so tough!! Simon, your accounts have been wonderful, I still need to read a few so I hope you keep them for a while longer!

Reply
Jenny Weeks (nee Anderson)
6/1/2015 08:50:52 pm

Lovely to see these letters and the poem on Facebook. I have copies of dads letters home and Joans handwritten original verses. Very moving indeed. She was always writing little poignant verses. Thanks Simon.

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    Simon

    These are blogs about my ancestors or potential ancestors. They include people from both my adopted and birth trees. Hope you enjoy reading them as much as I do writing them. Please 'like' if you do.

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