The during the night train to Munich
And the way to it.
Hey readers!
I am coming to you LIVE from Frankfurt Flug (the airport train station on the outskirts of Frankfurt that I have shortened the name of for your enjoyment).
I started today at Bristol Parkway station. Here I am in my garb…
I took the train to London Paddington, then got the tube to King’s Cross St Pancras…
At King’s Cross St P., the KINDEST Eurostar staff member EVER offered to switch me to an earlier train to Brussels.
And THEN, on that Eurostar train, I met a post-grad (P. H. D) student microbiologist who lives in New Jersey and teaches at Princeton (super fancy). She is studying a protein to see if it is one that, if missing, affects heart tissue resulting in mostly non-viable pregnancies. It’s a protein mystery!
If it *is* the protein she is studying that is causing the problem, the hope is that in the future there could be therapies available so these pregnancies would be viable. I said I hoped she wins a Nobel prize.
And then we arrived in Brussels.
From Brussels, I took the train to Frankfurt. Hallo!
It’s funny, because my travel writing tutor at uni, Joe Roberts, who was amazing, and who died very recently, and who I owe so much to (my career, probably), always said writing about the journey was boring. ESPECIALLY writing about airports. And yet here I am, writing this in the space between an airport and a train station like a plonker.
You will be missed, Joe.
So where did we get to with my Grandad’s Prisoner of War letters?
Fred’s mother sent him a letter he never received on 22nd May, the day after his plane had been shot down.
She talked about how she and the rest of the family in Lewisham were doing. And about Fred’s fiancee having to stay in bed for 21 days after having her appendix out. About how more airmen were wanted. And a cousin wanting to join up and get into Fred’s branch of the service (could Fred send information about how to do this (oh the irony!)) She talks about another cousin playing on a £10 set of drums in the local dance band. And about how he had come over and helped plant potatoes lettuce and radishes and peas in the garden. She talked about wanting to knit Fred socks. And then she then signed off, ‘You are ever in my thoughts, Your loving Mum.’
When the plane was shot down, the Royal Air Force only knew a plane had been lost. They didn’t know that the men had survived. A letter was sent to Fred’s father and a duplicate to his mother, even though Fred hadn’t seen his father since he was four years old, when his father had walked out:
Dishforth.
23. 5.40.
Dear Mr. *****,
May I express the very deep sympathy that the officers and Airmen of the Squadron feel for you and your family in this very anxious time.
Your boy left on an operational flight on Tuesday evening and we have heard nothing further from them. We are all hoping that they may have been able to make a landing either with the aircraft or by parachute and that we shall be hearing from them in the near future. I will let you know directly I hear anything definite.
Your boy hasn’t been with us a very long time but he has made many operational flights and has proved himself to be a grand courageous chap and a very reliable navigator and observer. We shall miss him very much. His personal effects will be dealt with by a Central Committee of Adjustment and no doubt you will be hearing from them in the near future.
Should there be any way in which I can assist you please do not hesitate to write to me.
Yours sincerely,
[Signed] A. H. Owen. W/C.
Under the Regimental Debts Act 1893, the Central Committee of Adjustment dealt with the collection of effects and payment of preferential charges. They did this ‘on the death of a person while subject to military law.’ In other words, procedures were to be followed as if Fred had died but they couldn’t be certain that this was the case.
Fred’s mother received and kept two letters of condolence from well-wishers, sent to her after they had heard of her son’s ‘death.’
His Mum then had to wait two weeks to hear what had happened.
More on that next time.
Cheerio!