We sat down this morning in Mum’s sitting room to watch on TV the Remembrance Day service at the Cenotaph in Whitehall.
Just as it started she asked, “Where are my uncles?”
I went into the dining room and opened the display cabinet where a picture of her four uncles, who had served in WWI, had pride of place. I removed the photo and took it over to her, where she held it on her lap throughout the programme, occasionally stroking it.
The picture was, I suppose, an early attempt at photoshopping, joining four separate full-length photos of her uncles – her father’s elder brothers (he had ten siblings in total) – in their uniforms, to appear as if they were altogether. There was a head-and-shoulders portrait of a fifth soldier watching over them. Mum’s cousin Johnny.
From left to right, the first uncle depicted was David, the eldest brother, who married just before he went to war and died during the German 1918 spring offensive, leaving a grieving widow and a wee babbie.
Next to him stood Uncle Edward, who died at Flanders aged just 19.
Then there was Uncle Hughey, who survived and settled back in Carlisle, married and had one son (whom Mum didn’t like but that’s another story).
The fourth WWI soldier was Uncle John. He enlisted in 1914, married in 1915, and his daughter Jessie was born the following August. She died of influenza three months later. His only son Johnny was born in 1918, the portrait above the uncles.
For as long as I could remember, Mum would tell me the sad tale of her cousin Johnny, who was killed along with several of his mates at their RAF base during a German WWII-sortie. She remembers him as a tall, good-looking, gangly youth.
When I started to research our family tree, I asked where exactly he was serving, but she didn’t know. All she could remember was that it was near the beginning of the war, and the sound of her father’s heavy footsteps (he was a police officer and wore big boots) rushing into the house to break the awful news that his brother’s only son had been killed.
Not long afterwards Johnny’s dad (Uncle John) died of “cardiac failure.” Johnny’s poor mum had no one left.
Guessing Johnny had died in 1940, and assuming he had served
in the north of England or Scotland, being a native of Carlisle, I started to
search for the death of John Menzies Lister on Ancestry. But this name was
actually more popular than I thought it might be, and what with even more John
M Listers, it was like looking for the proverbial needle.
So I changed my approach and Googled something like “RAF base 1940 deaths”.
Bingo.
A modern-day report in the Ipswich Star reported: “At Hitcham 11 airmen buried in a mass grave are among those whose memory is being honoured just days before Remembrance Sunday. The men all died after a German bombing raid on East Anglia on November 1, 1940, which attacked the then RAF military base near Stowmarket. A German Dornier 17Z bomber, based in Belgium and flown by a Lt Fritz Breuer and crew, dropped a stick of ten bombs on RAF Wattisham at 7.45am. The bombs started detonating in the married quarters, demolishing three, before sweeping across the administration site and ending up near the hangers. In all 11 servicemen were killed, the majority on the administration site, with 19 others suffering varying injuries. The attacker was shot down over the North Sea off Orfordness just 15 minutes later by a Hurricane fighter. The German bomber, Lt Breuer and his crew were all lost.”
A few more clicks of the mouse confirmed that one of those 11 killed was Sgt John Menzies Lister. So there you have it. I’d found the exact date, location – Suffolk, not Cumbria – full details of the tragic event, and where Cousin Johnny was buried.
Not long afterwards, Hubby and I had a do at our old Cambridge college, so took the opportunity to spend a couple of days afterwards in Suffolk and swing by the church at Hitcham. The spring day we went was gloriously warm and sunny, one of those sapphire-blue skies reminiscent of anywhere but England. I was armed with a small wooden cross that I had purchased from our village branch of the RBL, a modest but pretty tub of violets (all I could find that morning), and a scanned and laminated copy of a photo of Cousin Johnny that I had found in mum’s collection. He was resplendent in his RAF uniform, sergeant’s stripes proudly on display, fair hair neatly cut and swept back, a cigarette in one hand, the other hand held in a fist, reflecting his angst perhaps. Still tall. Still gangly. Still good-looking.
He died with his mates and he was buried with them. I placed the cross, photo and violets next to the headstone and took lots of photos to show Mum. When she saw them she was thrilled. We agreed that his parents probably wouldn’t have travelled down for his funeral, so at last, after almost 77 years, a member of the family had paid their respects where he lay.
Of course I never knew Mum’s cousin Johnny, but I still went fuzzy and reflective by his grave. Later that year, on 1st November as it happens, coming home from a meeting in London, I saw two very young-looking RAF chaps selling poppies at Euston Station.
I popped £20 in their tin and said, “This is for Mum’s cousin Johnny. He died at RAF Wattisham exactly 77 years ago.”
And I nearly burst into tears. Before I succumbed, I dashed for my train, leaving my poppy behind.
To this day I’m not sure if I was emotional for Cousin Johnny’s premature death, for his family that experienced so much tragedy, or for Mum, whom I helped reconnect with, who I have a sneaking feeling was, her childhood sweetheart.
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