What's your story? War Baby part 2 (Remembering the Forgotten Army)

This is the second part of my Mum's story.  It shows how through another set of God-incidences, two men (Reg Lloyd, my Grandad and Beck Onishi, my Dad’s business associate) who would once have been mortal enemies could become men of mutual and honourable respect.

Reg Lloyd (left) | Mum, Dad, me & my brother (right)
Photos taken by Beck Onishi

This is mainly my story of experiences during and after World War 2, so I will now go back to about 1942 and the entry of Britain into the war against Japan.  My father was in his 31st year, hardly a young recruit and certainly no hero.  Nevertheless he was called up and sent off to Chittagong, India, to be prepared for fighting in the swamps and jungles of Burma as part of the 14th Army. 

As a baby at this time, I was obviously oblivious to all this and my earliest memory is of my father turning up at our Kingston home probably in about 1943/4.  He had previously been reported to my mother as missing in action but she was convinced he was still alive having had a vivid dream that he was somewhere lying badly hurt.  (Another Godly comfort perhaps - Juliet).  Fortunately he was picked up, but wandering and incoherent, suffering from the effects of cerebral meningitis and dengue fever.  He was taken away from danger to a field hospital  but I know nothing of his treatment or how long he was ill,  I’m pretty sure he was there when Vera Lynn was entertaining the troops because he mentioned it.  Although not at all religious, he was also grateful for the care and attention shown to the troops by the Salvation Army and always put his hand in his pocket for their collections. 

Eventually, he was put on a hospital ship and transported back to Britain.  He was then sent to an assessment hospital near Sutton, Surrey.  My mother, I think, was aware that he was being sent home but not a lot else.  Sutton is not far from Kingston and my dad was able to blag a pass and thumb his way home. I remember as about a 4 year old seeing my daddy, still in tropical kit and still handsome but now with white blond hair instead of black.  I was a little in awe and I think my dad was disappointed I hardly knew him.  Anyway, he had to return to the hospital, from where he was to be demobbed.  Post traumatic care in those days was perfunctory but he was to claim a small war pension for the rest of his life.  He suffered crippling headaches and recurring bouts of dengue fever but was otherwise physically fit and life had to be got on with!

Post war Britain was pretty grim but as I grew up life became easier.  We had five cinemas in Kingston, so there were plenty of films to see, some in glorious Technicolor and of course the radio.  Educating Archie, Life with the Lyons, ITMA, Kenneth Williams, the Goons Tony Hancock and lots more.  Sundays though were a non-starter, no films, shows or shops.  If it was raining, which it often was, there was no going out!

I met my husband when I was nineteen at a dance, at twenty we got engaged and were married at 21.  By some cruel twist of fate, my first baby, a boy, was also to be born breech.  I wasn’t too worried, after all I had been breech and I had arrived safe and sound In the middle of the blitz!  However, Andrew was stillborn, the placenta came first and he didn’t survive.  Again, not much post traumatic help; just ‘try again, dear, you’re still young’.   Anyway, we did try again, and we had a beautiful baby girl Juliet in 1968 and later a bouncing baby boy, Stuart.

Soon after the birth of Stuart in 1971, my husband and I started a business selling watches duty-free to the airlines.  My husband was the driving force behind this venture but I was a secretary and pitched in.  We  began by supplying Laker Airways and Dan Air and later British Caledonian, all based at Gatwick Airport.  This was the start of the package holiday boom and we soon found our fortunes growing considerably.   By the mid -70s, it was Rolls Royce cars, a large house and luxury foreign holidays.   Soon it was the beginning of the digital era and we were looking to Hong Kong and Japan for suppliers, instead of traditional Swiss watchmakers.  Contacts in Asia were made through a soccer playing friend.  We had emigrated to Australia in the 1960's, Bruce as a semi-professional soccer player and myself as a secretary.   Bruce’s other job was as a watch salesman and traveller, this meant he could still play football and train.  We still had friends and relatives in Oz so decided to go on a flying visit with the children.  We were so naive that we thought Japan was a short flight away from Sydney.  Well, fortunately Bruce got there and then took the Bullet train to meet his contact in Osaka.  He turned out to be a gentleman in his early 60s whose name was Beck Onishi and he had a small business supplying watches, lighters and sundries, which he ran with his two daughters Kumi and Rumi.  He spoke fairly good English and so did Kumi.  Deals were struck, Bruce returned to Oz and we all flew home.

Beck Onishi with Mum

Kumi Onishi with me & my brother

By this time my father was semi-retired and was helping in the watch repair section of the business.  Later Beck and Kumi decided to visit England and so, of course, my father Reg met Beck.  Here were two former foes, neither of whom was a hero or high ranking, making a truce among the watches, never to be pals but respecting each other and sharing their families.  So alike; proud, sorry, subjective and most importantly alive.  Beck took loads of photos and we all gave in patiently but how glad I am we did, because in later years Kumi sent us a little album with all of us in it and with Beck’s little typed notations in stilted English.

It is VJ Day soon and although I can never remember the bombs or the carnage of the Battle of Britain, I personally will never forget the ‘Forgotten Army’.

Stories from the 14th Army