Page 178 - Who Was Sapper Brown

Children’s graves in Dhekelia. Photo published in Cyprus Mail, 24 October 2010.

Setting the Scene – A Mother’s Memories

The following account was kindly provided to the author by Mrs Anne Morgan-Jones, who was a young

mother in Cyprus in the early 1960s.

‘We all knew the cemetery at Dhekelia had a large number of babies’ graves and that the generally accepted
cause was some kind of a viral pneumonia which acted very swiftly, but in the day to day of things, one gave

it no more thought than to any other fact of life. As a very junior wife I was not aware of the death of any
babies on the Wing to which my husband belonged, but such things would not have been widely discussed as

it would have been considered bad for morale.

My husband John, then a Flying Officer in the RAF Regiment, was posted to RAF Nicosia in the Autumn of
1962 leaving me to pack up our quarter and eventually get myself, our baggage and two baby boys to Nicosia

when called forward. We left UK just as the horrendously bitter winter of that year was setting in, to arrive
in what to us was a warm and steamy Cyprus.

Jane was born on October 5th 1963. It was that Christmas the Turks decided to invade Cyprus. We were
sharing Christmas Dinner with friends when the Turkish fighters roared overhead. We remained in Nicosia

for most of the conflict. On Boxing Day John was called into the Station and deployed with his men, into the
town. We were not to see or hear from him again for about a month.

About two weeks into this time, my baby suddenly became ill. She wouldn’t feed and her temperature shot

up. It was at this point anxiety came into play. Leaving my sons with an obliging neighbour, I put baby
into the car and set off. I don’t recall how many check points we had to pass through, manned by nervous,

gun toting young Greeks, reluctant to let us pass. But this was a sick baby and a determined mother and
fortunately the Greek affection for the young came to the fore.

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