Page 43 - My Story

were perfect (and always very beautiful, huge and blue with sweeping lashes). The surgeon himself was
amazed and we never needed to go back for exercises.

Gwenda and Ida often came to baby sit or to collect the children and drive them off somewhere
exciting, like the Frankfurt zoo, in Gwenda’s mini. Both girls had American soldier boyfriends and we got
used to seeing John and Jim about the place. They were also good at “finding” extra blankets, army issue,
when we had guests. I think I still have some of those blankets. They were both drivers, chauffeurs to
Generals and hoped they would not be sent to Viet Nam. Some of the soldiers were getting pretty
desperate about Viet Nam. I remember Peter arriving home looking shaken one night. He reported that
an American soldier had thrown himself across his hood while he was driving. Nobody was hurt but you’ve
got to be serious to do something like that.

Gwenda eventually married her John. They had the first part of the wedding reception in our back
garden and seven-year-old Hilary took wonderful photographs with a one mark camera which we had
bought at Quelle, a mail order company. John’s stint in the army was up and they moved to Connecticut
and had two daughters. They now live in Rhode Island and we are in touch.

Soon after their departure Siggy retired and he, Marion and Ida went back to Ireland. Peter had
a new boss.

By now we had been in Wehrheim two years. The three girls were at school and Toby in
Kindergarten. When he wasn’t in Kindergarten, he was playing on the street with Wolfram Diesner. The
two of them would tear up and down on their bikes. Toby had inherited a very solid old tricycle from his
sisters who I believe had inherited it from the Carters. Anyway, that tricycle was good for a hundred years.
Toby also inherited the most awful local accent. The German spoken in Hesse is not pretty and neither is
it grammatical, which suited me! Susan learned a poem called, “Daheim ist daheim” which was all in local
dialect and would entertain all of our Hochdeutsch speaking friends with it. When Elisabeth came to visit,
she laughed in particular when she heard someone refer to her elbow, Elbogen, as Elliboje!

Helen and Susan were picked out to give recitations and speeches in their perfect German.
Indeed, in Kleve they had been the children chosen for the consecration of the war memorial chapel and
only we saw the irony in that!

Helen, Susan, Hilary & Toby in 1969

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