Reminiscences of WW2 from My Grandparents – Part 2...

ANZAC Day. A day that Australians and New Zealanders remember of those who went to war. A day to remember those who never made it home. And it is also a day to remember those who were left at home during the war and afterwards. Last week I wrote “Reminiscences of WW2 from My Grandparents – Part 1” which is primarily an interview with my grandparents Evelyn and Cecil Hannaford about their experiences during World War 2. This interview, which was done as a high school project a number of years ago by a friend who interviewed them, is written as a transcript. So this is my grandparents talking about their own experiences during the war, In. THEIR. OWN. WORDS! Not as history books records it, but as they experienced it. As it was a long interview I decided to split it into two, and this is the continuation. Continuation of the interview … What type of weather was it? Mr H. It was winter time. Then when we got up to Trincomalee [Sri Lanka] it was summer time, in the tropics. We were out in the bay and the sister ship, Mary, went out into the harbour and they had all the port holes open, light shining everywhere. We had to have ours shut and it was hot. Did you have enough food? Mrs H. Well, everyone was rationed. What were the ration books like? Mrs H. We were given ration books and you had to have so many coupons for tea and sugar and butter. We weren’t troubled about the butter because we made our own. How did they actually work? Mrs H. We had to go to the shop or on the other hand thee was...

Reminiscences of WW2 from My Grandparents – Part 1...

“Don’t talk about the war to your grandparents”. That’s what I was told. So I didn’t. But fortunately for me (and the rest of my family), someone did. And for that I’m eternally grateful. When a friend was doing a school project on WW2 and needed to interview someone about the war, and didn’t have any reli’s here in Australia who were in the war, she asked my grandparents, Cecil and Evelyn Hannaford (nee Randell). So I have to thank both Cathryn and my grandparents for this, because if she hadn’t asked, I guarantee that these memories would have been lost forever. Before I begin I shall just say that the original interview is quite long, so I won’t include every question, but even so it’s still long enough that I’ll split this over two posts. The introduction … As a brief introduction, at age 25 Cecil Hannaford joined the army in 1940, and was trained at Woodside Army Camp before going aboard in 1941. During his time with the army he travelled to Libya, Palestine, Syria and Egypt. Aged 25 when he signed up, he went away as a driver, but also had to man the anti-aircraft guns at times. My grandma, Evelyn Hannaford (nee Randell) lived at Gumeracha with her family during the war. On their farm they grew vegetables which were needed for the army. The interview … How old were you when World War II was declared? Mrs H. 23 years old. Mr H. 25 years old. In what country were you living in? In what state? Both. Australia, South Australia. Living at Cudlee Creek. Were you living at Cudlee Creek all through the war? Mrs H. I was at Gumeracha during the war. Mr...

ANZAC Day Blog Challenge: Restyn Walter ‘Pete’ Randell...

April is here, which apart from Easter, is the month to commemorate Anzac Day (at least for us here in Australia and New Zealand) and Auckland Libraries have issued the Anzac Day Blog Challenge again. You know it was this time last year when they held the same Blog Challenge that it made me realise  just how little I knew about my military ancestors. Who of them actually went to war? Where did they go? What was their rank? … and so on. So I made it my mission over the past year to rectify that. And while I’m no expert on any of them yet, I did kept the folk at the National  Archives of Australia busy by ordering copies of a heap of my reli’s which I’ve been going through slowly. So for this year’s blog challenge I’ve chosen my great uncle Restyn Walter Randell (aka Pete Randell), one of my grandma’s brothers, because I’d seen a photo of him in his airforce uniform (as below), and it always had me intrigued. So after obtaining his military records (of which there was a heap – 72 pages in fact), it told me that he initially signed up for the army, and then transferred to the airforce a few months afterwards and from what I can tell (I’m still learning how to interpret military records jargon), he worked as a airforce mechanic for the RAAF at Laverton and Ascot Vale, both in Victoria. And as usual with military records, they contain a wealth of information – not just the military part – but also personal details as well. From Uncle Pete’s military records I found out all sorts of snippets that were news to me … – he...

Remembrance Day: Sixty Five Letters...

Sixty five letters … that’s is how many letters my grandma wrote to her husband while he was fighting overseas in WW2. How do I know this? Well, sadly I don’t have the letters, but I do have her diaries which lists the date of every letter she wrote to him over a period of 14 months. During the past few months I’ve been slowly going through our family heirlooms. Photographing, documenting them, and preserving them etc., and I have recently made my way on to Evelyn Hannaford’s (nee Randell) diaries … (aka my maternal grandma). I must say our family is fortunate that she was a diarykeeper, as we have 49 diaries covering a 61 year period. I can’t say I’ve read many of them yet, but two of these years 1942 and 1943 are what have intrigued me, as in the back each, grandma noted the date of every letter she wrote to my grandpa while he was in the Middle East fighting in WW2. Now it’s Remembrance Day next week on November the 11th which marks the anniversary of the armistice which ended the First World War. For this Australians observe one minute of silence at 11am on the 11th of November, “in memory of those who died or suffered in all wars and armed conflicts”. So while this isn’t actually about a relative who died or was wounded, it is still a post about my military heritage. Remembrance Day and Anzac Day both make people think deeply about their ancestors. Those who fought in the many wars. Some died, some were wounded, some came back … all fought for their country. But not forgetting the families back home taking on tasks to make ends meet,...

A Wedding in the Midst of War...

Both my maternal and paternal grandparents were married during World War Two. That was nothing unusual, in fact probably every family has ancestors that were married during that era. They married before the man was sent off overseas or elsewhere for training, or they married when he came home on leave. This post is about my maternal grandparents Cecil Hannaford and Evelyn Randell. Both grew up in the Adelaide Hills, Cec (as he was known) was an orchardist at Cudlee Creek, and Evelyn grew up at Gumeracha on the family farm, so no doubt knew each other through being in neighbouring towns. While my grandma, Evelyn was a brilliant diary keeper, sadly 1941, the year she got married, is one year that doesn’t seem to have survived. So without her words to tell me what her wedding was like, we simply have to rely on other sources. For that I turn to Trove for the newspaper notices, and any wedding photos. Fortunately my family were into putting notices in the newspaper, so I found an Approaching Marriage notice in The Advertiser. And I am fortunate that my family has wedding photos of my grandparents wedding too. Now I hadn’t thought of this before, but they were married at the Salem Baptist Church at Gumeracha in the Adelaide Hills, and the photos were taken by a photographer in Adelaide, which means sometime after their wedding they got redressed up in their wedding gear, headed to Adelaide, and had them done. I don’t know when this was done, as the photos aren’t dated. But Cec was on leave from the Army to get married, and was back with his battalion only 4 days later, so maybe it was at that time...