Nearly a year has passed since I added any new information to the Family Tree and, yet again, another winter without making the long planned visit to East London to have a look at what was my Dad's family's territory back to at least the 18th century.
However, some significant family history research has been done. During the winter I allowed myself to be persuaded into giving a lecture on the Special Operations Executive training schools that were set up in the West Highlands during World War 2. I was targeted for this because my father was trained at two of them and I was expected to be able to acquire enough information to make it interesting.
I seriously didn't expect to have enough material, but researching Dad's wartime career in a more systematic fashion than I had done before turned out quite rewarding. I started searching the National Archives website for SOE records and found several documents of interest, especially when I realised that searching for names would identify files with service records in them.
I already knew that Dad was one of a group of 4 NCOs who were trained to assist in sabotage missions in occupied France. One of the others, who I met some 25 years ago, is still living in Portsmouth. Another, Gordon Nornable, was my godfather and died about 18 months ago. I was interested to notice that his file at TNA was already open, suggesting that the Archive had been notified of his death.
The third, who my father knew as Jock Graham, we knew had been captured and executed, but Dad had not been told anything more. Through the NA site I discovered that his first name was really Harry and judicious use of Google revealed that he had been executed in Flossenbürg concentration camp in the last months of the war, along with a number of other agents including another whose name my Dad recognised.
It was pretty sobering to realise how easily my Dad's name could be on that list instead and how lucky we both are to be here.
The file containing my Dad's SOE service record was closed but the NA archivist was very helpful in sending copies of the parts relating to him once Dad had sent a written request for the information. Nothing of great import but I think he got a kick out of reading the officers' evaluations of his character.
