Bravery, humility and a chance meeting

8 February 2016

Today’s tale began before I was born, back in World War II in fact. It was a story I would have loved to have heard from one of the main players, my beloved Pappy, but he, being humble, kept it to himself. The first I knew of this story of heroism and humility came in a newspaper article back in the mid 1970’s but it wasn’t until today that I got the full story.

Usually I’d start at the beginning but, for this story, I will begin with that newspaper article. Mother and I had finished dinner and, as usual, Mother was reading the newspaper with a cup of tea while I was sitting, probably watching TV and thinking about going out somewhere as you do at fifteen or so.

“Look at this!” Mother said, handing the folded paper to me, “who’d have thought the cantankerous old curmudgeon saved someone’s life and never said a word?”
Puzzled, I took the paper from her. She was talking about Pappy, I knew that much. In our house I was the only one who’d ever got on with him. Mother and Alex both grumbled about him all the time even though he’d been gone for a few years by this time. Mother swore he’d had money hidden away somewhere but, when he died, there was none, at least not that she found although she looked hard enough. She even went as far as pulling apart the old green winged armchair he used to sit in.

Of course, I don’t blame her, not really. The night his wife Mary died he’d turned up on her doorstep, or so the tale goes.
“She’s gone,” he’d said.
And that was that. He never went back to his house and spent the rest of his days living with my parents. That was 1955, five years before I was born, and Mother had found herself living with an unwanted guest, her father in law, from then on. They argued about the garden. They argued about the house. They argued about what to watch on TV. They argued about me, “let her be,” he’d say when she was moaning at me. After dad died it seemed to get worse. Perhaps Mother resented the fact that he was still there and dad wasn’t?

Anyhow, back to the newspaper article. It was written by a lady called Dolly O’beirne, someone I’d heard of as she was a local Councillor and was often in the Echo. Dolly was just fourteen, working as a van girl on a baker’s round for Lowman’s in Portswood Road. The van driver was Old Tom Haley, my Pappy. They were in Satchel Lane, near the Hamble Airfield where the women of the Air Transport Auxiliary flew in and out delivering planes, when they heard the sound of approaching aircraft. Then the shooting began.

Pappy stopped the van and shouted “Out girl, quick.”
He was no stranger to gunfire. He’d fought in the trenches of France and Belgium in the last war and he knew the searing pain of being shot. He pushed Dolly into the ditch and threw himself over her, shielding her with his own body. From the ditch Dolly saw the bullets rip through the van she’d been sitting in moments before. She was terrified but the planes soon passed over and turned their attention to the airfield. Once it was safe, Pappy helped her into the van and they were soon back on their round as if nothing had happened.

Of course I knew Pappy had a baker’s round. He told me stories about driving round the town with his horse and van, how he used to chat to Benny Hill who drove the milk van, how children came out to collect the horse poo for their gardens. When Benny Hill’s song Ernie came out I wondered if Two Ton Ted from Teddington who drove the baker’s van was a joke about Pappy. No one could ever have accused Tom Haley of being large, he was five foot five at the most, slightly built and I’m sure he never kicked a horse. Still, Tiny Tom from Southampton wouldn’t have made a very good love rival in the song. We both loved that song and Pappy bought me a copy which I played and played.

For all his tales of the bakery, the horse, the city and how it had changed, he never once mentioned being shot at or saving a young girl’s life. Mother was as surprised as I was to read the article. It was strange to think that this woman, who went on to become a councillor at a time when women in the council chambers were as rare as hen’s teeth, might not have survived if it hadn’t been for Pappy. Stranger still to think he had never ever spoken about it. It seemed he said nothing to anyone.

The article was cut out and kept and the years passed. When my boys were little I told them tales of their great grandfather including the day he saved a young girl’s life. Then, in the mid 1990’s, another article was published in the Echo about the incident. Thinking Dolly might be interested, I wrote to the Echo to say it was my grandfather in the story, hoping they would pass this on to Dolly. When I had no reply I supposed no one but me was bothered about what became of Old Tom Haley.

Over the years I occasionally told the story to someone if the subject of wartime stories came up and I never stopped being proud of Pappy or thinking about him. Then, one night a week or so ago a name came up in a comment on the Southampton Heritage Facebook page. The name was Janette O’beirne and I wondered if she was any relation to Dolly, who I knew had passed away some years ago. On a whim I sent a message saying I had a story she might find interesting involving my grandfather and Dolly. A few days passed and nothing happened so I forgot about it.

Then I got a message back, ‘Yes dolly was my mum. Without me saying I am guessing which story and which gentleman. Mum was full of stories and I am just so glad that I listened!
Would love to know more please.’ Messages went back and forth all evening. Janette said she would like to visit Pappy’s grave and, knowing she’d never find it on her own, I offered to meet her and show her where it was.

Today was the day. It felt a little like a blind date and I was a little nervous. CJ, who knew how I was feeling and is always happy to visit Pappy, said he’d come along too. Janette was going to bring her sister, Kathleen, who was also keen to meet me and visit the grave. As there are no flowers worth speaking about in my garden at the moment we popped into the flower shop in the precinct and picked up a small bunch of red chrysanthemums. Pappy loved chrysanthemums.

We’d arrived purposely early so we could visit with Pappy on our own first. A single daffodil was flowering amongst the bulbs planted on the grave but the primroses, being more sensible, we’re waiting until spring really arrives. The wind was so strong I had to break the stems of the flowers to make them short enough that they wouldn’t all fly away.
“You’re going to have some visitors this morning,” I told Pappy as we left for our rendezvous.
To his credit, CJ didn’t even give me a strange look for talking to a grave.

It was still a little early so we walked a slow circuit of the churchyard and then a second. A woman in a purple coat was standing outside the Red Lion when we emerged from the gate. She looked as if she was waiting for someone but she didn’t look like the picture of Janette I’d seen on Facebook. We were about to make a third circuit of the church when she called out.
“Marie?”
It was Janette’s sister, Kathleen. We’d hardly had time for introductions when Janette arrived.

Together we walked back to the church, chatting as we did. Beside the grave I told Janette and Kathleen a little about Pappy, how he’d gone from Witney in Oxfordshire, where he was born in 1887, to Berkshire where he met his wife Mary and my dad, Harvey Thomas Eric, was born in 1913. He came to Southampton, I explained, after he’d been shot in the trenches in World War I, probably because he’d been taken to Netley Hospital to recover.
“If he hadn’t come to Southampton we wouldn’t be here,” Janette said.
“Neither would we,” I added.

Janette had brought a small pot of daffodils to add to our flowers and the bulbs and primroses. As she placed them on the grave I couldn’t help thinking how much we all owed to the man resting below the soil and granite chips or wishing Dolly could have been there too. When it began to rain we decided to adjourn to the Red Lion for a cup of coffee. It’s been a few years since I’ve been inside and, at first, we chatted about the pub, its imminent change to a Wethersooons chain and our memories of the area. Soon we got onto Dolly and that fateful day.

“Mum talked about it often,” Janette said. “She was full of stories and she told her children, her grandchildren and great grandchildren the story of Old Tom Haley saving her life. She remembered every detail, from how he shielded her without a thought for himself, down to all the orders in the bread basket and the line of bullet holes in the bread van. Afterwards they carried on with the bread round as if nothing had happened. Mum said all the customers complained because their bread delivery was late and he never said a word. My nan told her off as well for coming home late and I don’t think she told her until years later.”
“I suppose that kind of thing happened all the time back then, things being disrupted by planes, bombs and bullets. Pappy was full of stores too but he never told us about it either,” I said. “The first we knew was the article in the paper. I don’t think he ever mentioned it to anyone.”
“He might have had to explain all the bullet holes in the van when he got back to the bakery,” Janette laughed.

Of course, I’d come prepared with some pictures of Pappy on my phone and Janette had a whole file of photos of Dolly and newspaper cuttings.
“Mum had loads of stuff in the Echo, memories of the war and the city.”
“I knew she was a councillor,” I said. “It was unusual for a woman back in the sixties and seventies.”
“Yes, there were just two women councillors back then and all the men expected them to make the tea and bring cakes. Even so, she did a lot, like starting the Over Fifites Festival and she won the Citizen of the Year award. No one would ever have described Mum as a sweet little old lady though. God help them if they had done. She had a tongue like a razor blade sometimes and the most evil sense of humour.”
“It sounds like she would have got on well with my mother. She was much the same and everyone in Bitterne knew her. People still come up to me and say how much they miss Gladys.”
“I did think of putting the story on the Hampshire Heritage Facebook page to see if Tom had relations still in the area but, of course, Mum was only fourteen at the time and she described him as an old man so I thought there was no chance. This story has been kept alive in my family ever since, my grandchildren love hearing it, so his memory and heroism has never been forgotten believe me. Right up until the day she died, she would receite to her great grandchildren everything that was in the bread basket, who had which order and how much it cost! Mum was an amazing woman and your grandad was an amazing man. The whole O’beirne family and all their decendents would like to thank him.”

Of course, Pappy had always been a hero to me but it was nice to know his memory lives on outside of our little family. My only regret is that Pappy and Dolly didn’t get the chance to meet again. Now that really would have been a story.

With thanks to Janette and Kathleen O’beirne for taking the time to meet me, for supplying the wonderful pictures of their mother, Dolly, and for filling in all the missing pieces of the story. Thank you too to Dolly herself for keeping this story alive and letting me see what a hero my lovely Pappy was. Without her I’d never have known the extent of his bravery. 

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