The prompt for this week immediately made me think about libraries, and my first thoughts flew to my own experiences at the British Embassy in Prague where, as a child, the librarian Squirrel (I have no idea what her actual name was but everyone called her Squirrel) would let me sit beside her on Saturdays and stamp the books out, I think she could sense intuitively how much I loved books even then. I felt so proud of myself rotating the little wheels on the stamp to set it to the correct date and paid particular attention to getting it as straight as I could, happy memories indeed.
Whilst it’s lovely reminiscing, and it’s something I don’t do often enough, my own recollections aren’t really what this challenge is about, so after a little more thought I turned my attention to my late father, John Wright’s first wife.
If you’ve read some of my previous posts you may be aware
that my Dad passed away in 1980, aged just 41, when I was 10; and I really only
knew snippets about his life before he met my mum in the early 1960s. I was vaguely aware that he had been married before,
but didn’t really know any of the details.
Well, I’ve recently received some more of my late Mum’s paperwork from
my step-dad and within that was Dad’s divorce decree. This gave me the actual dates of both the
marriage and the divorce, and in some of my Mum’s written notes I was surprised
to find a paragraph or two about Dad’s first marriage.
Now I’m sure you’ll be wondering why the prompt ‘Check it
Out’ and my word association jump to libraries brought me to my dad’s
wife.
Dad was born in 1938, and whilst growing up appears to have
been an active member of the local Air Cadets, eventually joining the RAF in
1956 aged just 18. At some point
following his basic training he was stationed out in Singapore, and this is
where he met his first wife, who was working in the National Library in
Singapore. I shall refer to her as Ying,
as that is the name Mum gave her in her notes; it is not the name given on the
official paperwork, but I don’t feel it would be correct to include her full
name here without the benefit of being able to ask her permission.
Despite an age difference of several years, and Ying’s English not being very good, they began courting, and Dad became totally enamoured, asking her on several occasions to marry him. Ying initially refused but when Dad was posted back to England he managed to persuade her, and they had a hastily arranged wedding on 7th November 1959, before returning to England together.
Unfortunately, it seems that my paternal Grandma was
suspicious of Ying’s reasons for marrying Dad and did not greet her with open
arms. Nevertheless, the couple continued
their married life in hotel accommodation in Beverley whilst waiting for Dad to
be allocated married quarters. The next
blow to their marriage was the death of Ying’s sister, leaving 2 young children,
Ying decided to fly back to Singapore to look after them. I think initially Dad expected her to return
to England, but she refused, not wanting to leave her mum to look after the
children on her own; and being understandably unhappy at the reception she had received
from Dad’s mum, her new mother-in-law. At
some point Dad was granted special leave to fly out to Singapore and try and
save the marriage, but to no avail.
I think Dad was then in a bit of a limbo situation, married
but not married, and indeed he was still married when he met Mum in 1962 when
she joined the WRAF and was stationed at the same base as him, Leconfield. Initially they were just acquaintances, who
shared some of the same social group, but after around a year they began
courting. When Dad realised he had fallen
in love with Mum he had to work out how to organise his divorce from Ying,
something that was not easy at that point in time, and he actually sought help
from his father-in-law to be. The
divorce was finalised on the 2nd November 1964 and my parents were
married shortly afterwards.
I must admit that sometimes wonder how things might have turned out, had Grandma been more welcoming, or if Ying’s sister hadn’t passed away when she did; I also wonder whether there is any chance that I have an unknown half-sibling over in Singapore, although I’m certain that Dad would have found out if Ying had had a child.
I hope that she was able to find happiness when she returned
to Singapore.
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