When Daddy Came Home

This story was submitted to the Peoples War website by Karolina Kopiec from the BBC GMR Action Desk on behalf of Mrs Lillian Leach and has been added to the site with her permission.

I was pregnant when my husband was called up and then came back for Christening. Then he didn’t come back until our daughter Mavis was 2 ½ years old. When he came home we was injured. So I dressed up Mavis in best clothes and went to Manchester Station. All the soldiers were going down the platform. We waited 2 hours and my daughter was very fussy. But when my husband did appear she saw him first and even though she’d not seen him since was a small baby, he said she recognised him. Earlier I’d only shown her his picture.
My husband gave Mavis a big doll he’d brought back from Italy. But after waiting such a long time, she was very thirsty (she was able to say ‘thirsty’), so we went to a café and asked for tea. It was too hot for her so Lawrence cooled it down by poring from cup to saucer to cool it. Then she said “I’m thirsty daddy”, which was the first time she said “daddy” to him. He was close to tears.

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