My Character

Hannah Parker-Jones was born in India in 1921 to a British army officer Ralph Parker-Jones and his Dutch wife, Etta. At the age of eight, Hannah was sent home to boarding school in England. She spent her summer holidays with her aunts and uncles and loved her holidays with her many cousins. She saw her parents only when they came home on leave but she was happy enough.  When she was ten, her father died in a shooting accident and her mother returned to Holland. As Etta had only a small military pension, she relied on her Dutch relatives for financial support and Hannah continued to stay at her English boarding school. Etta eventually remarried and when war broke out, she, Jon, her new husband and Hannah’s half sister and brother moved to England.  At the age of eighteen, Hannah   joined the women’s branch of the Royal Navy. She met a Canadian army officer, Bob  Gallagher and they were married in 1942. He was badly wounded in Germany and was repatriated to Canada in 1944. Hannah and Bob then had one child, James, who was born in England.  In 1945, Hannah and James were among the first British passengers to sail to Halifax and then to make the journey to Regina, Saskatchewan. They rejoined Bob  who had recovered from his wounds. By the time I met Hannah in 2004, she was eighty-three, widowed for some time and mother to three offspring.

We found each other through her web site because she was working on a story about Canadian war brides. I had responded with my story and we exchanged several emails. Since I was visiting in Vancouver, we made a date to meet on Vancouver Island where she was then living. I got off the ferry at Nanaimo and immediately noticed a tall handsome  woman in a black rain coat . She was using a walking stick that was a bright vibrant blue. I knew that this must be Hannah. As she greeted me, I was struck by her deep sonorous voice.

Lunch with Hannah

Well, so you were one of the colonial children who were shipped back to England at the age of eight. I had four cousins who had the same experience and they spent a lot of time in our home. They seemed happy enough at the time but later, in life, they talked bitterly of the experience.

Hannah: I don’t know that I was bitter. I loved school, especially English and History and I excelled at tennis and field hockey. Besides, I had lots of boisterous playful cousins and I remember fun summer holidays, swimming in the sea. When I think back, how cold that water was!

Yes, I remember that too. Running on the beach to warm up and being taken afterwards for hot chocolate. My mother insisted on dips in the sea. She of course wore a tweed suit, a hat, a coat and sturdy brogues as she supervised us from the shore. But she thought that sea water was good for us and would protect us from winter germs. Funny I spent most winters missing a lot of school because I was prone to bronchitis and asthma.  So much for the benefits of sea water.  How about that long separation from your mother?

Hannah: Well, she was warm and loving when I did see her. She had been widowed young and had gone through quite an experience.  She was happy to return to England because she had spent some time there as an au pair girl. That is how she met my Dad. She was also happy to visit in Canada when Bob and I got settled. We lived for years in Saskatchewan. Bob was of Irish descent and I worked on his family history. They came to Canada in the eighteenth century.

So now you are working on the history of Second World War war brides?

Hannah: Yes, I started it as a hobby but I got so many responses that it has just grown and grown. I thought that I had a publisher but recently, I got a letter saying that they could not publish it because it ranked as non- academic history. I guess that I should just have put BA after my name. I doubt if they would have checked.

                Hannah’s family saw to it that her book eventually got published. Unfortunately, this event took place after she died of cancer. When I had met her, she had survived a stroke—hence the blue cane-- and cancer.  Alas, the cancer returned. We had exchanged many humorous e-mails, maybe the most amusing being how the English village midwife couldn’t make it on time for James’s birth. Seems she had spent all afternoon in the village pub. Fortunately, Hannah’s mum was on hand with boiling water, scissors, warm blankets and brave love.