Paddington I showed a Travel Warrant and was issued with a ticket to Wrexham General station on the old Great Western Railway line. I lunched in the dining-car.
All the time I was travelling I was worrying as to what was wrong with my father. I came to the conclusion, wrongly as it turned out, that he must have met with some sort of accident; maybe he had crashed his car because I knew that he would drive when under the influence of drink, he thinking that his reactions were made sharper after imbibing a whisky or three.
At Wrexham I was met by another taxi and taken to the hospital. There, I was shown to the private wing and met Sister Edwards and my mother. My father lay in bed, heavily sedated and with tubes stuck into him in several places. At least he was still alive.
My father, due to his excesses, had had stomach problems which had turned rapidly into peritonitis. His condition was critical, so much so that mother and I slept in the hospital for three nights before moving to the Wynnstay Hotel after the 'crisis' was over.
Mr John Spalding was the Surgeon in charge and he suggested that I stay in the UK for at least a fortnight. Accordingly, I contacted the Air Ministry and arranged to take that year's leave allocation to give me time to sort matters out concerning the family business. As it turned out, this was a serious error because, although I could not have foreseen it at the time, the lack of any leave later in the year was to have its consequences.
My time was spent either at my father's bedside or travelling to Birkenhead with my mother (I had no UK driving licence) to attend to matters at the family engineering business. I must explain that we had two homes at that time. One was at Upton on the Wirral peninsula, near Birkenhead. The other was at Welshampton in Shropshire, and it was at the latter that my father had been taken ill. My time was thus spent between these two houses. Mother was a Director of the business. I was not, so could only advise, although my appearances (occasionally deliberately in uniform) in the workshop let the work-force know that there was supervision, even though the 'Chief' was ill. Fortunately for us all, we had a very reliable foreman and a superbly competent office manageress. They, between them, took over the day to day running. In the midst of this I was still dealing with my own migraine attacks. It was a stressful time. My father, meanwhile, still thought that I could take off my uniform, leave the RAF there and then, and stay at home. He was most voluble about it.
I have to admit that it was almost a relief, after I knew that my father was going to recover, albeit with a colostomy, to get back to Germany and start watchkeeping duties again. Had things turned out differently, during my discussions with the Air Ministry I was told that there was a possibility that I could have been granted a compassionate posting to RAF Hack Green, another GCI radar site some 11 or 12 miles from Welshampton, but an awkward distance from the business in Birkenhead. Had this happened I would have had to take an almost immediate UK driving test.
My father, after a long illness, eventually made a full recovery and his colostomy was reversed.
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