Mother's Memories - Widowed 1941

  Harry Godfrey of 38 Squadron died 21 June 1941.  I remember that my mother said others in the plane had survived.
   If he wasn't the pilot, he might have been the rear gunner. They are the two people most vulnerable at the front and the back and who stay in the plane, if it is shot at and damaged, until after the others have jumped out.
   The survivors would have formed a new team. My mother was upset that she was avoided afterwards. She felt they were unsympathetic, unhelpful unkind, no longer interested.
   A woman I met a few years ago told me that avoiding the family or widow of a deceased airman would have been normal. Other crew members and their girlfriends or wives were not merely embarrassed because they could not think what to say.
   The feeling was stronger than that. They wanted to maintain morale.
    More importantly, they were superstitious. They did not want to be associated with somebody who died, which was bad luck.   Instead, they wanted to not think about it, just move on with a new group hoping for better luck.
    My father was my mother's second husband. After she died, I had to help him deal with all the paperwork, her birth certificate and marriage certificate to show her records and that my father was her next of kin.
     She was listed on her second marriage certificate to my father as a widow. I had previously thought she might have concealed her first marriage from him. But she was listed on the second marriage certificate as widow. I asked if he could remember anything she had said about her previous husband in WWII.
   My father was more concerned that he had just become a widower. He shrugged, "It was a long time ago."
   My first thought about her being described on the marriage certificate as a widow was how unkind. Why did they have to say that?
   A minister of religion pointed out that it was a legal requirement. You could not marry a woman a second time if she already married somebody else. She had to show that she was either divorced or widowed.
   The only picture I have is of the Alamein Memorial from the CWGC website.
He had a father called John and a sister.
   I am still haunted by the mystery. What did Harry Godfrey look like?
Angela Lansbury I am still hoping that somebody, somewhere will have a record of his family and a photo of him - better still a photo of him marrying my mother.

Researching WWII records
   I have the notification of the death of Harry Godfrey at El Alamein in 1941 sent to his widow, my late mother. She had married him, I believe, in a register office near where he was stationed/trained before he was sent overseas. She was widowed within a year.

    I have no photo of him. She said after she received a black-edged telegram/letter, her father went to see his parents to tell them the bad news. They asked if she had any photos of him. She gave them all her photos. She told me, "I could get another husband but they could never get another son." I think he was in twenties, so his mother would have been in her forties or older, too old to have more children.  
    Searches online bring up dozens of young men called Godfrey, or Harry Godfrey. I would like to know more, even his birthdate would help. Are there any surviving blood relatives of his, such as a nephew or niece?
  My mother was his next of kin, but I am the child of her second marriage. Although I've inherited the documents and her memories of him, I think the RAF records offices data protection are not allowed to give me more details, nor put me in touch with other members of his family. If you can help I'd be grateful, and I thought that if you are also searching records, or simply curious about how it is done, here are my searches so far.
   A few years ago I phoned the Runnymede memorial and found out some details which I have mislaid. I seem to remember he was in his twenties when he died.
   Looking back at my document I found his service number:  906079. I had previously regarded this number as rather uninteresting. However, it is vital when you seek information.
   An online search in Feb 2014 revealed, to my surprise and delight, a reference to the name and number which popped up immediately with a link to Find a grave and he is mentioned at El Alamein.
  The Alamein Memorial website, by the CWGC (Commonwealth War Graves Commission) says he was in the 38 Squadron.

Useful WWII Sources
1 RAF Cranwell Disclosures, Lincolnshire.
Sends application form, but most information is only given out to next of kin for data protection. Admin fee you must pay is £30.
Application form will ask name of person whose details are sought and their RAF number if known and your relationship if next of kin, official organisation, whatever.

(No public visitors allowed. Small office within a camp can take up to 16 weeks replying to backlog of queries in date order of receipt of query.


Casualty Records
RAF Air Historical

2
RAF News, 100b Greenwood, Walters Ash, High Wycombe, Bucks HP14 4XW.
Tel:?
email?

3 Commonwealth War Graves

4 Forces United

5 British Legion

6 Find a Grave

7 Ancestry.com

(I'll update this with my further research or your aid so come back later to check this blog.

Hoarders - cause - cure?

CAUSES
   I used to think that I'd inherited my parents' view that you must save everything from the times of the WWII when you could not buy new goods, only Utility furniture. My late father grew up in the Nineteen Thirties when you have little money. You would make do and literally mend, mend shoes, darn socks.
   Then I learned about birds and nests. Feathering your nest. Saving for a rainy day.
   A third psychological factor, on Myers Briggs personality type, the fourth pair of contrasting types, the perceiver (I call it procrastinator) versus the judger.
   On retiring, or losing a job, or divorcing, when your source of income disappears, some types tend to cling onto objects with the excuse that they have no money to replace. The other partner may take the opportunity to downsize, and cast off clutter.)
   Now I've learned of another explanation. A blow to the head (trauma from outside), or narrowing of arteries - food inside causing blockages - can slow the movement or water and oxygen to the brain so that people suffering from strokes and dementia find it hard to make decisions. So deciding to tidy, to sort, to get things in order, to throw away, to clean, to do anything, becomes a chore, a struggle.

CURES
  An American TV programme on hoarding is showing how a team in Philadelphia is throwing away a man's possessions, clutter, a health risk, too heavy for the building.
   What a pity to throw everything away. What about recycling! Surely the Antiques Road Show could be brought in. There should be a museum which rescues things by era, a bit like the statistics of economics, for each year or decade, one umbrella, one teapot.
  There must be, or should be, museums of umbrellas, museums of teapots and china, museums of radios and electrical equipment. The Smithsonian museum should have a branch in every state.
   Some items could be sold to help the owner. Others could be donated to charity, or recompense the local authority and taxpayer.
    A few items of sentimental value such as photos, passports, ID cards, wartime records, wedding photos, could be saved and cheaply framed or recorded on the internet on ancestry .co and find a grave.

Give police access to parking fine records

Missing woman found dead in Philadelphia, USA, under books, in car with tinted windows, under snow, with numerous parking tickets. I've read about several similar cases. Parking wardens and police both have dabbles but not linked up. It's time that parking warden databases and police were linked. If you don't want the parking wardens to have access to police records, give police access to parking warden records to do searches for missing cars. The person inside could be a murder victim, drugged or sick but still alive needing help, or dimply have died at the wheel - or of cold. I read lots of excuses, why it was hard for the police and parking wardens to identify the car or the occupant. Yet a passer-by did it. A simple computer search could have solved the problem in seconds.

Man jumps into tiger's cage, mauled, in China

Some zoos in Asia and elsewhere have a double barrier between animals and people. If you fall or jump or try to retrieve a dropped hat you are in a ditch below and away from the animal. The animal cannot reach and grab you. That seems fairer to both the human visitor and the animal which might otherwise by put down or injured in the attempt to rescue the human.

Ghosts In Hospitals, Night Nurses, Lights, And The Afterlife

Alec Guinness, the actor, thought he saw the ghost of a woman in white in hospital.
1When I recovered from appendicitis in hospital I thought I had died and I saw an angel in white. I asked her, "Are you an angel?" She replied, "No, dear, I'm the night nurse."
2 After my late father died I discovered old copies of his opthalmic magazines. One edition had an article about patients claiming to see large head and faceless figures with large hats. This is a recognised medical condition. It's the result of the after image anybody gets when they stare at something and look away. A patient in hospital will stare up at a nurse leaning over them, surrounded by white light. The reverse image is a white figure against black. The large head is the distorted image of some eye conditions.

How to indent a blog post

   Have I solved the problem of indents on blogger? My posts were being printed without indents at the start of paragraphs.

   I tried typing in three spaces before the line I want to indent.

Now I’m writing my blog in pages on a laptop and transferring them to my blog hoping it will copy the code.

Potholes and crumbling cliffs

What do I see in my area, the next area and far away: potholes in the roads, libraries shut, hospital waiting lists, no money for pensions, police stations closed, coastal areas flooded, cliffs and houses falling into the sea, not enough money, money being sent overseas.