This is an entry in a year-long project to post-blog the demobilisation experience for British servicemen at the end of the Second World War. See here for an introduction to the project and here for a brief overview of the demobilisation process.
John Bull reports on the temporary 'pre-fab' housing offered in lieu of a permanent home for reunited couples:
Mrs. Mark has had a fearful time. A flying bomb destroyed her home in June 1944. Her husband was in the Navy then. She had a twelve-year-old daughter, Jean. With a badly cut hand a shattered nerves she and the girl found themselves rushed into a hostile Somerset cottage. Constantly the hostess reminded them that 'if my husband were alive he would never have allowed you in.'
Mr. Mark was discharged from the Navy on medical grounds resulting from arthritis in the feet, the result of being torpedoed while on convoy duty to Russia. He also had high blood pressure, and is a pretty sick man.
Back in London after VE-Day, Mrs. Mark and Jean were living in a school rest centre. Mr. Mark has to have a place without stairs as he cannot walk easily. After innumerable calls on the local housing authorities, they finally moved into a three-bedroom Nissen hut and have made it into a cosy little home for themselves.
Mr. Mark is apprehensive about the future. The prefabs and the Nissens are, after all, only a temporary expedient. Ten years for the prefabs. Two years for the Nissens. They like their present home. Jean, now fourteen years old, burst into tears when her father told her that the Nissens would eventually have to be torn down to make way for proper houses. "I don't want to live in a proper house," she wept. "I like living here ..."
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