My boyhood Christmases were always associated with the USA, says Hunstanton writer John Maiden
In his weekly Turnstone column, Hunstanton writer John Maiden looks back to the 1950s…
As a very young boy, in my mind, Christmas was always associated with the USA. This must have been because some of my earliest memories of the festive season are from the early years of the 1940s when parcels from my Aunt Annie - a Mother Superior at a convent school in New York state - were certain to contain some nice things for me to eat or to wear. I remember being very sad one year when the expected parcel from America failed to arrive. However, feeling sorry for myself soon turned into pity for the sailors who must have suffered, or been killed when their ship carrying our parcel was sunk - most probably by a German torpedo.
I mention this now because I recently came across a Norfolk County Council project that will commemorate the World War Two Heritage of Norfolk and honour the legacy of the US Army Air Force in our county. I was unable to be present at the December meeting of the Hunstanton Society's History Group, but from the minutes I know that members are interested in obtaining information that will enable them to help anyone trying to find out more about what their ancestors did during WWII.
At a personal level, my desire to get away from the Special Grammar School Course at Wymondham College in 1953 received an unexpected endorsement from a former member of the US Army. Jimmy Baxter had one American parent, which accounts for the fact that when he finished his schooling at the Grammar School in Lynn he opted for the US army. His parents lived in Hunstanton Road, Heacham and were friends of my parents.
By the time I first met Jimmy, he had left the army and was a wireless operator in the American Merchant Navy. My parents knew that I admired Jimmy, which is why they asked him to talk me into staying on at Wymondham College. Much to their surprise he declined, saying something like this: " Hell no, that place is miles from anywhere. I know it well because that collection of Nissen huts was where I was treated for my injuries sustained in the war, when the place was a US military hospital."
Strangely enough there is a connection to the forthcoming county council project and a place where I have been known to sink a pre-match pint with members of the USAF 67th Special Operations Squadron. The Bell Hotel, near the Castle in Norwich, was where my parents would take me for lunch on a very few of those Sunday afternoons when Wymondham College released its 'prisoners' for three hours of freedom. I was unaware of the Bell's rich history back in my school days, but it now seems very relevant. I often think of it as a meeting place for the Hellfire Club and other radical groups, but of greater significance was the use of the building as the headquarters of the US Womens Army Air Corps from 1943 to 1945.