Coda

Mother & baby, April 1946.
Photographed by Dan Findlay.

The letters end here, just before DF's leave to attend the birth of his child in Glasgow. The baby arrived, in Redlands Nursing Home, safely and fairly timeously at teatime on Sunday, 30th September, and was indeed the expected girl. As planned, she was named Christine Margaret, and is the collator of this blog. Apparently and unsurprisingly Margaret refused the offer of tripe for tea immediately after the birth. She used to recall seeing imaginary men on the rooftops opposite her room in Great Western Road as she recovered from the influence of whatever sedation they used at the time.

Dan Findlay had, of course, to return to Essex after the birth, and was demobbed when the baby was several weeks old. Legend always had it that when he finally arrived home to find the baby screaming in her mother's arms, he expressed a desire to return to the peace of the Western Desert. A second daughter was born in December 1948. The family lived at 66 Novar Drive until 1957, when they bought the long-desired house with its own garden, in Broomhill. Margaret Findlay lived there till within a year of her death at the age of 93.

Dan Findlay died suddenly in 1977 at the age of 69.