"one day a telegram came to say he was missing in action and presumed dead, but the old lady just never would accept that he had died."

Interviewer: So, we’re talking about the period 1912 to 23 and you had an uncle in the war, didn’t you?

Linda: Yes, I had well not an uncle, great uncles of mine, they would’ve been my mum’s uncles. Mum would’ve been Morrow and she used to talk of an Uncle William. I’ve never been quite able to tie down if it was an uncle or a great Uncle William because she used to talk about old granny Morrow, so I don’t know if there was a granny Morrow and an old granny Morrow.

He was an Uncle William and she said he went to war, she had been told this story, one day a telegram came to say he was missing in action and presumed dead, but the old lady just never would accept that he had died. She said, “mark my words one day he is going to walk through that door”. She didn’t die until I think it was the late 1930s and even then, she was still expecting him to walk in the door. She just never ever could accept that he had died in the war. I think because there was no body, nothing to physically say yes that he was definitely dead, so she never did accept. It obviously affected her for the rest of her life.