FRUITCAKE and WAR.......goes back to 1941

 It's Remembrance Day in Canada. And it is also fruitcake making day. The two go hand in hand.

 My uncle Stuart, whom I only met once, a few years before he died in the early 1970's, joined up in 1940. He's the one on the left.  Thumbing rides, for fun, with his buddy, outside the farm in Bethune, Saskatchewan. A warm day in May. Before you knew it, he was at Aldershot in the Maritimes.

                            He trained to be a Signaller with the South Saskatchewan Regiment. He didn't know what he was in for. It was a lark to him. He was in the Raid of Dieppe, Aug 19 1942. He was shot up badly, survived, and came home a hero. But not to a heroes welcome. His family couldn't understand the war, or the complexities. They couldn't understand why he couldn't just stay at home and work on the farm.
Letter excerpt to my mum, in Victoria, Sept 9 1942 :"I am OK. Excuse writing as I am in a cast from hips to neck adn out to fingers of right hand. Had one bullet just iss back bone,and go thru seat about 5 inches deep. Another hit centre of right back but glanced up smashing shoulder and have a neat hole through the humorous. I took a prisoner and fetched him back, after being shot up, so you can judge from that the injuries are slight. When we evacuated amid a hail of bulelts, shrapnel and dive bombing we could see green waves of Jerry pouring in for miles back. The official score was 5000 dead and wounded for them, and 3350 dead and wounded and prisoners from us. Believe you me, they have a healthry respect for Canadians. Will write as soon as right wing is working. Love, Stuart"

 This is May 1941 with my grandparents and his brother, Bill. In November, 1941 my grandmother made fruitcake and a pound of butter to send to a friend in Regina. It would have been an expensive enterprise at the time. She also had knitted socks and underwear to send to Stuart. well, she got the packages mixed up. Stuart and his pals got the fruitcake and butter ( which they enjoyed immensely), and grandmother's friend in Regina got woolen socks and  long johns..........

          Waterloo Station, or what is left of it, in WW2

 The women who worked at Yarrows Shipyard 1942. My mum was one of them.

   There she is. Probably sitting on the steps of their house on Cook St, in Victoria.

              
 Stuart on left, the one that got the fruitcake, with his brother and pal and Jessie-dog.May 1940

                           Sturt taking this picture at Portobello. Looks like a store. I once thought it was a pub.

                       German Army. Heinrich Reutmann, my mother-in-laws brother on far left. Artillery. He did right after this pic was taken.

                         Stuart on right, seated, with his pals. 1943. Just boys.

                           1941 in the signal office, before Dieppe, before he went home for a visit.

         Mortorcycles in the compound.

                           Bren gun carrier in the compound. All of these photos were illegal at the time.

                                Bethune, Saskatchewan war memorial.

                                HMCS Crescent Destroyer Class. Launched July 1944
And here is on the right with his friend Lynne. "Just another days work". When he came home from the war he held odd jobs, finding that most places of employment did not know what to do with a war vet. He didn't live long enough to see the changes. But I make fruitcake on Nov 11th and remember the story of 1941.......