About
Whilst clearing dad’s house a few weeks after he passed away, with my younger brother and our good friend John, I found an old black, metal box with a white sticker on the side with the word ‘Coburn’ written on it. It was locked, but thankfully the key was in the lock. I called my younger brother and John and together we opened the box. We found, neatly stored inside a number of little red memo books with a round dot stuck on numbering and dating them in order. A quick flip through showed they were diaries. We grabbed coffees, settled into armchairs and dipped in to see what they were like. The others struggled to read anything, but thankfully I am one of very few people who have ever been able to read his terrible handwriting (probably because I have inherited the same awful trait). Soon I was reading out loud random snippets from some of the memo books and found myself hooked.
I took the box home and as often as I could I settled down to read through all the diaries. It was a wonderful privilege to be able to discover my father as his younger self, his childish (teenage) view of the world in the 1930’s and his family life in the East End of London with my grandparents, and uncles, his parents and his two older brothers. I discovered his childhood passions and interests, many of which continued throughout his life, music – he played the piano, saxophone and clarinet, reading, cinema, theatre, West Ham FC and stamp collecting. It was also a fascinating insight into society at that time. I was surprised how little he commented on the likely hood of a war as the historic date of 1st September 1939 the start of the second world war grew nearer. It was interesting how he and his family entertained themselves during that time, reading, listening to the radio, playing piano and singing together, visiting friends and family, the theatre and cinema.
It was a family joke that he had hoarding tendencies, and at times when clearing the house we were driven to exasperation, however we also found so much of interest especially relating to his war time experiences which has enhanced the diaries. This includes letters sent by him to his family and friends during his RAF service, and his father’s letters back to him, schoolbooks and reports, a wealth of information on Fire Watching, his RAF radar training, photographs and much more which will be added to this website.
Donald John Redhead was born on 25th November 1924 to Joseph and Florence Redhead. They lived at 27 Edinburgh Road, Plaistow, London, this was of course pre the introduction of post codes. He was the youngest of 3 brothers, Walter born 1909, later know as Ron and Ernest born 1915. Walter was married at this time, but Ernest was still living at home. A sister Dora had been born in 1911 but had sadly died at the age of 14 months. Plaistow is now a district in the London Borough of Newham, East London. Mainly E13 postcode.
Dad began his diary in November 1938 just before his fourteenth birthday and continued it until the end of 1949. He started following a lesson at school in which they were asked to read “Delight in Books” by S P B Mais. The diary covers his last days at school, looking for work and a number of false starts in his career, until he settled on Accountancy, through to the start of the second world war, living through the horrors of the blitz in the East End and dad and some friends starting a dance/swing band. He went on to record being called up, joining the Air force and being trained in Radar, joining Polish squadron 305 and then squadron 107 during his time in the B.A.F.O. – British Air Forces of Occupation in France, Belgium and Germany.
There are some very harrowing entries with regard to the blitz and I learnt so much about that most difficult of times. He, his father and brother Ern were very active with regard to fire watching, and his mother was one of the many women who also got involved. Ernest became a Senior Fire Guard heading up 3 Jack area which included the road they lived in. (Link to Map). I discovered a box full of information, posters, and records on Firewatching, which I will share on this website.
His military career was very interesting, he was called up when he turned 18 and chose to join the RAF, volunteering for Air Crew. However, following the tests, he was assigned to train as an RDF (Radar) mechanic. He did not particularly enjoy the initial training, especially unhappy with ‘square bashing’ and in his view, unnecessary rules such as room tiding, and he hated living under canvas.
However his technical training took place at the Northern Polytechnic in Holloway Rd Class 12 C and at South Kensington in London. So from July 1943 until April 1944 he was training in London and billeted in comfort in a hotel and was able to spend a great deal of time at home and playing at dances with his band.
On completion of his training he was posted to 107 Squadron in TAF2 (Tactical Air Force) 138 Wing at Lasham. And then in July he was posted to 305 Squadron Polish Mosquitos and in November 1944 they moved to Epinoy in France, and a few months later to Belgium, and finally when the war ended to Gutterslosh Germany. During the time he was operational, sadly but understandably there was very little detail about the actual work he undertook, however amongst his memorabilia I have found some information that helps fill that void.
He very much enjoyed meeting French and Belgium locals and was able to make many friends through music. I have found some wonderful photo’s of the Belgium band and the family he became friends with. He was also involved in arranging concerts for entertainment and I found reviews in the Wing Magazine.
When the war ended, he was very put out that he was not demobbed quickly, in fact not until May 1947. He had by this time decided he wanted to become a Chartered Accountant and had agreed articles with the firm he had joined before the war Hope Agar. He caused some upset with the CO of his squadron when he wrote to his MP complaining about not being demobbed to commence his Articles. He did however make full use of the EVT Educational and Vocational Training Scheme. He also took some Vocational advice whilst in the RAF and the report was very interesting.
I was delighted that during his time in the RAF he not only completed his diary but also copied out his letters home into more red notebooks, which added much ‘meat on the bones’. Unfortunately from April 1944 he was too busy and just made very short notes which were not so helpful.
However at that point I discovered he had kept the letters his father had written to him and it was wonderful to get a flavour of how things were perceived on the home front.
Delays to the letters reaching home was a constant theme, as it caused much worry to his parents as to his welfare. His parents also clearly played down the continued bombing raids so as not to worry him, but I was shocked by the Flying bombs and how awful they were for the civilians. Also the winter of 1947 was especially harsh, very cold and lots of snow and this combined with the rationing being even more severe than during the war made this a particularly difficult time for his family. Early 1947 was also a difficult for Dad as in February his squadron was sent on an exercise to the German island of Sylt in the North Sea. They travelled there in a terrible blizzard and the conditions were very hard. I then found a report of this trip in the Wing Magazine which was very interesting.
The diaries continue until 1950, but towards the end there were many entries detailing how hard he was studying for his accountancy exams. He passed in July 1949 and there was enormous excitement as he was 6th in the Order of Merit. He started his Accountancy practice in Hornchurch Essex in the early 1950’s.
The diaries also detail his meeting my mother Doreen at the YMCA and their early courtship. They married in 1951 and had 3 children. I laughed at the first entry which mentioned mum, as she turned down his first request for a date. The story as my Auntie Pam, her younger sister told me was that she had been very keen to go out with him and only joined the rambling club and bought a new set of suitable clothes, so she could catch his eye!
Sadly in her later years mum suffered many painful years of Rheumatoid arthritis and passed away in 1993. Dad went on to have 15 further happy years of marriage to Della, who had been a lifelong friend of mums. It was lovely for us siblings as we could happily discuss mum and learn about her childhood from Della. Also interesting that there are entries regarding Della in the diary and her eldest daughter Sandra was a bridesmaid at my mum and dads wedding.
I have spent many happy hours transcribing the diaries and letters and learnt so much about my dad as a young man and about his family and childhood, and of course regarding the war, the blitz, Radar and the RAF. There were times when I had to remind myself that some of his views were from when he was very young and in a different era. There were also many times when I cursed his handwriting and wished that he had made us aware of this treasure when he was alive to answer questions.
It has been a labour of love and took longer than I would have liked. Much of the work was done during our wonderful visits to the Valdarno in Italy where we spent 2 months in early spring for a number of years with our dear friend Irene. The final push, was during the dreadful pandemic of 2020/21. I felt very privileged to have such a wonderful way to occupy my time during lockdown, when so many others were having a terrible time. Also, it reminded me often to count our blessing, how lucky we were to be able to keep in touch easily with friends and family through zoom, facetime etc.
I have left some of the idiosyncrasies of his writing for interest and fun. Also if there was something in the diary that I had not heard of before or was of particular interest, I researched and included much of what I discovered as footnotes. I hope it helps you with your enjoyment of the diaries,
Eleanor Margaritelli nee Redhead.
I would love to hear from anyone who knew my dad, or any comments or observations about this website.