Page 51 of Right Place, Right Time
‘I’m not that bad,’ Annie says reproachfully. ‘We’ve had a wonderful time, though. We’ve been all over England over the last few weeks; you have so much fabulous history here we don’t have in the US.’
‘And we ended up here in Cambridge,’ Ed says. ‘My family come from here originally.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, I’m going back many years, though. My grandfather was stationed here during the Second World War at Duxford. He met my grandmother here, and, after the war ended, he stayed in England and they moved around to various airbases where US troops were stationed. My father was born here and it wasn’t until he met my mother that they decided to move back to the States.’
‘Gosh, my great-grandmother was stationed at RAF Duxford during the Second World War too.’
‘Holy moly! That’s amazing. Maybe they knew each other?’
‘Maybe they did,’ I say, smiling at him.
‘What did she do after the war?’ Ed asks. ‘Did she continue to serve?’
‘Sadly, she died in 1944.’
‘Oh, how sad,’ Annie says. ‘Was she killed by a bomb? A lot of Brits were killed in air raids, weren’t they?’
‘Luckily, Cambridge didn’t get too many bombing raids during the war. When I say she died, she actually went missing.’
‘Missing? Like behind enemy lines?’ Annie asks excitedly. ‘Ooh, was she a spy?’
‘No, nothing as exciting as that, I’m afraid. She was stationed here in Cambridge for the whole of the war, I believe. She was, however, one of the first female engineers at Duxford.’ I’m surprised at how proud I feel saying this. I’ve been thinking a lot about Dotty lately since we found that photo of her. Ed and Annie aren’t the only ones keen to know more about her story.
‘So how did she go missing?’ Ed asks, appearing genuinely interested.
I explain as quickly as I can what I know about Dotty.
‘Gee, that’s quite the family mystery you have there,’ Ed says. ‘And sadly one I doubt you’ll ever solve all these years later. I thought I’d uncovered some twists and turns in my family – Annie and I have both been tracing our family trees. That’s how we met Luca.’
‘Oh, yes?’ I turn to Luca. ‘I didn’t know you’d been doing that. Are you guys related, then?’
‘No,’ Luca says, shaking his head. ‘But that’s how I met Annie – on a Facebook group for finding families. When she said she was coming over to England, I said she should pop in if they were ever in Cambridge.’
‘And here we are!’ Annie says. ‘I’m sorry about your great-grandmother, Eve.’ She pats my arm. ‘But the internet is a wonderful place for trying to trace people. Maybe you should try sometime. I can see it bothers you not knowing what happened to her.’
I look down at Annie’s hand on my arm. And, for some reason, her kind gesture touches me. ‘Funny thing is, it didn’t bother me too much before. It wasn’t until recently that I started thinking about it and wondering. It was just one of those stories passed down through the generations.’
‘What happened recently to change your mind?’ Annie asks gently.
‘Change your mind about what?’ Adam asks from behind me and I turn to see him deftly holding a bottle of lager and an empty glass in one hand, and a pint of beer in another.
‘Adam!’ Luca leaps up from his seat. ‘Come and sit by me here – there’s room for two on this bench.’
‘Nonsense,’ Ed says. ‘Annie and I will share. You take my seat, Adam.’
Much to Luca’s disappointment, we have a little shuffle around, so now Luca, Adam and I have our own seat, and Annie and Ed share the little bench Luca was perching on.
‘Right, now all that’s done. Shall we begin again,’ Luca says. ‘This is Adam. He owns the bookshop next door to Eve’s antique shop.’
‘As yet unopened,’ Adam says, smiling at Annie and Ed. ‘I hope to open soon, though.’
‘Luca met Annie and Ed when he was tracing his family tree,’ I say to Adam. ‘Ed had family in Cambridge too. His grandfather was stationed at RAF Duxford during the war.’
‘Really? What a small world,’ Adam says, nodding. He casts a purposeful glance in my direction before turning to Ed. ‘Did your grandfather see any action in the war?’ he asks.
‘Yes, we believe he flew a few successful missions over Germany,’ Ed replies. ‘He never really spoke much about it to anyone, though. People back then didn’t, did they. Not like now when people share everything about themselves on social media. In those days it was a stiff upper lip and all that.’ He tried, unsuccessfully, to do an English accent and apologises as we all smile. ‘Bombing another country wasn’t something he was particularly proud of, I’m sure. But I guess it had to be done. I’m sure many of the German pilots felt the same. You said before, Eve, that Cambridge didn’t get bombed too much during the war? How come? I thought all the big cities were hit.’
