When Dorothy was 25 years old, her husband was called by the Army to serve his country in the second world war. The situation mirrored that of her mothers, 25 years earlier. A young mother, saying goodbye to her husband, unsure if she would ever see him again. A young father, saying goodbye to his children, wondering the same.
As the family lived in an area likely to be attacked in the war, her children were to be evacuated to a rural location. Dorothy and her mother Florence sat talking well into the night on the eve of the evacuation, debating whether to join them in moving to rural Cheshire. Florence talked of how she wouldn’t have coped with living without both her husband and her child during the first world war, and Dorothy spoke about how she was glad she had stayed with her mother as a child. She had no memory of her father, him leaving when she was barely a week old, but she felt like she knew him thanks to her mother. The family decided that they couldn’t bear to say goodbye to the young WIlliam and Florence. Named after their grandparents, they brought an indescribable joy to the home on a daily basis. The decision was made, and the family would all be moving out of their family home after over 50 years of being lived in by the Godfrey generations.
As the clock struck seven the following morning and Florence got the children dressed and packed to leave Liverpool, Dorothy made sure to visit each room in the small terraced house. She spent a moment in each room, her eyes closed as she remembered her favourite times in each of them, before whispering goodbye as she one by one closed the doors. As the family closed the front door behind them, tears formed in all of their eyes as they said their goodbyes to the faithful home, unsure if it would withstand the inevitable attacks of Britain’s enemies.
Seven years later, all four of them returned to the site of their family home, unsure of what would stand in its place. As they walked past rows and rows of destroyed houses on their way, their hope was fading fast. But turning into Copper Street, they were shocked to see the latter half of the road looked almost identical to how they had left it all that time ago. Smiles beamed on their faces as they approached the dusty front door. Tears formed once again in their eyes as Dorothy struggled to open the warped door, after it had been locked in place for seven long and difficult years. When they finally entered the home, the first thing Dorothy did was visit every small room, open every creaking door, and say “We’re home”.