When they were teenagers, Cyril and Ken had heard the distinctive rumble of a Vickers Wellesley in the night sky. They went out into their quiet suburban street for a closer look. The light bomber had lurched into an uncontrollable spin, and the pilot had parachuted out. Seconds later, there was a world-shaking bang. Cyril and Ken shoved Cynthia into their younger sister Pamela’s pushchair so they could get to the crash site quicker than Cynthia could run. A few streets away the tail section of the plane jutted from a tiled roof. No one had been injured, but the house’s pregnant inhabitant gave birth earlier than expected. Cyril’s only regret was the absence of debris which he could claim as a souvenir.
Cyril Barton
His dream of flying seemed to have been dashed when his late childhood was blighted by serious illness. Severe bouts of meningitis and peritonitis hospitalised him for months, interrupted his schooling and at times threatened his life. His parents were twice summoned to the hospital to see him for the last time.
Each time he recovered, he managed to catch up at school, and throughout his ordeal he remained typically selfless; a diary entry from his sickbed recorded his principal concern: ‘I don’t know what to get Dad for his birthday.’
His love of aviation never wavered. At the age of 14 he went to work at Parnall’s, a manufacturer of military and civil aircraft. They had recently taken over Nash & Thompson in Kingston, who designed gun turrets for RAF bombers, and it was here that Cyril started as an apprentice draughtsman, taking one day a week off to study at college for his National Certificate in Aeronautical Engineering. His early apprenticeship was as blighted by illness as his schooldays had been, but he managed to complete it, and when war broke out, though he might have claimed the protection of a reserved occupation, he knew his chance to fly had finally arrived.
The minute he reached enlistment age in 1941 he asked his father if he could volunteer for the RAF. The family had moved to the safety of the countryside, leaving Cyril lodging in Surrey with his Sunday school teacher, so parental permission had to be sought by letter.
Mr Barton couldn’t hide his reluctance to agree to Cyril’s request; he had survived the horror of the trenches in the Great War and was in no hurry to see his much-loved son follow in his footsteps. ‘Dear Cyril,’ he wrote,
After all these … forms, the phone calls and so on, I weighed up your position and feel that the matter should rest entirely with you. Naturally your mother and I are not too keen on your “joining up”, more especially as I know by experience what such a step entails, but in view of what you have said regarding your present state at Parnells [sic], I rather grudgingly give my consent …
I am writing as requested to both the Air Ministry and Parnells and in doing so I wish you every success and a happy ending to your enthusiasm. Stick to your principles and faith (this will be very hard in the RAF) and I am confident that you will win. We at home will be waiting and watching in all that the future may hold for you.
I’ll close now and may God bless you and help you in the days that lie ahead. That is my greatest wish and hope …
Goodbye and ‘happy landings’.
Dad
Unsurprisingly, Cynthia and Joyce’s parents worried constantly about Cyril’s frequent and serious ill health, and their concern made his homecoming even more precious. Most of those serving an operational tour with Bomber Command were given one week off in every six. Cynthia, Joyce and Pamela, then aged seven, would wait eagerly for him to return to New Malden – the family had grown bored with country life and moved back to Surrey by then – wondering what new skills he would pass on, what practical jokes he might pull and what words of wisdom he would impart.
Their house always reverberated with laughter during these visits, and even when he was away in the United States, completing his pilot training in Albany, Georgia, he wrote streams of letters, including one to his sisters in May 1942, enclosing photos of the young daughters of the family he was staying with, but promising, ‘I’m not going to stay and be their big brother … I’ll try and come home for Christmas!’
That February visit of 1944, the ground was still blanketed with snow. Without even changing out of his uniform, Cyril headed straight to the garden shed. He pulled out an old tea chest and attached some metal runners to it. His three sisters screeched with delight as he dragged them up and down the street on their makeshift sleigh.
But once the excitement had died down, Cynthia noticed a change in her brother’s usually gregarious nature. He still found time to teach Joyce how to conjure up a watercolour sunset by wetting the paper and then blending in the paints, but much of the time he was withdrawn and silent. Their mother told the girls that Cyril had ‘grown up’, but it concerned them to see him so distant and preoccupied. He had always possessed a serious side and a strong religious conviction, but the Cyril they knew best was a playful extrovert.
One morning, as he sat quietly on the sofa, staring into space, Cynthia was unable to contain herself for a minute longer. There had been talk of a girl he had met, and she felt a surge of jealousy that there was someone else on the scene who might share his leave. Was that bothering him?
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.
Cyril remained silent for a few seconds. Then he nodded. ‘As you’re a young lady now, I’ll tell you.’ He patted the empty space on the sofa beside him. When she sat down, he turned to face her. ‘You know I’m having to bomb people in Germany?’
Cynthia did know, even if she didn’t fully understand. Cyril and his crew had completed more than a dozen ops. Their parents rarely mentioned the dangers he faced, especially in front of the younger children, but as they heard the drone of engines overhead and stood in the garden counting the bombers in their droves, his mother couldn’t help saying plaintively: ‘Oh, I hope Cyril’s not in one of them.’
It was the same story in thousands of other homes across the country; the worry was never voiced, but it hung in the air like mist. Most evenings the Barton family gathered in the kitchen and switched on their Consul Marconi wireless. Sitting around the table, warmed by a Triplex oven, they listened to their favourite programmes, whilst their mother and father waited anxiously for the latest news bulletins from the front.
‘Well, I don’t like doing it,’ Cyril said, ‘because it means I have to bomb other people’s children.’
Cynthia had never known him speak so seriously to her.
‘I’m a Christian and I find it difficult to cope with bombing innocent people,’ he continued. ‘But I do it because of you three young girls. I don’t want Hitler to ruin your lives. He has some terrible plans for the human race. He has to be stopped. So that’s why I’m having to do it. For you, Joyce and Pamela.’
Cyril remained subdued for the remainder of his stay, but at least Cynthia now understood why. She was grateful that he had spoken to her so openly; she was only 13, but he was treating her like an adult. And the next time they went for a stroll, he took her arm. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘you don’t hold my hand any more. You’re a young lady now.’
Cynthia still remembers her feeling of pride as he escorted her down the shopping parade.
Then the day came that the whole family dreaded: the day of Cyril’s return to active