Retired Australian social-worker, Kirk Warren, has travelled over 10,000 miles from Melbourne to spread his mother’s ashes in her home town of Ferryhill.
“My mother was Margaret Warren, nee Trotter, and she was born and bred in Dean Road,” said Kirk. “During the Second World War she joined the Women’s Army and served as a Sergeant in Egypt, driving a car for a Major.”
There she met and later married Dermot, an Australian of Irish descent whose family had returned to England during the depression and who was a Warrant Officer in the Black Watch.
“They were married in the bombed out Catholic church in Cairo by the bishop,” said Kirk.
On demob in 1948, they left for Australia aboard the SS Orontes, which was also carrying Don Bradman’s ‘Invincibles’, the Australian cricket team which toured the UK that year and remained unbeaten throughout.
The couple settled in Melbourne, in Victoria State where they started a family, bringing up three children: two boys and a girl, of whick Kirk is the eldest. “Dad was a carpenter,” said Kirk, “and they built their own house and, just like everyone after the war, they just got on with life.”
Margaret took to full-time life as a housewife while spending her spare time volunteering, helping out at the Catholic school where she ran the tuck shop and taught the children marching, which “they won every year,” declared Kirk. She also volunteered in later life at the local library, teaching English to migrant families.
Sadly for Margaret, she had been unable to bid farewell to her family before she set sail and it would be another twenty-five years before she was able to return home.
“She never lost her accent,” said Kirk, “and would always lapse into language I could never understand. “She managed to get back about four times over the years, but she lived a life of no regrets,” he added, “and I’m pleased to have been able to do this for her.”
Ferryhill & Chilton's local community newspaper.
