Christmas is a time when families get together - but years of war made things tough with enforced separation.
Wolverhampton soldier and his German war widow bride had to bear initial hostility
So imagine the joy of the Holloway family of Wolverhampton shortly before Christmas in 1945 when the three brothers were reunited after 12 years.
This photo from our archives shows James, William and Albert, the sons of Robert and Caroline Holloway, of 21B Martin Street, off Parkfield Road. They were together again for the first time since Christmas in 1933.
William - Bill - the eldest of the three at 32, had been in the Manchester Regiment for 13 years, of which 12 had been spent in Jamaica, Egypt, Cyprus, Palestine, and Singapore, where he was captured by the Japanese when the island fell in 1942.
Bill, a Private in the 1st Battalion of the regiment, spent three and a half years as a prisoner so, while he outwardly appears healthy in the picture, it hides the fact that he had gone through a nightmare experience.
James - known as Jim - who was 28, had been for three years in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, and had been abroad since August 1944, in France, Holland, Belgium and Germany, where after the war he met and fell in love with a German war widow with a baby daughter.
In 1947 he brought her back to Wolverhampton to marry, but with anti-German sentiment still strong, things were initially tough for the couple.
The youngest, 26-year-old Albert, who belonged to the Royal Army Service Corps, had put in four years' service. The brothers also had a sister, Lilian, and another brother, Harry.
While a picture may be worth a thousand words, in this case it only tells a little of the family's story. Thanks to Jim's son, Pete Holloway, we can fill in some fascinating details.
Jim had been in the Normandy campaign and immediately after the war was stationed in Spandau Barracks, Berlin. At a dance he met and fell in love with Elfriede Klassen, nee Brosig. Her husband Kurt, a corporal in the German Army, was killed in the Battle of the Bulge on New Year's Day in 1945, without ever getting to see their daughter, Brigitte, who was born on December 18, 1944.
Pete says: "Elfriede, Brigitte and her parents found themselves living in the Russian, East sector, of the divided Germany. Jim wanted to marry his girlfriend and take her and Brigitte to England. My mum's parents agreed as they felt that they would both have a better life in England than in East Germany under the control of the Russians. They were right!
"To that end, and with tremendous help of the Red Cross, mum and my stepsister managed to transit through war-torn Germany and arrived by boat in Harwich in early 1947 and the marriage took place that April.
"Mum and dad had a shaky start to their marriage as mum was homesick and there was still a lot of opposition to Germans, and they came across quite a bit of hostility.
"However, with time, mum became accepted into family and friends, and both were lifelong members of the Royal British Legion, Lanesfield branch, where they were very active and took part in poppy selling and attending parades, especially Remembrance Sunday. Dad was also a proud member of the Boulton Paul Male Voice Choir and we travelled the country, with the choir, in a charabanc to see them perform."
On Bill's return to Wolverhampton after his years in captivity he married his girlfriend Olive, and they had a daughter.
"He was always jolly, funny and a very personable person and I have fond memories of him. I saw him most Sundays as a lot of the family would all visit my Nan, who lived in Martin Street, Parkfields.
"We would normally end up then visiting the Martin Street Club, at the end of the road, where the ‘men’ would have a pint or two and catch up on gossip. As with my father, I don’t recall them talking about the war at all," said Pete.
As for Albert, Pete remembers that he owned a number of engineering businesses and always drove a Jaguar.
"He loved golf, women, Jaguars, scotch whisky and cigars. A bit of an Arthur Daley character."
Pete says his grandmother Caroline was well known as she only had one arm following an accident with a coal wagon as a child.
"She helped to lay out the dead in the community and would often be called out at all times of day and night to do this. She also 'read’ the tea leaves, which I found fascinating as a child. One of her sisters, Lillian Hodgkiss, lived at the Toll House in Woodsetton which was demolished and rebuilt at the Black Country Living Museum, where it stands today."
As a child Pete would spend his summer holidays in and around both East and West Berlin, and continues to visit Berlin regularly.
"Our whole family were on holiday at my grandparents' in East Berlin in August 1961 when the Berlin Wall started to get erected in the middle of the night of 13th.
"We were awoken by the neighbours with the news and had to quickly pack and get the train out. I was six at the time but remember the journey vividly, including the horrendous crossing from Hook of Holland to Harwich in a very, very bad storm."
The three brothers in that 1945 picture have of course now all passed on, Jim in 1972, Bill in 1987, and Albert in 1999. Elfriede, who was known to all as Friede, died in Wolverhampton in 2006.
