The life of my grandmother, Patricia Cross, who has died aged 93, was profoundly affected by the second world war and the subsequent provision of healthcare, housing and education, from which her family was to benefit. While she left school at 14, for example, two of her grandchildren went on to obtain doctorates.
Born in Egham, Surrey, to Henry Johnson, a stoker, and Rose (nee Hutchins), a cleaner, Patricia left her local school to work as a domestic servant, a position that her mother had secured for her. But this did not last for long and she found herself a job as a machinist in a clothing factory, which gave her a trade that would prove useful after the war.
When the war broke out she joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force and was stationed with ground crew at bases in eastern England. There was a brief engagement to a pilot, who was shot down, before Pat met Leslie Cross, an electrician. They married in 1944 while both were still in the air force.
When Pat became pregnant, she was discharged, and she gave birth to her daughter, Julie, in June 1945. Now with a baby, she was able to secure a house from the local authority in time for her husband’s demobilisation.
The couple then spent several years as market traders – selling clothes, many made by Pat, and sweets, the goods transported in a van that was also used for family holidays in Dorset. When Leslie’s lungs, weakened by the pneumonia he had contracted during the war, laid him up for a year, Pat learned to drive the van to keep the business going.
By the mid-1960s, Pat and Leslie had a grocery, living above the shop, but as supermarkets became more dominant in the 70s they moved to Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, and rented out houses to the construction workers who were building Milton Keynes.
On retiring to Christchurch, Dorset, they rented out the annexe of their bungalow until Leslie’s lung problems worsened and he died. A small pension from the air force, in recognition of his poor medical treatment during the war, made Pat, in 1999, a “war widow”.
She continued to walk down to Mudeford beach, close to her home, and was devoted to her beautiful garden: runner beans and sweet peas, demanding tomato plants and colourful ranks of bedding plants that had to be carefully planted out each year.
Pat is survived by Julie, her son, George, four grandchildren, Martin, Philip, Sarah and me, and eight great-grandchildren.
