Gathering Moss

By Sally Douglas

An atmospheric, mainly biographical story set in the 1930s-1950s, of a British Naval Officer's determination to foil the enemy's wartime dive bombing of our fleet. Hundreds of lives were saved by his suggested adaptation of the big, anti-aircraft barrage balloons which were flown above cities and other land based targets, to be specially tailored for the defence of shipping as well.
Combined with this moving story is a colourful account of family life at that time, and it was not very long after the ending of the Second World War that Commander "Basher" Boorman began to find himself involved in certain minor skirmishes on his own home front.
Commander's daughters do not always obey orders, even if their father has the appropriate rank, and this teenager certainly had a mind of her own. Determined to pursue a career not approved by her father, Basher's daughter found herself to be out-manoeuvred. But battles sometimes resolve themselves in unexpected ways, as was eventually the way with this particular one.
'Gathering Moss' is a fast moving, evocative story which covers a variety of events, backgrounds, and human emotions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Aug 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781528970082

Sally Douglas

Sally Douglas is a biblical scholar, theologian, author, and Uniting Church Minister whose work disrupts neat categories. Through attending to biblical and early church texts, Sally investigates the question ‘so what might this mean for us?’. She publishes regularly and is a Research Associate and Associate Lecturer at Pilgrim Theological College, within the University of Divinity, Melbourne. Her books include Early Church Understandings of Jesus as the Female Divine: The Scandal of the Scandal of Particularity (Bloomsbury T&T Clark 2016) and The Church Triumphant as Salt: Becoming the Community Jesus Speaks About (Coventry, 2021). 

Book preview

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About the Author

Sally Douglas, now retired and living in Cornwall, has led an adventurous life in many and varied parts of England, as well as abroad. The daughter of a Naval Commander to whom she was very close, Sally has woven this mainly biographical, fast moving story set in the turbulent 1930s–1950s period of both their lives. Sometimes truth really can be stranger than fiction.

Copyright Information ©

Sally Douglas (2020)

The right of Sally Douglas to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781528939751 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781528939768 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781528970082 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published (2020)

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd

25 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5LQ

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Peter, my other half, who has done so much to help me with the production of this book.

Grateful thanks also to friends, Andy and Martin, for their frequent visits to the aid of a technologically challenged ‘me’.

Introduction

All wars produce heroes, and I am proud to say that in the last World War my late father, Commander J.H. Boorman, was certainly one of these.

An article in the London Evening News dated May 7, 1945 proclaimed him to be a British naval officer who should go down in history as the man who beat the dive bombers.

The cutting from this old newspaper was buried in an ancient bureau which had belonged to my late mother and was discovered only recently. It was an exciting find, and as his daughter and only surviving close relation, I felt compelled to record and share part of the life story of my brave and adventurous father whose ambition it was to have written the book himself but whose early death sadly precluded this from happening. He had, in fact, even chosen the proposed title, ‘Gathering Moss’, which was derived from the old saying, A rolling stone gathers no moss. This, in his retirement, could not have been more apt.

In order to present the rounded picture for which my father wished, I have woven into the story various family events and incidents which I think he would have wanted to include, and which best illustrate The man behind the marmalade (naval slang for the gold braid which adorned the officer’s caps and uniforms.)

I hope to have done justice to my much-loved father’s memory, his service in two World Wars and to the story of the latter part of his colourful life.

My Father, Commander J.H. Boorman

Chapter 1

As the daughter of a dashing naval officer, who was always on the move, a peripatetic childhood soon became an accepted way of life.

During the 1930s, the very early days of my infancy, our family home was based in Hull, Yorkshire, where my father, a Captain in the Merchant Navy, sailed away on a ship called the Lahneck to the Arctic. There, he was engaged in the investigation and protection of British Fishing Rights for the vast quantities of halibut which had been discovered in that area. Meanwhile, my beautiful, artistic mother, Midge, who had been born and brought up in the gentler climes of South Devon, struggled to adapt to a totally different way of life as well as the bracing atmosphere of Yorkshire’s East Coast. She originally met ‘Basher’, as my father was known because of his early prowess at boxing, in the altogether more glamorous atmosphere of Malta where she had a job looking after the children of one of his fellow naval officers; life in a small cottage near the docks in Hull cannot have been easy. My birth apparently had been a difficult one with various complications, and struggling to regain her health and strength in an alien part of the country far away from her own family and friends must have been an uphill struggle, especially as my father was so often away on long voyages.

Unfortunately, there are very few records of this stage of my parents’ life other than a few snapshots of the house where we lived, of me as a toddler cuddling our dog in the garden, several photographs of icebergs, vast quantities of fish and some of Basher’s jolly times aboard the Lahneck. There, my father had the company of various marine surveyors and other members of the observation crew. A very sociable and humorous man, as well as the possessor of enormous energy and drive, my father had the fortunate gift of being able to make the best of most situations. The only personal thing I can recall of those early days is the excitement when Basher came home and the tears when he sailed away again.

This stage of life did not last long and we were soon on the move to other destinations. Although exciting in many ways and certainly never dull, the downside of continual removals meant the loss of innumerable friends to my parents, and frequent introductions to new schools for me.

For a while, the latter part of this problem was solved when my mother’s Auntie Gwen, who was at that time acting as governess to the offspring of various well-heeled members of the English aristocracy, offered to have me stay with her for a while. Furthermore, she arranged for me to join in with the lessons which she was currently giving to those privileged children. I was in clover. Utterly spoilt by Auntie Gwen and Uncle William, who had no children of their own, and loving life on the Norfolk farm which my uncle managed, I was perfectly happy; a dangerous state of mind, as I was soon to discover. By the time I reached the age of about seven, my parents began to worry that dear Auntie Gwen was not only becoming very senior, but had also started to hit the bottle in a big way. How they discovered this piece of information, I never found out. Certainly, it did not come from me, although I had begun to wonder why the ‘medicine’ which Auntie produced from a cupboard at frequent intervals seemed to make her weave around the room in a very peculiar way. Sadly, her addiction soon became really serious, the teaching engagements gradually dwindled to nothing, and eventually, she and Uncle William left Norfolk and disappeared, taking me with them, to an old and dilapidated farmhouse in a remote part of Wales where I attended the local village school.

Very soon after this move, my parents discovered the real seriousness of the situation, and one day Midge arrived to take me home. It was a very distressing time for all of us. The ‘goodbyes’ were agonising, and it took me a long time to accept the inevitable and return to a more disciplined way of life. I missed my dear relations. I missed their trio of Kerry Blue dogs and I missed the cosy school lessons around the kitchen table. Certainly, Auntie gave me a very good grounding in all basic education and instilled in me a love of books and reading which I have appreciated all my life.

As