Why did my beloved Dad, a lowly RAF groundcrew serviceman, keep a photo of Britain’s wartime leader relaxing in a dressing-gown on a mystery balcony in “a secret box” at our family home?
COPYRIGHT: This photograph is a print of an original held by my immediate family who hold the copyright for all the images in this blog post and any of my future articles on my Dad’s war
By HILARY GAVIN
AS ONE of Britain’s most skilful political orators, our Second World War Prime Minister Winston Churchill is famed for his many quips whether they be real or imaginary.
But this oft-paraphrased quote attributed to him resonates with me today as the daughter of a late RAF serviceman. “History will be kind to me,” Churchill is said to have boasted in 1948, “for I intend to write it”.
There’s little doubt that it was an odd remark for the out-of-power wartime leader to say when the then-Labour Government was busy laying the foundations of our NHS and social security safety net.
But you could argue that it reflected the inherent arrogance of the old ruling elite who had held sway when Great Britain ruled not only the waves but a third of the globe in the colonies.
By contrast, my late father Gordon MacDonald Gavin, was a seventh and youngest child of domestic servants to the aristocracy and, as such, they and their family often struggled to make ends meet in West Sussex.
My paternal grandfather, Angus Gavin, was either a truck driver or chauffeur on the West Dean estate in the South Downs and his wife Edith was a stay-at-home housewife and mother, so, as such, both haven’t featured in any history books.
Growing up in the Seventies, I myself – as a rebellious teenager – dismissed my father’s role in the Second World War, telling friends and family that he had served as RAF groundcrew abroad during the conflict building radio masts in North Africa, Kenya and Italy, so “he really didn’t do much at all”.
During the Cold War years, my late father – a shy and modest man – didn’t mention his Second World War exploits save a few tantalising stories which I’ll be happy to share with you as my blog progresses in the coming weeks.
Throughout his life, my father remembered his service number off by heart and he kept his Second World War medals, and ribbons, in the box sent to him after his demob in 1946.
As a family, we also knew he kept “a secret box” of wartime photos, including the miniature photo of Winston Churchill, in our family home and some wartime mementos at the house and garage but we never quizzed him about them.
It was only last spring – eight years after my father died in 2015 – that I requested his Second World War service record from the RAF and MoD.
And I was shocked to discover it had been redacted when it arrived via email a few months later. To date, his service record throws up more questions than answers as do his treasured wartime photos.
Over the past year military historians at RAF Duxford and the Bomber Command museum in Lincoln have told me they think they are intriguing.
One SAS researcher, whom I met at Bognor Regis’s Armed Forces Day commemorations last June, has been particularly helpful after I showed him one of my dad’s photos of four servicemen sat in the desert.
These soldiers did not have insignia on their uniforms and he thought he recognised one of them from his research of SAS missions in North Africa during their fledgling days in the Second World War.
Over the past two years, I have been captivated by the BBC series SAS: Rogue Heroes which chronicles their exploits in North Africa and Italy. And I’ve been introduced to the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) too.
I’ve still got plenty of research to do on my own father’s secret war but we now know that Winston Churchill’s son Randolph joined the SAS on a mission behind enemy lines in Libya in 1942.
(UPDATE: Sunday, September 21st, 2025: I should say here that my personal research, and those of experts I’ve spoken with, does not suggest that my late father was ever a member of our Special Forces. In fact there are photographs of broadcasting studios among my father’s photographs, and my late Dad always told us he built radio masts during his service aboard, so I have wondered whether he was supporting the SAS on some of its missions abroad in this capacity? As yet, I still don’t know, although I’m hoping researchers at the Royal British Legion can help me unveil the truth (please see a copy of the Facebook aand LinkedIn post I’ve just uploaded today below). I’m still investigating ways to imprint copyright watermarks on the prints of my late Dad’s Second World War photos which I find intriguing.)
As yet, I haven’t identified the man sat beside the wartime leader in my late father’s photo but could it possibly be Churchill Jnr?
Who knows, I’ve yet to find out for certain, but I – for one – reckon he bears a striking resemblance to Randolph Churchill. The burning question is: “Why didn’t I ask my late father who this man was when he was still alive?
By Hilary Gavin
Copyright text and photos, Hilary Gavin, March 4th, 2025
NB: FACEBOOK and LinkedIn copy below posted today, Saturday, September 21st, 2015
“HI FACEBOOK PEEPs, I’m reposting a WordPress blog that I wrote earlier in March this year because I should like to clarify that I DO NOT in any way believe my late Dad was ever a member of our British Special Forces. To date, I’ve been wary of posting the prints I have had made of my late father’s original Second World War photographs, because I still need to investigate ways to watermark them for copyright reasons, plus I’m not sure if our family hold the copyright for all my father’s photographs as a few are marked Crown Copyright on the back of the originals. I should say, though, that if there are any photographers out there who can advise me on copyright issues, please contact me either here or by DM.
I’d also clarify that there are a couple of photographs of radio broadcasting studios among my late Dad’s collection, and an intriguing one of a man dressed in a suit sat before a radio mic holding what appears to be a speech in his hands. To my mind, they appear to be connected to British Forces Broadcasting. I know my late Dad told me he’d served in a small unit of four servicemen in North Africa, Keyna and Italy building radio masts after missing a troop ship bound from Cairo to Malta that got torpedoed.
In the course of my research, I have emailed the SAS historian and writer Damien Lewis to quiz him about the role my late father might have played supporting the fledgling SAS and the Long Range Desert Group in North Africa in the Second World War, and he replied suggesting I research Col Dudley Clarke who was the cross-dressing wartime spy in the BBC drama SAS: Rogue Heroes.
I’m not sure if any of you have watched this series, which is based on British author, and The Times columnist, Ben Macintyre’s book, but those of you who have might be aware that the SAS founder David Stirling’s French/Algerian lover wasn’t a person in real-life. As yet, I’ve still got to do my own research as to who this character was based on – but she might be an amalgam of real-life members British Forces Broadcasting Unit shadowing the fledging SAS?
To be honest, I’ve not had enough time over the past two years to research my late Dad’s war in depth, but I’ve always known that he was called up just before the war as a 21-year-old and did his training in radio electronics with the RAF at Thorney Island before being shipped out to North Africa, presumably with his squadron.
Personally, I’ve had little contact with Second World War online research groups because I like to know who I’m speaking to – but I have spoken to RAF historians at Duxford in Cambridgeshire and Bomber Command outside Lincoln and I’m glad a researcher for the Royal British Legion is now helping me now too.
Saying that, I very much doubt that I’ll ever truly know what horrors my late saw and went through in the Second World War – but I feel duty-bound to honour him in my own little way.” Hilary Gavin
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