NATIONAL LIFE STORIES AN ORAL HISTORY OF BRITISH SCIENCE Frank Raynor Interviewed by Dr Thomas Lean C1379/76 IMPORTANT Every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of this transcript, however no transcript is an exact translation of the spoken word, and this document is intended to be a guide to the original recording, not replace it. Should you find any errors please inform the Oral History curators. Oral History The British Library 96 Euston Road London NW1 2DB 020 7412 7404 [email protected] The British Library National Life Stories Interview Summary Sheet Title Page Ref no: C1379/76 Collection title: An Oral History of British Science Interviewee’s Raynor Title: surname: Interviewee’s Frank Sex: Male forename: Occupation: Technician Date and place of April 1922, Grimsby birth: Mother’s occupation: Father’s occupation: Dates of recording, Compact flash cards used, tracks (from – to): 14 May 2012, 29 May 2012, 30 May 2012, 31 July 2012, 2 August 2012, 28 August 2012 Location of interview: Interviewee’s home Name of interviewer: Thomas Lean Type of recorder: Marantz PMD661 on secure digital Recording format : WAV 24 bit 48 kHz Total no. of tracks 18 Mono or stereo: Stereo Total Duration: 13 hr. 37 min. 32 sec. Additional material: Photographs Copyright/Clearance: © British Library Interviewer’s comments: 3 Frank Raynor Page 4 C1379/76 Track 1 Track 1 I was wondering if we could start today, Frank, with me asking you to introduce yourself? Right, well, my name – full name, Frank Alan Raynor, born 20th of April 1922. Still surviving in 2012 on the 14th of May [both laugh] having done numerous things in the meantime. And having enjoyed over sixty-four years of happy married life, life has obviously changed markedly for me in the last few months, but it’s one of the things that’s inevitable if one survives. Where were you actually born? I was born in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, at 329 Wellington Street, a property, which my mother acquired from her parents and lived there until she died. Oh sorry, she didn’t live there continuously but she owned the property and retired there. Hmm. What was your mother’s name? Ethel May Raynor, maiden name Pratt, P-R-A-T-T. She … gave birth to me at a fairly early age of eighteen in those days, and married my father in – I think it was 1921, I’m not sure exactly, I’d have to look. They – marriage survived until approximately 1925, I don’t have any documentation on that. And they then divorced, which was rather unusual in those days. Hmm. It raised a lot of column inches in the local press, which my father kept for many years and handed to me when I was a teenager, but I didn’t keep it [laughs]. Why did it raise column inches? 4 Frank Raynor Page 5 C1379/76 Track 1 Well my mother – my father was granted the divorce on the ground of my mother’s adultery you see. And in those days where hypocrisy was fairly rampant [laughs] it was considered a disgrace. And of course the local press would – the Grimsby Evening Telegraph I presume would have loved that sort of thing. Hmm. However it was all over my head, I was much too young to understand what was going on. I don’t have any recollection of living with them in those first three years. My recollections start when I was living with my grandparents. So I was obviously over the age of three. My father remarried again in 1927, the end of 1927 I think. I have the certificates for these things in the drawers, which I can show you if they’re of any interest. And my mother subsequently remarried in 1936. Again, I have the marriage and death certificates there available. And my mother married a man a number of years younger than herself. ‘Cause in 1936 she would have been thirty- three years old and she married a man that was then … six or seven years younger than herself I think. I’m not sure exactly but I do have the certificates, I can check that for you. What do you remember of – of the – the divorce, if anything? Nothing. It was going on when I was three years old, I’ve no knowledge of it whatsoever. All I remember is my earliest years were with my grandparents who lived in Grimsby at that time. So I can’t fill you at nay more detail on that one I’m afraid. I’ve no recollections of it. Was anything said to you when you were growing up about it? Oh yes, well I didn’t realise in the early years, it was only when I was about twelve or thirteen, my father produced a biscuit tin with a whole load of papers, cuttings and what have you, to try and persuade me what a dreadful person my mother was. He always carried a – a chip on his shoulder about that I think for the rest of his life. 5 Frank Raynor Page 6 C1379/76 Track 1 Shame, but it’s the way it was. In today’s world nothing would have been thought of it you see [laughs]. Hmm. My mother in fact married a school teacher at that time, a lovely fellow. That marriage endured for the rest of their lives. I was wondering – But I don’t know where to go from there on, do you want to pause a moment? [05:45] I was wondering if you could describe your mother to me? Yes, my knowledge of her really was only as a youth. I had no contact with her for a number of years, although there was a family incident apparently when I was three years old, when I had diphtheria, and in those days you were taken into an isolation hospital. Apparently when I was due to be released my mother, posing as my father’s sister, collected me [laughs]. And when Father went to collect me they obviously said, ‘Your sister’s collected him.’ He realised what was going on, and he immediately dashed back to their home, 329 Wellington Street and I was there of course. But Father recovered me rather roughly and as a result got himself into trouble with the law with it [laughs]. But that’s another story from childhood days. My meeting with my mother came about through another one of my friends. When I was about fifteen or sixteen, I can’t remember the exact date, this friend of mine had met a girl who turned out to be the daughter of my mother’s best friend [laughs]. And I was asked to attend some mysterious meeting they were setting up at this particular house. Someone wanted to see me, I wasn’t told who. And Joe, my friend, said would I go to this address in Corporation Road? But they wouldn’t tell me the name. So in my lunch break I nipped across to the local library, asked for the street directory, checked up who was living at that particular address [laughs] and put in my 6 Frank Raynor Page 7 C1379/76 Track 1 appearance on the Saturday afternoon. And when the door opened I said, ‘Good afternoon Mrs Kiff,' and she said, ‘How did you know my name?’ Etc. Anyway, I was admitted and my mother was there. And she’d made the effort to contact me you see. Well of course the first thing that came up, ‘Whatever you do, don’t let Father know.’ [Laughs] So that’s how I came to be reassociated with her. Though I do recall another incident with her earlier when I was about eight or nine, playing in the village when this motorcar stopped and this lady got out of the car and asked me if I was Frank Raynor, and chatted for a few minutes. That was clearly my mother but I didn’t think much about it at the time. And I was too afraid to tell my parents. Anyway, from the initial contact I then kept regularly in touch with her. I was in touch then until she died in 1976 aged seventy-three. In the early years my father wasn’t aware of this of course, but once I was away from home at age eighteen it didn’t matter anyway. So – but my mother was – obviously had something about her because if you think back in the days when young girls left school, most of them went into either factories or domestic service, she went straight into a shipping office. And another incident linked with that later during the war, her husband, who I haven’t mentioned yet, went into the RAF in 1940 and did pilot training, was sent to Canada on further training, he was retained there as a staff pilot. In the meantime she managed to go from Grimsby to Canada in 1942. It must have been illegal. I asked her on one occasion later in life how she did it, and she just said, ‘Ah, that will be a story for another day.’ And I never did know how she got there, but she got to Canada and she wrote to me from Canada. I also have pictures with her and Stanley, her husband, by Niagara Falls because they were living at – living at Hamilton. He was on the air base there, 33 Air Navigation School. I have details of that, which I can point out to you later if you wish, photographs, that type of thing.