Romantic wartime journey from Geffen to Milford on Sea

Clare Canning, who lived and was bought up in Milford on Sea has recently share a charming and extraordinary wartime love story about her Grandmother Oma and Grandad Maurice.

Clare explains: "My grandfather's family had been established in Milford on Sea for many generations at this point, my great-grandfather having built 16 of the houses in Carrington Lane for his many children, and further back, the family being connected to the lighthouse as keepers at Hurst Castle.

 Oma in the sea at Milford on Sea beach
c.1952

My Oma (Dutch for Granny) - Theodora Gloudemans - came to Milford in 1946, from the small village of Geffen in the Netherlands, which had been on the front line for much of the war, spending large amounts of time under German occupation. 

Grandad was a tank commander stationed in the fields surrounding Oma's village, and was once visited by a suspicious 17 year old Theodora, who was bringing eggs and cheese to the English soldiers to exchange for a pair of military winter boots for her father. The rest, as they say, is history.

After the end of the war, Grandad was sent back to England and to Milford on Sea, where he told his family all about his beautiful Dutch girl. Despite a significant language barrier, the then 18 year old Theodora made an enormous decision, and set off across a war-ravaged Netherlands, alone, by train to the Hoek van Holland. She took the ferry to Harwich, then the train to London, where Maurice, my grandad, met her.

They travelled to Milford on Sea and were exhausted when they finally arrived in Carrington Lane, settling in with Maurice's parents, though in strictly separate rooms. Oma's visa allowed her to stay in the UK for only 3 months, so she had just a few short weeks to decide if she would make the UK, the English language, Grandad and Carrington Lane her forever home. She chose to stay, and Theodora and Maurice married only 11 weeks after she arrived in the UK.

Oma, Maurice and son Bob (Clare's dad)
Outside 18 Carrington Lane

Theodora made the impossibly brave decision to leave her entire family and everything she had known to stay here, learning the language as fast as she could. She once told me that her mother-in-law used to write a shopping list for her to take into the village, where she had to hand it over to the shopkeeper, being unable to ask for what she needed. The shame was so much that she made a point to learn English fluently as fast as she possible could, and I imagine that the majority of people who knew her would never even have guessed she wasn't English.

She is one of the bravest teenagers I can imagine, living though appalling suffering, taking huge risks on a stranger and the kindness of his family, and made Milford on Sea her home for life, until she died in January 2009.

The Geffen family still visit the village every year, and we grew up - as her grandchildren - across two nations. Milford on Sea and Oma/Grandad/our entire family story are intertwined so closely, and I wanted to share this picture I love of Oma in her youth, standing on the shores of her new home."

Th comments on the Facebook post revealed warm memories of the family from long-time Milford on Sea residents.

Many remembered 'Oma', who was locally known as Dongie. This was an adaptation of her proper name Theodora which in Dutch is shorted to Doortje. Maurice is also fondly recalled.

The family lived originally at Spesbona, then 18 Carrington Lane, and finally at 24 Carrington Lane.

To read all of the comment on the Facebook post, please click here.

This story is also now being told in Geffen in books and across social media, and Antonella Lazzeri, a reporter from the Advertiser & Times, is in contact with Clare and will be publishing an article soon, so worth watching out for that as well.