It was a huge journey for a romance that faded, but Dolph did find a new love while working as a booking clerk on the railways, and married his first wife Margaret.Ī number of different jobs followed, from horse breeder and farmer to home renovator and baker, and, sadly, Dolph lost first Margaret and then his second wife Jean.īut he never lost his spirit of adventure, and in 2009 on a trip to Malaysia, met and fell in love with Mary Anne. With the help of a whip-around by his workmates, within three weeks he was on a boat to Melbourne as a £10 Pom – Australia’s assisted migration program. So, it’s perhaps not extraordinary that in 1952, when his girlfriend of the time migrated to Australia, Dolph decided to follow her. It’s just one of a series of exploits in Dolph’s life, from his childhood years training monkeys and caring for animals in his dad’s pet business, to talking to the queen (incidentally born the same year as him) during her tour of the Ronson lighter factory he worked in after the war. Whether or not having survived that chicken is what gave Dolph the robust health to make it into his 90s he’s not sure, but it makes a good story. He says smuggling food in this way, with the parachute harness holding it in place, was common as troops often had no food or line of communication when dropped into hostile territory. He did a series of missions into Europe and the Middle East, and recalls sticking a whole roast chicken into his battle dress before making a drop into Palestine, and living on it for the next four days. He recalled his mother being able to hear the plane motors coming far in the distance before a raid.Īt the earliest opportunity, 17¼, having been turned down by the air force, Dolph signed up as an army paratrooper, which he was pleased still meant taking to the skies. “It was like anything else, it’s what you were used to and you did it because that was what everyone did …” “We grew up with the bombing, so it (the air raid shelter) didn’t really worry us,” Dolph said. Many Anderson shelters – steel or iron panels formed into a semi-circle and dug into families’ gardens – survived the worst of German bombing that destroyed homes and neighbourhoods, and are still intact today. “We had an Anderson shelter in the garden and it became like a second home,” Dolph said, explaining he and his siblings went there each day after school, and when the air raid sirens wailed. Wife Mary Anne said Dolph particularly missed his Monday social get-togethers through Nerang’s Liberty Community Connect, and was far less accepting of today’s restrictions than those he faced as a kid during the war. The current pandemic is caused by human to human transmission.DOLPH Baker remembers clearly long hours in the little air raid shelter at his home in London.ĭolph, now 93 and calling Helensvale home, said Covid-19 restrictions reminded him of those days of not being able to get out, be with friends and do as you wanted. This fear has been proved unfounded by scientific studies and international health organisations stress that pets cannot transmit COVID-19 to humans. Some pet owners may be unnecessarily worried that their pets could transmit the corona virus to them, so hand the animals over to shelters. While some pets might find themselves in shelters because their owners have died of COVID-19. Some people who have lost their jobs or had to reduce their working hours are feeling the financial pinch and may have been forced to relinquish their pets to a shelter. Animal shelters are always happy to be relieved of the pressure of more and more animals coming into their care, particularly in the current situation. There are thousands of animals in shelters, many there through no fault of their own looking for loving permanent homes. Adopting a pet (rather than buying one) is the best way to add a new family member. As many people are working from home now to combat the further spread of COVID-19, it is certainly true that this is a good time to adopt or foster.
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