Editor:
Like many people, I knew Margaret Quinn who died recently and left such a wonderful legacy. And like most people I didn’t know all of her accomplishments until I read your article (1 Feb 2012).
In 2001, along with several other notable Kings County residents, Margaret agreed to answer questions at a Heritage Fair in Cardigan. Her wit and humour stole the show even though my questions mainly concerned the dark days of the Second World War Blitz. Margaret grew up south of London in the ancient Village of Hever, home of Anne Boleyn.
“Where I lived was 60 miles from the coast (English Channel). Everything that went to London had to fly over our house, the fighters and bombers. We had 400 barrage balloons, huge balloons filled with gas. If the German bombers didn’t run into those then we had ack-ack guns. They always had a target for the night, there was a German station we used to listen to on the radio, Lord Ha Ha, and there was a German woman giving out all the information.”
The night they set fire to the docks in London, we were 29 miles from the docks, we could read a newspaper out on the road. And the Battle of Britain, we saw 39 planes shot down one day and we saw 18 pilots bailing out. Some landed but they used to fire at the parachutes so the parachutes would have holes and the pilots would just be crushed. We didn’t sleep but we sat in the cupboard under the pantry, under the staircase. That was the safest place. We sat there every night for three months, and then after that we slept with our heads under the kitchen table because the ack-ack guns would be firing and the shells would come through the roof. So we didn’t see a bed for many months.”
(The windows were all blown out her family’s house and one incendiary bomb landed so close their door mat was burned up. She also survived the German V1 and V2 rocket attacks although one landed on a nursery, the children of fathers fighting in the war and mothers working shifts at the local munitions factory. Twenty-nine children and 19 nurses were killed.)
During the war, at a dance, Margaret met a Canadian soldier named John Quinn from Kings County, PEI and they fell in love and married. There was no question about leaving England and moving to PEI.
“Home was calling him and we came back to the old family place. The cows had all the windows knocked out and the chimney was gone and he said, this is where you’re going to live and I thought Glory be to God! You could see the sky through the ceiling. But anyhow, I survived.”
Margaret did more than survive, she thrived, and left her friends and family such wonderful memories. Margaret struck me as what our early pioneering ancestors must have been like.
Thank-you Margaret Quinn.
Sincerely,
Dutch Thompson, Bunbury