Wartime kindness from the US that touched a Portsmouth family’s hearts | Nostalgia

He was stationed in the area before the invasion of Normandy on D-Day, June 1944, and he told his son David stories about his time in Portsmouth.

After being attacked by German U-boats around the Isle of Wight on Christmas Eve, his father received liberty on Christmas Day, 1943.

While walking into town a girl he estimated to be about 10 or 11, invited him to her home for Christmas. Three families were living in the home, one of the few still standing, with five little children. Seeing how the war had taken the toll on them, he said his ‘heart went out to them’.

Dave, from Cincinnati, Ohio, says: ‘Dad's mother had already passed away, so he had a War Mother, a Mrs Payne. A war mother was a surrogate mother who gave the adopted son someone to remind him of home.

'She would write to him and send him cookies. When he got back to his ship he wrote to Mrs Payne about the Portsmouth family. Not long after he went to other locations in England and then to Normandy.

'When he arrived back from Normandy, he visited the family. He knocked on the door and when the lady opened it she gave him the biggest hug – he didn't know why!

‘She invited him in and he discovered his War Mother had sent five boxes of clothing and toys for the children. He stayed for dinner and when he left, he hid a £5 note under his dinner plate to help them the only way he knew how.

'My dad was a wonderful man and I always loved this story. I hope that, like this story lives with me, it still lives with another family in Portsmouth.’

There we are. Were you one of the children whose mother welcomed this sailor into the house? It’s a long time ago but there’s always a chance.

In the photograph we see David’s father in uniform but wearing a Royal Navy rating’s cap. In the second, John Malloy is with fellow crewmen. Their job was to keep beaches clear by repairing (underwater welding) ships or having them sunk.

• Looking like the long-legged space creature from The War of the Worlds, this is an underneath view of Langstone bridge, the only bridge on to Hayling Island.

As reported in The News, there is a plan to replace the old railway bridge, seen in the distance between the support piers. Instead of building a new bridge an answer might be to close the gap with sea defence boulders leaving a wide enough space for yachts then making a road over the boulders.