BORN IN BMH MOASCAR
As Remembered By Lynn Copping (nee: Wilson)
I don’t remember anything about my time in Egypt as I was born in BMH Moascar in February 1950, and my younger brother was born there in August 1951.
My father, Richard George Wilson, was in the Glider Pilot Regiment in Arnhem, India and Palestine. He transferred to the Royal Armoured Corps in August 1947 and was posted to Egypt in 1948. Having found out that the MPSC men were able to get married quarters, he transferred to that in August 1948 and my mother and older brother traveled out on the Empress of Australia to join him in May 1949. He did not like being in the MPSC so transferred yet again, this time to the RASC Water Transport, based at Fanara Wharf, in January 1950 and stayed with them (becoming RCT Water Transport) until January 1953.
According to my older brother we first lived in a house with a tent roof somewhere, we lived in Port Said in a little bungalow on top of a block of flats and also a ground floor flat in Port Fouad. At one point we shared a house with another couple, Tony and Ellen Cripps (MPSC) due to a shortage of houses. They became my Godparents.
My mother had 24 hours notice to leave Egypt with two young children and a nine week old baby in November 1951, on board the Charlton Star, which sailed to Southampton.
Incidentally, my father had been an RAF child in Egypt in the early 1930s in Heliopolis, and his grandfather had been in the Grenadier Guards at the Battle of El Kabir in 1882.
I was a schoolgirl in Singapore in the 50’s and 60’s . We have a very good ex Far East brits brats group on Facebook and, as a few of us were children in Egypt, I decided to start a Facebook group (Suez Canal Britbrats) just for us. We have 38 members at present, ranging from those there as babies to a lady who was a teenager there. If you are interested in joining then please visit: www.facebook.com/groups/127111964676745
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My father, his brother & sister - Heliopolis 1930 |
My father at school - Heliopolis 1936 |
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My mother, outside our tented roofed house |
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My mother (Rita Wilson), Moascar, December 1949 |
My father (far right) MPSC, Moascar December 1949,
before transferring to R.A.S.C.
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