Longtime Ago People
In a world where family connections shape us, stories bridge generations. Many of us carry cherished memories of those who touched our lives, which I think deserve to be shared.
Each episode I hope will feature guests recounting touching, funny, and inspiring memories, celebrating the impact these individuals had on their lives. I aim to beautifully remember loved ones, offering listeners nostalgia, warmth, and connection.
I am looking for people to reflect on the impact of these relationships.
Longtime Ago People
From German Soil to English Hearts: A Family's Cross-Border Journey
Douglas & Agnes Thurston - Ingrid 1956
parents/daughter
In this deeply affecting conversation, I speak with my Auntie Ingrid about her parents (my grandparents) —Douglas George Thurston and Agnes Franziska—whose improbable love story unfolded amid the devastation of post-war Germany. Douglas, a British soldier known affectionately as “Busty,” had survived the horrors of being a Japanese POW during the Fall of Singapore. He rarely spoke of it, once telling Ingrid simply: “There’s no glory in war.” Agnes, a German woman with a commanding presence and a generous heart, made sure no one ever left her home empty-handed.
Their story is stitched into the fabric of 20th-century history. They met in occupied Germany—Agnes reportedly chose Douglas because “he looks like he can get us food”—and built a life together in Britain, raising bilingual children who spent summers with German relatives despite the lingering post-war prejudice. Their household was a blend of cultures, resilience, and quiet defiance.
The most poignant moment comes in the telling of their deaths. Agnes died suddenly at 57, upon hearing that Douglas was critically ill after surgery. He followed her 15 months later. Ingrid’s grief is palpable: “I was angry for a long time that I was so young when she died… that my children didn’t see her.” Yet through her recollections, we glimpse the legacy they left behind—values of hard work, compassion, and quiet strength.
It’s a story that reminds me how love, even in the toughest of times, can forge something enduring. And how memory, when shared with tenderness, can illuminate lives that might otherwise fade into history’s margins. I came into the conversation with a few familiar threads, but I uncovered so much more--details, emotions, and stories about my grandparents that I'd never known. It deepened my understanding of who they were, far beyond the fragments I'd grown up with.
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Have a story echoing through time? I’m listening—300 words or fewer.
"In a world where you can be anything, be kind."
we're listening to miles. This is a long time ago, people and I'm in margate today.
Speaker 2:Yes, how long have you lived in margate? Margate, five years, but kent.
Speaker 1:We moved here in 1980, that's 46 years ago so this is my auntie, ingrid, and who are we going to talk about today? My mum and dad, your mum and dad. Right, tell me your dad's name Douglas George Thurston. Well, I never knew about the George, so that's good. So Douglas George Thurston is my grandfather and your mother's name.
Speaker 2:Agnes Franziska Thurston Nhi, moubawa Nhi, moubawa Nhi, schmitz. I think she might have been born a Schmitz because she was born without a father and she married my grandfather, august Kanner, right, so she was Agnes Kanner until she was about 18. Then she got married to Eric Neubauer, yeah, and then, when that ended at the end of the Second world war, she married my dad and became a thirst right.
Speaker 1:We're going to come on to that because there's lots of stuff in there I need to get into and understand what. What years were they born in? Do you know what?
Speaker 2:yeah, mum was. Dad was born on the 25th of july 1970, so he'd have been 108, and mum was right behind him on the 9th of September 1918.
Speaker 1:Let's start with your dad. First of all, what's your first memory of him that you come straight into your mind?
Speaker 2:Sitting when he used to come home and he was a big man and he had a great big tummy and him sitting on his tummy and him telling me stories and poems and always everything he said he was, he was just the most amazing person. I he was just an absolute hero and he'd tell us stories and you know, there's no reason why I didn't believe no when he told me he went to school and one of his schoolmates was called orson cart, I believed him.
Speaker 2:but before he went to school he used of his schoolmates was called Orson Cart. I believed him, but before he went to school he used to have to push a barrow to some market and sell stuff. You know, I believed him. When I think about it now it's probably a bit far-fetched with my dad.
Speaker 2:He didn't suffer a fall very easily. When I think about him, I think about him with one of those really tall chef's hat and totally in charge. On a sunday it shout up the stairs wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey. Because we had to have egg and bacon before we went to to church on a sunday and you weren't allowed to eat for four hours before you had communion. So he used to though he wasn't a catholic, you know honored our catholic beliefs okay, so same question about your mum, first memory of your mother mum snuggled up to her on a sofa next to a raging fire.
Speaker 2:I remember that and always I don't know, I think I irritated her a bit and always in trouble, always in trouble. And then, yeah, mum and dad, but particularly mum, yeah, give it to her, she'll shut up. But she was again a very formidable woman, very, very strong and, you know, never held back, knew what she wanted to say and said it.
Speaker 1:Nobody stopped her my memories I mean they died in the 70s. I've got more memories of your dad than I have your mum. I remember a time when I sat with him outside the the hotel my parents owned on the isle of wight. It was just me and him sitting on a bench. That's a really vivid memory in my head. He just sat there speaking to me. He had all the time in the world. Yes, yeah, he was.
Speaker 2:He was really. He was like that. He, mum, was very, very kind, very, very generous. If anybody came to our house they never left empty-handed, even if it was half a pound of butter, a chicken or anything, because dad was a chef, you know there was always plenty of food. So everybody came to us and the food was was dished out. And I remember, I remember lots of good times. You know there were tough times. Really, basically, I've got nothing to complain about.
Speaker 1:Let's go back and just talk about how they met. So just tell me a little bit about that.
Speaker 2:Well, my grandfather, so that would be your great-grandfather. His name was John Henry Thurston, and he was in the army. Your great-grandfather, his name was John Henry Thurston, and he was in the army and he, I think in the days, was possibly stationed in Germany, because my dad was brilliant with languages and he spoke German. And at the end of the war, Before he met your mother. Yes, yes, he just picked up languages. He was in Burma at the fall of Singapore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm going to come on to that and he picked up languages wherever he was. We had next-door neighbours that were Indian, I don't know if they were Sikhs or what. They were lovely people and Dad would go in and he'd chat to them. Invariably they'd send him home very drunk. So Dad was good with languages and he was at the end of the war, after he'd been to Burma and Singapore and all that, he was posted to Germany and he was in Lippstadt and he was leaning against a lamppost with a mate you know soldiers do and my mum came along with her friend and apparently my dad told me this. My mum says I'll have the fat one. He looks like he can get us some food and that that was the start of their relationship.
Speaker 2:The men would go off on exercises and they'd go off in their lorries and down the road would be my mum, her two sons from her first marriage, your dad and Irwin, and a few of her mates, and they'd get so far down the road you know, pull up the lorry and they'd all be in the back of the lorry and go and have a good time. So she was a good time, girl, mum, she said to me once when I was a youngster. She said you don't know what it's like to be young and start dancing. I was dancing on tables at your age at three o'clock in the morning. Had I done that, she'd have killed me. She'd have killed me. That's how they met.
Speaker 1:So that was in Germany.
Speaker 2:That was in Germany. And then I know my sister was born in 1948. They weren't married because I don't know if they couldn't get married because of fraternising with Was this in Germany?
Speaker 1:Yeah, in Lippstadt. Trixie was born in Lippstadt.
Speaker 2:My dad got married on the 9th of February 1948. Perhaps I think, I'm not sure. Yeah, my dad adopted Irwin and Rolf and I was I don't know about 12, 13, when I found out they weren't my dad's sons.
Speaker 1:Well, I was probably the same age when I found out they were.
Speaker 2:And if you ever said it to my dad, it made no odds.
Speaker 2:They were no different to him than his other children. He adored them. They were his sons. They weren't anybody else's sons, so they lived in Lippstadt. Dad was stationed in Hamburg because at the end of the war he decided to stay in the army. He was in the artillery during the war and at the end of the war he decided to stay in the army and they wanted to put him in a scottish regiment. And he turned around and said I'd rather be a cook than go into a scottish regiment. Oh, he was he. They, they put him in the catering corps and he was in. He was in hamburg, but by the time Evelyn was born in 1953, they'd posted him to Edinburgh, where Evelyn was born in 1953. And then in 1956, I was born, and I was born in October 1956. And then in January don't ask me why, I know the date, the 25th of January 1957, they moved to Hounslow.
Speaker 1:Yes, were you born in Edinburgh then?
Speaker 2:Yes, I mean, I don't remember Scotland.
Speaker 1:So they went from Germany to Edinburgh. That's quite a thing to do to take on a single mum with two kids German at that time and go to. Did they have any? Was there any resistance? I mean, how hard would it be for your mum to German at that time and go to. Did they have any? Was there any resistance? Was there? I mean, how hard would it be for your mum to leave Germany at that time?
Speaker 2:My mum was a vet. My mum was very, very resilient, I don't you know. She never complained about it, she just got on with it. I can remember there was still in the army. There's a lot of snobbery. There was still in the army.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of snobbery you know, and my mum was a starched white apron lady, you know, and hanging out her washing and they used to think that she was some sort of maid or something up the road. And then till they saw my father in his warrant officer outfit and life became different from mum when she moved to H hounslow.
Speaker 1:She said people were amused by the german scottish accents, though she never lost her german accent I remember a german accent so yeah, she met, she never lost that what to what we're in the early coming into the late 50s, early 60s now 57 we moved to hounslow and I don't.
Speaker 2:I don't remember much about those early years. I can remember your dad and uncle erwin, you know, because they they'd grown up, they both did national service in england because they were they were british by then yeah uncle erwin when he, when they came back to england, stayed with my grandparents and met this young bloke called Mike Justice at school or playing out or anything, and they became lifelong friends and Mike Justice's family were very kind to Irwin even though they'd lost a son in the war.
Speaker 1:That's what I mean. It must have been a difficult time in history to have a German wife. Maybe not? No, I don't.
Speaker 2:I don't think my dad or mum, you know they were the sort of people that you know it's other people's problems, not theirs. We did at school yeah, we did at school, being tremendously proud of our heritage. You know, I was always called some dreadful names. They wouldn't put up with it today.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:You know, you German bitch. You know, see, I had a German name, I spoke German, I had a mother that had a German accent. Actually it's Swedish, it is a German name, it's not an English name. You know, everybody else was called Susan and Mary and stuff like that. So, but no, just mum and dad. Mum and dad just got on with it and enjoyed life, and they did.
Speaker 1:They did enjoy a very good social life so your dad was still in the army in hounds though yes, yeah did he ever come out of the army?
Speaker 2:yes, he. I can't remember what year, I cannot remember. I think I was 65, maybe 65, 66. He came out of the army after 32 and a half years and it's up there the date where he got his British Empire medal. He was no, he was lovely, my dad.
Speaker 1:He had a nickname. Yes, what was his nickname? Busty. That's the one.
Speaker 2:And apparently it was. You know, even in Lippstadt there's a Buster.
Speaker 1:Buster.
Speaker 2:Buster. Here's Busty he was always. I don't know where it came from. I know it was in the early days in Germany, you know, because we've got that statue of Busty that he got presented with in the 50s in Germany, so I don't know where that came from, but that was his nickname till he died.
Speaker 1:So when you were kids, did you speak German and English.
Speaker 2:Yes, mum and Dad spoke German if they didn't want us to hear what they were saying.
Speaker 1:Brilliant.
Speaker 2:We always had this strong connection with Germany Mum's two sisters, aunty Mimi and Aun, and Auntie Taya who were twins.
Speaker 1:Yes, I remember they.
Speaker 2:You know, evelyn would go to Auntie Mimi, for the summer holidays, I'd go to Auntie Taya. None of them ever spoke English and we were always enthusiastic to speak German. So we'd speak it, and you know so, as the years went by and the older we got, they couldn't have private conversations because we knew what they were talking about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you could hear it. Yes, yeah, what I'd like to do just for a second is just go back in time Right and talk about because I just want to talk about your dad and the Second World War and you mentioned earlier on about Singapore and Burma and the Bridge Over the River Choir and all that sort of stuff what was his story there? What happened at that time?
Speaker 2:Well, I can go back as far as why he was in the army.
Speaker 1:Yeah, go ahead, do that.
Speaker 2:And he told me this himself. He was in some sort of reform school, right, because he'd been nicking the lead off of a baker's roof it was either a butcher or a baker's, don't matter, it was Nick in lead and apparently he got three years and he was, after 18 months, joined the army or finish off your time. So he went in the army. He would never, ever talk about it. All I know, all I remember, is that he was at the fall of Singapore and he I don't know much about it. I know he was in a battle somewhere. It was on the television series World at War and there was a battle somewhere I don't know if it was Burma or Singapore or where across tennis court in the world at war book it's mentioned, and there was a battle across tennis courts. I don't know if that was before or after he was captured, yeah, but he was captured by the japanese.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's what I was getting to and saw horrors that I don't know what he saw no but he saw horrors and he escaped. In the jungle jungle there was somebody he carried, somebody who was injured, and I know that at one point a lot of them were on a junk and it got torpedoed. But before it was torpedoed, the strong swimmers my dad managed to get off. Everybody else on the junk was torpedoed. He was in the jungle for six weeks when he ended up, but he ended up in freedom.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you know how long he was a prisoner for?
Speaker 2:No, no, I don't, because he never spoke about it.
Speaker 1:No, no, the only memory I've got of it is watching Bridge Over River Choir where William Holden escapes, and I remember dad getting very upset.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know yeah, saying well, this is, yeah, this is basically my dad's story saying that's the only time my dad ever mentioned it? Yeah, because he obviously didn't know that much about it either no, because he, he didn't talk about it and he, I mean he's got the burmese star, so he was over there somewhere. But all I know is that from that it was horrific for him and he got malaria and apparently he had it about 17 times one year.
Speaker 1:That's what happens, isn't it yeah?
Speaker 2:he, he got malaria, I don't, and he had it all his life. I don't ever remember, but I was only a child, you know, and if your dad lying in bed sick, you know, you don't realize it. In the 60s, when he was gonna retire out of the army, some lord, somebody came to visit, visit, and it was a big hoo-ha and and all this and this. This chap lived in a grace and favor flat in conway castle in wales and he sought my father out because he was the one I don't know if he's the one my dad carried, but he was one of the crowds that escaped and he wanted my dad to retire there in Wales and they'd write their memoirs because it's the sort of thing that a film would be made out of yeah definitely.
Speaker 2:And my father said and he always said it to us, there's no glory in war, and he wouldn't do it. So his story did die with him. Yeah, yeah, my grandmother, she got um, he got the telegram missing, presumed dead so how long was the period of time before he turned up?
Speaker 1:I've no idea.
Speaker 2:All I know is that one day she was out the front cleaning her windows and he turned up. I've no idea, you don't know. All I know is that one day she was out the front cleaning her windows and he turned up.
Speaker 1:He just turned up. He just turned up from nowhere, so she didn't find out.
Speaker 2:No, he just turned up. He just turned up on her door and she'd had the telegram. Yes, she'd had the telegram. Okay, and he, when he left the army, he still worked for the army and he worked in the officer's mess. He was the Duke of Kent's chef and you know, we were all very lucky with my dad because we ate very well, because you know, if the Duke of Kent was having it for lunch, we'd be having it for tea. Grew up, I thought everybody had smoked salmon in the fridge to put on a sandwich, because that's what life was for us, you know, and it was wonderful.
Speaker 1:So we got to the 1960s and he's coming out of the army. What did they do when he left the army?
Speaker 2:She was, you know, she was always busy to-ing and fro-ing Mum, always to-ed and froing. Mum always toed and froed from germany. They had fantastic holidays because, uh, auntie trixie worked at heathrow airport. A big holiday they had was 1968. They went to beirut I'm not, I wouldn't be surprised if my mother started that war, you know and they went to greece they went to america. They had. This is all with trixie's help yes, with trixie's help, and she had to and fro from germany as well, as much as she could.
Speaker 2:And she always said I will live in england because that's where you all are, but don't ever, ever, put me under english soil, which she wasn't I mean she, she got taken back to Germany.
Speaker 1:I didn't know that either.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, dad got ill. There was no such thing as a hospital, you know, in our local hospital, west Mid. Mum had been in, you know, and got neglected. I'm sure that's what killed her.
Speaker 1:He didn't die too long after, did he?
Speaker 2:He lived 15 months afterwards. She wasn't well. She had had a heart attack about nine weeks before she died. Nowadays, if you have a heart attack, you have a scan and a stent and everything. And all they said to her was lose weight, give up smoking and sent her home. When the hospital the local hospital had finished with Dad, they said there's nothing more we can do for him. I don't know who it was she got hold of in the army, she, um, she phoned them up and said I don't want charity, I want help. And the military took over my dad's care. So he went to millbank hospital, which I think was called the queen alexandra hospital, next to t Gallery, now part of the Tate Gallery. They looked after him till he died, absolutely fantastically and I can remember it's September going to see him on the Thursday night with my mum because it was a way into London from.
Speaker 2:Hounslow on the tube. It was easy enough. We went to see him because the next day, the friday, he was having kidney removed. They were they're going to take him one of his kidneys away. We went to see him and, as my mum as she was, you know we didn't go straight home. We went up piccadilly and had a couple of drinks and something to eat and then he had the operation on the friday. On the saturday morning uncle erwin took mum to see him and he was in intensive care and they looked after him and when they came out my mum said to Irwin tell me he's not dying. So my brother lied to her and said no, he's not. And she said I can't live without him. And she did die that night. I was all by myself with her and she, she, she, she had a heart attack and and died. I'd been out. It's a saturday night, came home and I said it's auntie rose in ramsgate's birthday. Auntie rose was a neighbor. You called everybody auntie and uncle in those days she was my mum's best friend, auntie rose.
Speaker 2:So we phoned her a half past 11 on the saturday night and sung a happy birthday and were laughing and and everything, and I went to bed and I was only in bed 10 minutes and she came in and she said help me, I can't breathe. And I dialed 999. Dad was still in hospital, in intensive care, you know, and she died.
Speaker 1:And he went on to live 15 more months, 15 months afterwards, the doctor said that they couldn't tell him.
Speaker 2:If they'd have told him then it would have killed him.
Speaker 2:So on the Sunday the only one they thought, well, the one that volunteered and said she, she could face him, was his sister, my auntie betty, and apparently he said to her you know, I can imagine agnes not getting up here, it's too far, but where's the baby? Because I was always called the baby and you know I thought she'd have been here and evelyn was flown, flown home from Germany and he had been dead. She'd been dead a few days and my dad in the 60s also worked at Milbank Hospital and there were people that still worked there that knew him and the doctor phoned my brother Erwin and said somebody's going to walk in and say to him we're really sorry about Agnes, because it went around the hospital like waffa, you need to come and tell him. Irwin went to tell him he was still in intensive care and my brother Irwin said he's never known anybody to have a cigarette in intensive care. But when he walked in dad was curtained off and he had this locker open and he had.
Speaker 2:you know it wasn't the first cigarette he'd had in intensive care because he was using the locker as a, as an ashtray, and he went. He went and told him and apparently he kept saying is the baby all? Right, is the baby all? Right so how old were you then? 17?
Speaker 1:so you were 17 and you were with your mom when she died.
Speaker 2:Yeah, two weeks off my 18th birthday, yeah.
Speaker 1:She died of a broken heart. You think, I think, yeah, as far as she had a broken heart.
Speaker 2:She couldn't live without it and I don't know how they used to fight, like cat and dog sometimes. Gosh, I can remember one Christmas I don't know what started the argument on Christmas Day, sitting in the garage in an old deck chair with an old army coat wrapped around him, hiding from they'd had a row on christmas day, but uh, yeah, they were. You know, they were my mum and dad as an adult.
Speaker 1:What do you think their biggest impact on you?
Speaker 2:my dad always said to us you can be whatever you want to be, but you work for it, it won't come to you.
Speaker 2:You work for it. You can be whatever you want to be, but you work for it. It won't come to you. You work for it. You can be whatever you want to be. My mother's impact on me, because everybody says I'm more like her, though I look like dad. I'm like her and I'm not blowing my own trumpet here. She was very, very kind. She would. Should have anybody if there. If there was somebody out there they needed a meal, should feed them. If they needed a bed, should give them. We had. I can't tell you the amount of people we'd have sleeping on our sofa when you think it would be.
Speaker 2:I wish I knew more really did you ever hear the story about ginger?
Speaker 1:no, tell me the story about ginger ginger was in the army.
Speaker 2:Okay, his name was tim, but we I didn't know that his name was Ginger because he had the reddest hair you'd ever seen. He's ringing a bell and he, I don't know. I think he had a mum. There was no dad or anything. He'd had a rotten upbringing. So he was in the army and he worked in Dad's kitchens. I know that and he was.
Speaker 2:They went to the Bruno Club which was all ranks in Calvary Crescent.
Speaker 2:He'd been in there and him and this other female soldier had got extremely, extremely drunk. And from the camp to the barracks you used to have to walk along Beaver's Lane, where we lived by our house. Luckily it never happened in our front garden, but a few doors down and this female was found in a very, very compromising position and things were said and he got thrown out the army and I don't know, I don't think she did, but he got chucked out and my dad said to my mum you know, we can't leave the boy on the streets. And mum said well, we haven't got any room, we've got a house full of girls, you know, and all this. What are we going to do? And dad said well, he can sleep in the shed. So Ginger moved in and when it was decided he was going to move in, my mum said to my dad well, if the army chucked him out, they've got to do something for him. And she just went over to the quartermasters and demanded a bed, a wardrobe and everything to do this shed out with.
Speaker 2:They gave it all to her. So Ginger moved into the shed and he was there and he eventually, with the help of mum and dad and sort of showing him on the rock, the straight and narrow, he got a job in the merchant navy and he went off to the merchant navy and while he was away mum died. But that's how he ended up with us with the shed and the bell going from our house into the sheds of my mum could press it so I could get up for work.
Speaker 1:Get up for work.
Speaker 2:But she was very, very kind. She was very kind.
Speaker 1:I suppose a bit of a tough question, but what would you say to them now? If you could have like five minutes with them, let's start with your mum. What would you say to her?
Speaker 2:I was angry for a long time that I was so young when she died. I was so young that my children didn't see her, and what I'd say to her is that you were a good mum. I loved you. She was hard work. At the end, yes. I bet she was. She was hard work. She's not much different from your dad. She was hard work at the end. But I'd just like to say to her here are my children.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's amazing that you never saw and saying what for your dad to my dad.
Speaker 2:I loved him. He was just. I've missed him every day of my life since both of them, but my dad, he was wonderful and, yeah, I wish you'd lived longer. That's what I'd say to them. If only I could have had them longer and I didn't.
Speaker 1:Again, because you were very young when they both died.
Speaker 2:I was very young, very young, but I have been blessed. I've been blessed with Carl though I don't say it very often my husband, who I met in Milbank Hospital, and, you know, my family, my children and my wonderful friends, but I wish they'd lived longer, yeah they were quite young, weren't they?
Speaker 1:How old were they when they died?
Speaker 2:Mum was 57. Mum's mum what was her name? Maria, I think Mum's mum died at 56.
Speaker 1:And mummy always said I will die at 56, like my mum, but she would only turned 57 12 days before she died. Yeah, never the same age, weren't they as well? Thank you very much for uh. It made me feel emotional now, but thank you very much for talking to me about your parents and um and sharing your memories. Thank you, okay. Another question for you. So what would your? I mean we're obviously here and sharing your memories, yes, thank you. Okay, another question for you. So what would your? I mean we're obviously here in 2025. What would your parents make of like mobile technology or the internet?
Speaker 2:My dad. I think he wouldn't have bothered. No, you know, he couldn't have cared less. My mother would have had a mobile phone glued to her ear, why? Because then none of us could escape from her and she'd be on it everywhere. She'd have friends everywhere, all over the world. She'd look up Facebook, everything that's incredible, isn't it?
Speaker 2:And, yeah, she would have loved it. She wouldn't have known what she was doing. She'd have been in all sorts of trouble. And also, had dope been so easy, accessible in those days, my mother would be stoned as well. The offer she'd have loved it, bye.
