Walter James JOSLIN 1904-1950
This was my father, he was born at Witham, Essex on 26th January 1904
and died in a motoring incident at Barrow-in-Furness, on 4th March 1950,
A very short 46 years but a very full and eventful life. 
    
My Fathers parents were Walter JOSLIN and Sarah Jane CORLEY
and they married at Witham independent Chapel on 24th October 1901
Their first daughter Ethel Harriet was born 17th October 1902,
Then Dad and on 6th July 1905,
Attie Emily was born completing their family.
Ethel remained a spinster and died in 1974,
Attie married Edward William Diaper in 1928 and they had two Sons:
John and Herbert and a Daughter Barbara,
Attie Emily died in 1952.
Photo below left is of the Walter and Sarah's young children (photo 1912)
 
Photo above right is of Walter and Sarah Jane JOSLIN in their latter years,
they both lived to see their son Walter James return safely from the second world war,
Sarah Jane died on 2nd December 1945 aged 82 years.
Walter died 4th August 1946 aged 81 years.
They are buried together in the Witham municipal cemetery (plot F32) and the inscription
on the gave stone is also to their two daughters and their only son Walter James.

The occupations of most of the Joslin’s in the Essex area at that time
was agriculture with many Ag Labs, Horsemen, Stockmen, Cowmen, Bailiffs,
and Farmers recorded in the Essex 1901 census.
Dad must have decided that although it was in his blood he was going
to do something different in his life, so in 1918 (age 14)
he and some other lads from the Witham area went to join the army
giving his age as 16 years old,
He was sent to Tidworth to join the cavalry in the 14th hussars and was then sent to
Germany as one of the post war army of occupation soon gaining two stripes.

Following his 10 years in the Hussars he retuned to civilian life as an AA patrolman
covering an area of Nottinghamshire where he met and courted my mother Dorothy
who had a hair dressing business in the town of Worksop.
Dorothy was the second daughter of Joseph Thomas BOND and Ethel HOLMES
and was born on the 5th August 1911 at Worksop,
Dorothy had a loving and caring family with three elder brothers;
Thomas Norman, Joseph and William                                                         
and Sisters; Ethel and Marjorie. (photo below left)                                                        
     
                                            Walter James Joslin and Dorothy Bond
                         were married in 1933 at the Congregational Church at Worksop (Photo above)

I was their first born of twin boys, my brother being Paul Michael JOSLIN
we were only to know our father for the first five years of our young lives and for five years
when he returned from a gruelling five years of fighting in Europe and North Africa.
With the out break of World War 2, Dad, being an Army reservist, was called up prior to the
declaration of war and was with the first British forces sent to France in 1939 with the rank of Sergeant
The history of the ground war in Europe and North Africa closely mirrors Dads next five years,
Dunkirk, El Alamein, Tunis, Sicily, Normandy, Holland, Belsen and Luneburg Heath.
Dad was an artist and cartoonist and he kept an account of his career by sending home hundreds of
letters and drawings depicting life in North Africa, Sicily, Holland and the last push to Berlin,
they were addressed to Pete or Micky or Dorothy and I have kept them all in a large album. 
Two documents that still bring tears to my eyes are:
A pencilled note to mum saying "he was now safe following three days standing in sea water
with no rations at Dunkirk and he had lost everything"
The other is a three page document on their finding on entering the Belsen concentration camp. 
Dad was ‘de-mobbed’ in late 1945 and came back to a very different home to the one he left in 1939,
he now had two quite grown up boys aged 11 and a loving wife who had managed to bring us up
single handed for almost six years.
Dad was soon offered promotion to inspector on the AA, this would mean a move up north to
Barrow-in-Furness, and then to Lancaster where the family would settle and his boys
would find their life time partners Margaret and Kathleen.

Walter James JOSLIN died 4th August 1950 following a mysterious road accident at Lindale
in the English Lake District while on duty as an AA Inspector aged 46 years;
Dorothy was to remain a widow and caring mother of Peter and Michael until her death at Lancaster
on 15th August 1996 aged 85 years. (that's another story)

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