A story of War and Reconciliation

The Bride’s Trunk: A story of War and Reconciliation, Ingrid Dixon, Cloudshill Press, 2016, 219p, £7-99 [or £4-97 Kindle]. ISBN 978-9935080-2-8

A cornerstone of historical research is the identification of primary sources. Instinctively, most of the time, we think in terms of documentary sources, stretching back into past centuries. Every so often a book appears which reminds us that written modern-day memories instantaneously become primary sources for family historians and for those who explore the minutiae of modern times.

Ingrid Dixon’s The Bride’s Trunk is one such book. She records faithfully and carefully the experience of her German mother who fell in love with a British soldier during the early occupation of post-war Germany and who made the rapid decision one day to accept her father’s invitation to travel, with the appropriate official papers, across war-torn Europe to his home in Liverpool, thereby beginning her life as a married woman in an unfamiliar land. The bride’s trunk’ of the title refers to the hastily filled container which her family prepared for this very brave journey into the unknown.

Anyone wanting to find out about the experience of couples undertaking such complicated relationships will find this a compelling story but, as indicated above, it is more than a story: it is an introduction to how some people led their lives, and prospered, in the shadow of post-war reconstruction.