daughters of d-day:

05 March 2008

WOMAN'S PLEA TO FIND DAD LOST DURING THE WAR

By Andy Smart  

09:00 - 05 March 2008

Glenis Burton never knew her father. A soldier from North America, he came briefly into her mother's life in 1943... and just as quickly disappeared.

She has no idea if he survived the war to return to his homeland or if he was killed on some battlefield in Normandy, the Ardennes or Holland.

Although her mother, Elsie Florence Swift, married a Yorkshireman after the war, Mrs Burton was raised mainly by her grandparents, Harold and Beatrice Swift, so she rarely talked to her mother about the man who left her behind.

"What little I know I got from my grandfather - and only when I asked him. My mother never spoke of him," said Mrs Burton, who lives in Mapperley.

For more than 60 years, the loss of her real father has been a hole in her life; now she wants to try to fill in the gap.

"I have no idea whether he is alive or dead, but I would like to find out what happened to him, just for some sort of closure."

With the help of her daughter, who is just as anxious to discover her roots, Mrs Burton has turned to GITrace, a website set up to help people find their American GI fathers/families.

However, she adds: "I am not even sure if he was American or Canadian."

Mrs Burton is telling her story in the hope that people who knew her mother, and who may have information about the mysterious soldier, will come forward.

Her grandmother came from Newton Street, Nottingham, an area north of Parliament Street which was demolished to make way for the Victoria Station.

Her grandmother, Beatrice Adelaide Mathews, a lace worker, married Harold Swift, of Sneinton, a Sherwood Forester in the First World War and later a worker at Chilwell Ordnance factory.

They raised Mrs Burton's mother, Elsie, at 1 Wainwright Street, St Ann's and she also worked as a lace cutter before joining the ATS in the Second World War.

She served for three years, her last posting being in Glen Parva, Leicestershire.

It is there, believes Mrs Burton, she met the mystery soldier.

In 1944, Glenis Swift was born with no father to call her own. She went on to attend Bluebell Hill School and then the Morley School.

In 1947, her mother - then working as a domestic - married her Yorkshire soldier, but Glenis retained her maiden name.

"My stepfather wouldn't let me change it to his," she said.

"I would like to hear from anyone who may know me or my family, especially my mother.

"I am particularly interested in the time she was in the ATS and during the Second World War.

"I would love to hear from lost relatives of the Mathews and the Swifts, and information on the Americans in Notts, including Canadian forces."

Mrs Burton says she has had to bear the pain of never knowing her father for all her life.

"You never feel part of anything, of any group," she said. "My name was different in the family, people would always ask why and it always left me feeling I had to justify myself.

"A lot of GI children are like me. We all feel rootless. A child needs a father and a mother, that is a child's right, and I never had that.

"What would I say to him if we ever met? I don't know... but I would just like to find out who he was."

If you would like more information, visit the website www.gitrace.org

If you have any information which would help Glenis Burton trace her father, or lost relatives she never knew, contact Andy Smart at Bygones, Evening Post, Castle Wharf House, Nottingham NG1 7EU, telephone 0115 948 2000 or e-mail andy.smart@nottinghameveningpost.co.uk