My aunt, Sally Rose, who has died aged 92, led what she described as “an ordinary life”. Yet like others who lived through the second world war as children, she had some extraordinary experiences.
At the age of nine, in the summer of 1940, Sally and her older sister, Kay – my mother – were looking out of the window of their home in Sidcup, Kent, when they saw the Battle of Britain being fought overhead.
The girls were back home after spending the first months of the war evacuated to Devon. While attending the village school, Sally – who always considered herself less clever than her sister – was praised by the teacher for answering her questions, as the local children sat silent, seething at this know-all incomer.
Sally was born in Croydon, Surrey, the daughter of Edna, who worked in a music shop, and George Vale, a civil servant. She was christened Joan, but family legend claims that her godmother, Auntie Doll, took one look at her and announced, “She’s not Joan, she’s Sally,” the name by which she was known for the rest of her life. It suited her happy, smiling and always positive character.
Sally left Sidcup county school for girls (now Chislehurst school for girls) in 1947 and started work in the offices of the London Electricity Board. On her first day, a grumpy, older man, John Rose, left her alone in a room with a pile of work, barely speaking to her. Five years later she married him. Until John’s death in 2017 they “never had a cross word”, as she would often, and accurately, recall.
They settled in the new town of Crawley, West Sussex, an easy rail commute to London, where Sally worked in the music department at Selfridges store on Oxford Street. When her co-worker Lily gave birth to a son, Declan, Sally lent her the money to buy a pram. Declan later became a musician, changing his name to Elvis Costello. John and Sally could not have children themselves, but when my (unmarried) mother became pregnant with me in 1959, they initially offered to adopt me, before fully supporting her decision to bring me up herself.
In the 1960s, Sally worked for the alpine plant specialist Will Ingwersen, and then in the 1970s retrained as a driving instructor.
On holiday in the Greek Islands one year, they visited a town John had helped to liberate during his wartime service with the Royal Navy. Sally asked directions to the war memorial, so that they could place a wreath in honour of his fallen comrades. When the townspeople realised why they had come, they were given a heroes’ welcome.
Sally is survived by me, her great-nephews David, James, Charlie and George, and great-niece, Daisy, and her great-great-nephew Sammy.
