As a child, Hollywood actor Toby Jones noticed mysterious scars on his grandfather’s face, a permanent mark of the horrors of war.
But his grandparents never spoke about the devastating impact of the Second World War on their lives. Toby regrets never asking them about it.
Now 56, he says: “I knew they did some extraordinary things during the war but we never spoke about this momentous time in their lives.”
Delving into the war stories of his maternal grandparents Reggie and Doreen Heslewood for a Channel 4 documentary, the Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy actor is astonished to discover a moving love story and tales of remarkable courage.
Doreen, a professional actress affectionately known as Dorki, volunteered for the Entertainments National Service Association and risked her life travelling into war zones to lift the morale of British troops.
She was separated from her beloved Reggie for three years as he fought the Japanese in the jungles of Burma and India.
Reggie, who served in the Royal Artillery from the age of 21, came home from Asia a changed and troubled man, with bullet wounds to his face and PTSD.
Despite what Reggie and Doreen suffered, they wrote love letters every week and remained deeply in love until Reggie passed away in 1990. Dorki died in 2011.
Before the war, Reggie worked for a brewery company. They were introduced by Dorki’s cousin and fell in love at the outbreak of the war, marrying when they were both 21 in June 1940.
Toby, who played Captain Mainwaring in the 2016 film Dad’s Army, recalls spending holidays with them in Little Haven, Pembrokeshire.
He says: “My grandmother always loved that I’d followed in her footsteps. I was very close to them both.
“We always played cards together, they were great fun and had a terrific sense of humour.”
Of his granded, he adds: “Being a brewer does not prepare you for jungle warfare. I always noticed a mark at the back of his neck and by his mouth.”
Toby’s mother Jennifer recalls of Reggie: “He was patient and kind but when he returned he was troubled and broken. I was scared of him.
“If I told the slightest little lie, I’d have to stand against the wall in the garage and he’d shine the car lights on me and say ‘Now tell the truth’. We realise now he had PTSD.”
Reggie joined the Royal Artillery as a gunner, quickly becoming an officer, leading 30 men into battle.
After travelling from Eastbourne to Sri Lanka and then India, he faced one of the bloodiest encounters of the Second World War, a brutal fight against the Japanese army.
He endured horrific conditions – indescribable filth, lack of water, terrible terrain, monsoons, malaria, typhus and dysentery.
“What my grandfather would experience scarred him for the rest of his life,” says Toby.
An old court record solves the family mystery about Reggie’s bullet wounds.
A statement by Reggie says: “On 20 February, 1943, at 01.15hours I returned from a reconnaissance and stopped my motorcycle.
“A sentry came up to me and stood with his rifle in front of my face and said nothing. He pulled the trigger and a round of blanks was discharged within a foot of my face, injuring my mouth.”
In March 1944, Reggie was a crucial part of the logistics team that helped ensure the defeat of thousands of Japanese soldiers by the Indian Army.
Soldiers were sent home mentally damaged, with orders never to speak of their experiences. Toby says: “Well There’s certainly no beginning and end to suffering. Did the ends justify the means?
“That’s what he had to debate the rest of his life.”
It was Reggie’s love for his wife that kept him going.
Dorki herself had been through a traumatic wartime experience.
Having successfully auditioned at Covent Garden’s Theatre Royal to become one of ENSA’s performers, alongside the likes of Gracie Fields, Laurence Olivier and Noel Coward, Dorki performed in plays to raise the spirits of British soldiers.
But while on a month-long stint performing in towns across France in May 1940, the Nazis invaded. The actors were forced to make a desperate retreat.
They fled, covering a journey of 150 miles by night, and Dorki was dramatically rescued from the beaches of Boulogne by the Royal Navy.
She would have been terrified by German bombers overhead and swastikas chalked up in the streets.
Just a fortnight later, back in Blighty, Dorki married her adored Reggie.
Toby says: “It was an amazing sequence of events that she took flight from France and was married within two weeks.
“It seems extraordinary to me that neither I nor anyone else in my family knew this story.”
Reggie always sent red roses to Dorki on their anniversary and had written hundreds of love letters to her throughout the war. They were buried with her.
Toby says: “I had little idea about the threats my grandparents had faced, the courage they’d shown and the scars war had left on them.
“Despite what they’d endured, my grandparents remained deeply in love until the end."
*My Grandparents’ War: Toby Jones, tomorrow, C4, 8pm.
