PFH prize brings Hull veteran’s voice back

PFH prize brings Hull veteran’s voice back

It’s something the family of Dennis Matthews thought they’d never hear again.But after his wife Stella won a competition to travel to London, advertised in the last edition of People First, she revealed to her family her wish to go to the Imperial War Museum to hear the sound of her late husband’s voice.The couple had been married for 57 years before he passed away seven years ago. But just a few years before he died, he was interviewed by the Imperial War Museum about his time serving for the Northumberland Fusiliers in the Korean War.

Although Mrs Matthews has been unable to get to London, the revelation has led to the audio being found and listened to for the first time by some of her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.Our Moy Court, West Hull resident hasn’t yet listened, but says she plans on doing so in the future: “I will be in tears most of the time thinking ‘why can’t I speak to him and hold his hand?’

Mrs Matthews’ daughter Carol said her niece had listened to it. “She listened and said at the start of it that Dad started putting a posh voice on, but he slowly went into his Hull accent.”

Mr Matthews served with the 1st Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment in Austria in 1950, before serving as a machine gunner with the Northumberland Fusiliers in Korea.Although he served before meeting Mrs Matthews, it was a place they revisited in 1996 on a nine-day trip – going to Seoul, the border and visited the graves of people who served from Hull.

“He went out to Korea in early 1951 to fight in the Battle of Injim – it took him five or six weeks to get there as he went on a troop ship,” said Mrs Matthews.

“He didn’t speak much about it for a long while until he joined the Korean Veterans’ Association. We went to Scarborough for a social weekend once and he went to the bar and took ages. He said he had been talking to a guy that he thought had been dead for 30 years – he had been taken prisoner and Dennis didn’t know.”

7Mr Matthews was the first secretary of the Hull branch of the Korean Veterans and then became a national representative, which is why Mrs Matthews thinks the Imperial War Museum wanted to speak to him.She said: “A man from the Imperial War Museum came to see us when we lived in Hall Road. I made him some coffee and left them to it. It was about a decade ago.

“When I saw the competition in People First to win the train tickets, I remembered the times I used to work on the railways and I would get a train pass to go to London so every Christmas a few of us would go to do our shopping.

7Mr Matthews was the first secretary of the Hull branch of the Korean Veterans and then became a national representative, which is why Mrs Matthews thinks the Imperial War Museum wanted to speak to him.She said: “A man from the Imperial War Museum came to see us when we lived in Hall Road. I made him some coffee and left them to it. It was about a decade ago.

“When I saw the competition in People First to win the train tickets, I remembered the times I used to work on the railways and I would get a train pass to go to London so every Christmas a few of us would go to do our shopping.

“I never expected to win when I entered and it’s a bit too much for me to get on the train to London now, but I told my family about the competition and that’s when they found out about the recording.”

Mr and Mrs Matthews were married for 57 years, they met when Dennis was training to be a signalman and she was doing his wages. They got together after he came to play table tennis at the club at the Methodist Church she went to.Similar to her mother, Carol is apprehensive about listening to the recording of her dad and says she might not.

She said: “The first I knew about the Korean War was when I saw a scar on my Dad’s leg, which was from a shrapnel wound.

“I’d never heard of the war before that. He was taking ammunition up the line and he got shot. “I’m not sure I’ll listen. I’m the youngest and have three elder brothers, I worry there might be upsetting things on there that I wouldn’t have otherwise known.”