听Listen Again
Jo Beable contacted Home Truths about her husband who disappeared without a word 45 years ago after 4 and a half years of marriage. She and her sons found out about his other life only after he had died.
 Jo and Peter's wedding in 1953 |
Jo and Peter married in 1953 and to begin with, it was a "perfect" marriage. After 13 months, their eldest son Duncan was born and 2 and a half years later, Nigel was born. it was only then that Peter began to lose interest.
9 months after Nigel was born, Peter went to work as usual in the morning at the Port of London and never returned. Jo did all the usual things: contacted the police and the Salvation Army, but no-one could trace him. After several months' absence, she assumed he'd gone abroad.
 Peter attempts to erase his year of birth (1925) from his birth certificate |
Jo and her two small children were left with no money, although fortunately the house was paid for. She went to Peter's parents straight away, but they disowned her and it was left to her father to help her out.
It was about a year before it sank in that he really wasn't coming back. "I used to dream about him and every dream was different, but he'd always come back and I was about to ask him where had he been, when I'd wake up".
After 4 years, Jo obtained a divorce and remarried in 1961 (to a family friend). She discovered later that he had obtained a false birth certificate - making him ten years younger - and joined the Navy. In fact, he had joined the Navy within a month of leaving.
When Jo remarried she changed her son's names to Beable. But her youngest son Nigel changed his name back to Wooding on his marriage. He has always been intrigued by what might have happened to his father. He travels abroad a great deal and where ever he went, he would search for his father's name in telephone directories.
 Lost at Sea: Peter aboard the survey ship, HMS Hydra |
It was this name change that began the journey towards finally finding out what happened to his father. He received a telephone call from a man who asked him if he was Nigel Wooding and when he replied in the affirmative, he was told him that his father had died.
 Peter in later years |
Jo says, "This was the first we ever knew of him from the day in 1958 when he vanished". The caller was Mike, a Navy friend of Peter who had no idea that he'd had a family. And until this telephone call, Jo had no idea that Peter had been in the Navy.
Peter had died of cancer at his home in Dartmoor and Mike was named as Peter's next-of-kin. He had always made out he was a bachelor. After Peter's death, Mike went through his papers and found a letter from Peter's mother addressed to Mr and Mrs P J Wooding. This started the search. Mike went to Saint Catherine's House and found Peter and Jo's marriage certificate.
 Nigel, Jo and Duncan now |
From Mike, Jo and her son's were able to find out what Peter's life had been like over the intervening 45 years. He had served on HMS Hydra for 15 years - a survey ship. It was his work on the Hydra that got him the British Empire Medal. But he wouldn't go to Buckingham Palace because he was terrified of being recognised. Jo says almost with a sense of pride, "surprisingly enough he had an exemplary career in the Navy".
Jo and her two sons went to the funeral. She retained no affection for him: "I despised him for what he did. But I never hated him or ran him down to the boys".
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